Let's discuss Children's viewing habits with YouTube streamers

Games
1

So let’s get all of the jokes, zingers out of the way:
“Get off my lawn!”
“Kids today…”
“Adults had a problem with your viewing habits as kids too…”
“In my day we had to…”
“The future is doomed…”

This is going to be a long post so my apologies, but I’d like to have a semi-serious discussion about kids YouTube viewing/streaming habits. The reason for bringing this up relates to my 12 year old nephew, and the stuff I read in the Roblox thread.

My wife and I don’t have children and that is the one thing I hate the most about my disease. I desparetly wanted to have kids and have always enjoyed teaching, laughing, and playing board game and funny shows with my nieces and nephews. Their time here also involved teaching them empathy, reinforcing right from wrong etc. our precious time together has been great but things changed this year in a way I didn’t expect. My nephew is super competitive, plays in tons of sports and his family is well off enough he gets whatever he wants. He used to love playing boardgames and beating me and his sisters at them. He was so competitive I had to force myself to lose or he’d have a fit. We could play lots of different games. We load up tons til he found something he liked. Last year we had just started supreme commander and he loved it, so I was looking forward to loading that up for him.

Since then I noticed a change in him. Every time we got together for family events, or visited his family at home, any second he couldn’t play sports in online game mode against a human or play mp shooters like call of duty (I would not let him play that here) he watch the same streamer all the time. And I mean ALLLL the time. Some kid streams NBA 2K for thousands of hours and he has claimed to have seen more than half of all his streams. That equates to ~900 hours of watching the same dude playing the exact same boring thing all the time. A game my nephew could be playing instead for many of those hours. I tried watching the stream and was bored out of my skull after 5 minutes.

So the kid has everything in life, but somehow even with the variety of life he spends every spare second he can’t do the primary things he wants watching the same thing over and over. And of course this caster uses foul language and my sister (his Mom) appears to have no way to control what he’s watching. Imagine the fears your parents had of you as a kid going to your friends house to watch an “R” rated movie, and now, they are barraged by adult content all day, every day, all night, breaks between school periods, breaks between practice. YouTube feels like the ultimate pile of crap where parents have lost their kids to the medium. I certainly feel like I’ve lost him. I can tell his school laungaue is filled with expletives as he had trouble holding them back here and that comes from the YouTube streams he watches.

He’s a good kid, but it pains me to see when he can’t relate to me. I have a billion games and he can’t stand trying anything new that is not exactly NBA2k or call of crappy shooter version 2019.

Reading the Roblox thread made it apparent parents have less control over the kids entertainment choices than ever before. so parents of gaming kids. Please give your take on this, and if there are those of you here that spend hundred of hours watching the same game get played hundreds of hours… what is the appeal once you’ve learned the game? Generally the entertainment level for most casters is atrocious compared to what you can get on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. So why watch racist scum #3 play one of your games and lace it with profanity, no script, no language skills, and no comedic talent?

Thanks, really interested to hear everyone’s feelings on this.

2

First let me get this out of the way. I’m a hypocrite. I play way too many hours of games each day, but I restrict my 9 year old son to 30 to 60 minutes of screen time a day. There are exceptions, like watching a movie as a family, inviting him to play some game with me, etc - but most days are less than an hour of screen time.

If I thought my son was watching something he isn’t allowed to at a friend’s house, I’d tell him that even though I’m not there I expect him to follow the rules. I’d then check up with the adult at the house and tell them my son can’t watch that stuff. If I suspected he still did I wouldn’t let him go to that friend’s house.

Maybe I can’t stop all undesirable behavior, but there are different levels of effort a parent can put forth to enforce the limits they decide to do. Watching content on a phone that you shouldn’t, well then no phone.

There are certainly more options kids have to view stuff they shouldn’t these days, and do so away from adult supervision, but as parents we just try to use the resources we have to do the best job we can.

Edit: As far as content I don’t object to but don’t like - well I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t like the music I did when i was a kid. I don’t like the music my son likes - like Taylor Swift, but it’s more suitable for him than much of what I like :-) I let my son choose what he watches for his screen time and as long as it doesn’t contain stuff I find inappropriate, he can watch it even if I think it’s a waste of time.

