Kidfluencers Are Online, Recruited by Advertisers and 4 Years Old | Hacker News Reader

Kidfluencers Are Online, Recruited by Advertisers and 4 Years Old

nytimes.com

30 pointstysone10 comments

Previous discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286701

The article mentions this, but the FCC already regulates children's television, is it appropriate for there to be regulation on videos targeted at kids as well?

I, for one, don't plan on exposing my kids to this until they're old enough to hate advertising as much as I do.

For weird technical reasons I believe the FCC isn't able to regulate internet video content per se?

Weird technical reasons like there is no law directing them to do so.

One time I saw a ten-year-old kid on YouTube demonstrating and promoting toys in what was clearly a paid promotion. It struck me how well-rehearsed and refined his "YouTuber voice" was. I was like "God, what monster have we created?"

I'm going to play devil's advocate and say this isn't something new or newly created at least, you can see kids on billboards posing as if they love the products they're advertising, be it clothes or toys. Walk around a GAP clothing store and that kind of messaging is everywhere. TV ads for kids feature kids doing enthusiastic things that is likely acting. All in all, it isn't as new as we think it is, it's just an extension of something already there.

My personal favorite creepy "kids promoting a toy" video is the Kazoo Kid from 1989, [0] which has been in turn used as the basis for hilarious mocking remixes. [1] The Kazoo Kid has grown up and was evidently unharmed by the exploitation of his innocent charm to sell toys. [2]

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRpdIrq7Rbo

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g-sgw9bPV4A

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wzkIboOqN8Q

Those models are usually generic faces. A celebrity endorsement is not quite the same as a modeling gig. Modeling demands only a certain tailored aesthetic experience.

Kidfluencers are having their entire lives and privacy sold out from under them before they are old enough to understand what that means or make that choice for themselves.

On the flip side, the advertisements are much more like product placement in kids shows than an ad on TV or in a GAP. How uncomfortable are you with Cookie Monster eating a specific brand of cookie?

We just didn't expect it from YouTube, is what it comes down to.

Like, really? Even on YouTube? I voted with my feet, to get away from precisely that kind of schlock that pervades, infects and ruins so many other media delivery apparatuses.

I guess it's just that we will forever suffer the life of the nomad, never not on the run from the hell of other people.

They're real, and they're effective. My son watches Ethangamer and has already asked me to install 2 games he saw on there.

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