Luckily he watches Phineas and Ferb most of the time and I enjoy watching it with him!

3

Have kids 9-14 (2 mine, 3 soon to be). All stream and game at least a little. The boys a moreso than the girls, at least regarding gaming. The youngest is a girl and much of her streaming isn’t game related. Mostly bad youtube crap that is moderately funny at best (based on her laughter). The boys will watch streaming of FPSs mostly…though not the ones they play?! One watches ‘funny’ reviews of games/streams. It’s very ‘get off my lawn’ of me, but there is nothing remotely enjoyable about what they watch. They don’t even seem to enjoy them. When they watch an actual show/movie they will laugh or whatever. The streams that they say are funny get only the smallest and fewest of slight giggles. I. Don’t. Get. It.

That said, they’re all also pretty sociable and pretty good at dealing with folk in real life as well.

Ha, one of the boys will be playing a FPS on my Xbone while streaming some crap on his phone. I try and tell them that all they’re doing when they’re all doing this is clogging our bandwidth (it ain’t that good until we move in a few months) and screwing up the game their playing online, but they don’t listen.

Do. Not. Get.

4

You can’t shield kids from stuff. Even if you took away Youtube, there’s all the stuff they hear from their peers. It’s part of the growth process. We get exposed to stuff and we learn how to deal with it. Humans have proven to be very adaptable. My biggest worry is that kids get less exercise than they used to.

5

From all stuff? No. But you can limit exposure a great deal. You can also do things with your kids and talk about it with them.

6

Parents can and should provide guidance, but once kids reach adolescence and start to spend more time with peers, and they all have smartphones, it’s tough to limit what they see and talk about with those peers.

A big part of adolescence is about kids moving away from identifying with parents and instead establishing their own identities. I don’t want to like the same things as my father, do the same things as my father, and believe the same things as my father, because then I am my father instead of being myself.

I don’t mean for this thread to drift too far. Back to what JP posted, I wouldn’t worry too much about a kid obsessing over Youtube anymore than I’d worry about the same kid obsessing over comic books or video games. Seems like it’s more a product of the child’s age.

7

I have ful control myself, and my sister who has older kids have full control too, it’s simple, we got all the gadgets and I’m not going to deny them using it, however I will control what’s being played and watched, I expect this to last until they are teens.
My sister has already had brushes with houses with no control, where kids watch anything, they quickly become off limit …

As for stupid streaming, it’s no different than watching tons of sports, it’s not terribly social even in crowds and as an avid gamer I’d rather play football myself than just watch it, but I can’t just force that on the kids.

8

I was born when TV was king. But radio was not completely killed, there was a faded memory of his previous role has king. Stuff like “Who killed the radio star? TV did” was still floating around, like the background radiation noise of the universe.

Without having a direct experience, I have a strong feeling what we see about Youtube is similar to the world of radio. The voice of the youtuber, the charisma, the Persona, is more important than everything else in the medium. So the youtuber is not a good entertainer, or a good comedian, don’t make good jokes, is more a friend, somebody that you would make your friend. Youtubers have “radio” personalities.

9

Tons of replies, but everyone seems to be focused on a topic I didn’t really see much mention of in the OP. I thought the question was more ‘why watch so much and play so little’ than ‘how/why let kids watch inappropriate content’.

Some people prefer the passive approach. Even growing up our circle of friends had those people who would pass when it was their turn to have the joystick. They would rather watch me play the Atari and do well then get better themselves. Just wired differently I guess. Other people watch to improve their own ability. Some watch just to be entertained. Hard to pinpoint why an individual watches what they watch though.

10

Easier to zone out and relax while watching than playing. I assume there are some good tips too, but not enough to watch for hours and hours. I think Tieman has a good point, it’s kinda like radio being on in the background. Or even tv for those who grew up in the 70/80s. Just something you don’t totally focus on but like having on as comforting noise.

11

And in a way, that can be a healthy thing too, a way of pushing boundaries. My son used to go to a particular friends house and that kid’s parents let them play all sorts of things I wouldn’t have dreamed of. But I would ask my son what they had played (which he would grudgingly admit) and we’d talk about what he had seen.

And forming new interests and such doesn’t have to be to the exclusion of the things that connect kids to their parents. But as parents, it means taking an interest in and trying to understand what is part of the kids lives. You don’t have to understand it, but the attempt to do so matters, IMO.

JP tried to watch the stream, which is awesome. I’m curious what it is about that streamer his nephew likes. And we’re they watching it together?

12

To speak more directly to jpinard’s concern, I remember myself and have seen other kids in my life go through that kind of maniacal focus on whatever. Kids/adolescents just seem to burn really bright on things. I mean, I didn’t acquire those CCG collections casually.

Now if he’s 24 and stuck in his folks’ place and watching NBA2K streams instead of getting a damn job and making his own way through life, that’s a different thing.

13

Just to get it out of the way, I assume we’re talking about something like this?

“Yo! ‘Sup guys? Your man DakkaLakka here with some straight-up gangsta shit going down in Blops 3! I’m rapin’ bitches all up and down Breach, son! Oh, shit! Shout-out to my bro RektorX! Awwwww sheeeeet! Mad love bruh! Don’t forget to hit that like button and subscribe if you like what you see! Fuck dis nigga on my left! Btich thinkin’ he takin’ my kill? Naw, bruh. Oh, much props to xCUCKMUFFx! Thanks for the donation! You know I do this for all y’all love, right? E’ry day I put in the work to bring you this and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for y’all’s love. Your donations are what keep me going. Peep this muthafucka hanging balls out on the ledge. SHOTTY BITCH! Haaaaaaaw! That’s some shit son! Bruh. I can’t even. Ya feel me?”

First, that toolbox is way more interesting to your teen than you or any entertainer you watch. There’s not much you can do about that. It’s just the reality of how teenagers break away from authority figures. Each generation prefers their own entertainment over whatever their parents like. Eventually, as they mature, those teens will expand their tastes, be less beholden to peer influence for the “new” and “revolutionary”, and be more open to previous generations’ art.

I think we can all remember liking something as a teen and having our parents hate it, which made us like it even more. “Like, they just don’t get it, man! This is why pops doesn’t understand me!”

14

I shudder to think of what my parents’ reaction to South Park would have been, had they ever been made aware of its existence.

15

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16

There is so much in the OP I am not sure what to address.

First…times have changed so much since the cell phone became a have to have for every kid. Kids now have access to stuff that me as a kid never dreamed of. I have 20 something daughters and I can tell you they grew up in a world exposed to stuff that my 1970’s self would have never imagined.

As for the kids fixation on one game…he will get over it. I will confess to watching hours of Dark Souls Let’s Plays (blind ones) simply because I think they are enjoyable. But he will eventually move on. As I will.

Parents can control their kids watching hours. But what goes on at school and with his friends will play a huge part as well. If language is a problem, then maybe punishment is in order.

I do think it is easier to see “problems” with someone elses kids than your own. Disciplining your own kid is an art none of us are taught and so you have to learn what works and what doesn’t. And most kids I have been exposed to eventually find their own way given some room.

17

There was a time I was a South Park junkie, but I kind of lost interest. But my older daughter loved the show, could quote whole episodes, and some of that stuff was pretty far out there. She doesn’t watch it anymore.

18

I view South Park as something very different vs. these Youtube streams. They used humor, vulgarity, and excellent writing to often make people reflect on cultural, political and religious issues. There’s a large team of experts behind the writing, animation, sound, music etc. What I’m seeing from most of the “influencers” the children I know watch - well, there’s none of that. It’s empty calories. While that’s fine, people need to relax with what they like, it’s hard to see someone change so they abandon the “family” and the games we’re in the middle of to watch something he’s seen hundreds of hours of - and to see it happen so drastically (the iPad mini he got last year facilitated that).

19

At that age, it is a “phase” as they say. Kids are self centered, sharing and family time are the least of their concerns. They take it all for granted.

Best trick I found is to make yourself watch it with them. Even if you can’t stand it. That gives you a level of control and influence. And comment on what is said - but not in a sarcastic angry way - more in observational mode - find both good and bad.

I cannot tell you how much absolute crap and udder shite I have forced myself to watch over the years, all for the parental cause.