Parents, there’s an epidemic sweeping the nation – nay, the world. It appears to be striking toddlers and pre-school children at random, with no warning and no reason. I’m not even sure there’s a cure.
That epidemic? It’s called WatchingWeirdThingsOnYouTube-itis.
I started noticing the early signs around a year ago. My daughter was nearly two then. We had started to allow her to watch YouTube clips of CBeebies shows (fully supervised, I hasten to add) and she stumbled across an Annoying Orange clip. She watched it around 400 times in one week. Not too odd, you might say. But remember, this was just the early stages of the condition. Now, a year later, things have progressed. Yes, she watches normal things like Tom and Jerry, Woolly and Tig or Something Special on YouTube but she also watches a bunch of other weird stuff. A lot. So here, folks, are the Top 5 weird things my child watches on YouTube:
1. People opening Kinder Surprise Eggs – egg after egg after egg. People actually film themselves doing this. Some have music over the top, some give a little voiceover commentary on what they’re doing and what toy the find. Whyyyy do people put these on YouTube? Whyyyy does my daughter love watching them?
2. People testing out Toy Story toys. This video by DisneyCollectorBR of her testing out the Toy Story Slide ‘n’ Surprise Playground has been viewed over 20 million times. 20 MILLION! I’m pretty sure we have contributed healthily to that number.
3. A Russian cartoon called Marsha And The Bear – she can’t understand ONE word of it, but this cute cartoon makes my daughter CACKLE with laughter. See also: Curious George in Spanish.
4. People playing computer games – when I was young, I was forced to watch my brother play games on our shared ZX Spectrum. Believe me, there’s not much fun to be had in watching someone else play Jet Set Willy. But my daughter loves watching videos of people playing games. Weird.
5. Spiderkid – just a boy, pretending to be Spiderman with his dad. We watched it approximately 46 times in one sitting. I know all the words to the dad’s song now.
But it’s not just me who has a child suffering from WatchingWeirdThingsOnYouTube-itis. In recent weeks, I’ve seen other mums call out for help on Twitter and Facebook – it seems that they too have children who watch weird stuff on YouTube. Will a cure ever be found?
Hahaha! My little boy watches all of this stuff! The particular clips I find annoying is the Chinese woman talking you through cars toys and showing you how they all work
I honestly though it was just MY child that did this! Firstly she just wanted to watch episodes of cBeebies programmes but then I found myself listening to american accents, and she had managed to find herself on things like watching children slide down slide, or watching children bake cakes, children playing in paddling pools and having water fights! I have to limit her access to it now as its just too much.
She prefers to just watch children going up and down slides which is slightly random if you ask me!
Glad I am not the only mother who has a child with WatchingWeirdThingsOnYouTube-itis.
Kids are blimin hilarious!
Imagine the tosh we would have been browsing if youtube was around in the 80s?
Author
Oh gawd, it doesn’t bear thinking about! 🙂
Hahaha I’m laughing out so loud. My son watches the EXACT same things! His list also includes Power Rangers in chinese. I don’t know how they find these random videos! My son has also worked out how to add them on his favourities list lol
I’ve got two girls 6 and 5. The eldest watches old Dr Who series and anything to do with tornadoes. The youngest watches women decorating cakes as cartoon characters and women using makeup to look like disney characters.
When they watch together they watch ‘Fred’ – an American character who can only be described as having the most annoying voice on the planet. Their favourite is Fred: My Dentist is an Evil Vampire – check it out.
hæ I just found this blog when I was looking for the face of that woman who is the disney collector br. And I lought so hard because my toodler (tvo year old boy) whatchis the exect same thing !! HAHA. plus some kids playing with cars and trucks. The kindersurprise is his favoret. He speaks only Icelandic, for we are Icelandic. But I’m starting to think he is learning english, russian and spanish 😀 Thank you for this blog – and to let us know there are more “odd” youtube kids out there 😉
kv. Maren
This had me cracking up! I’m an interior designer and I was at my friends house helping her decorate her family room when all of a sudden I could hear an odd Asian type voice coming from her iPad. At first I thought her 2 year old son had stumbled on a low budget porn video while on YouTube but upon further review I saw how he was mesmerized by hands unwrapping a chocolate egg!!! I asked my friend what he was watching and she said it a weird lady who just opens toys/eggs and talks about them. It was the funniest yet creepiest thing I have ever seen. Who in the world would ever think to upload videos of just their hands unwrapping toys and even more baffling who are these people watching this? I feel like these videos are perfect for middle aged men who have toy and young Asian fetishes. I had to look into disneycollectorbr and am glad my friends son is not the only kid obsessed with her videos. So funny yet weird! I have two sons and I have never heard of this!
LOL, my 2 year old watches the same things. Though my wife is Russian so she understand some of the Masha show.
Play Doh Chef Cookie Monster Letter Lunch Learn the ABC Alphabet With Cookie Monster Play Dough
by DisneyCollector10 months ago 35,995,036 views.
That many views and it was only published 10 months ago!! The people who made these videos really know how to attract kids.
Lol, my 2 year old is addicted to all these videos as well.
I found your page because I was googling to learn more about people opening chocolate eggs on youtube. My 3 year old son also stumbled on these (probably via a suggestion on a Laurie Berkner or Pocoyo video), and loves to watch them, but of course I’m like, “What in the actual )&*^???” He’s also managed to find videos of jet planes taking off and landing, each about 10 minutes long, made at airports in Germany, Singapore, UAE, etc. I actually like watching these with him– the European paint schemes are pretty!
Wow….same on my house too!
Who the hell lets their kid watch 400 videos a week, even if they’re short clips?? Bad parent!
Author
Who the hell doesn’t pick up on jokey exaggeration on a blog post?? 😉
Oh my Gosh….I thought I was the only one. My son watches countless of egg surprise videos in languages we don’t speak, people playing video games, and folks showing off their Thomas the Tank Collections (creepy)….to make matters worse….he wants us to sit with him and watch them. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only parent with a child who likes to watch weird things (as in Boobahs wasn’t weird enough)
Unbelievable, so my son is not the only one!!…Obviously when you look how many views some of these videos have …I simply do not get it!
I am an expat mom living in France now with my husband and 4 year old son. Unlike US here we find Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs in almost every store, my son loves them…but he still loves more watching this type of videos ! Especially, in the last few days he keeps watching this one (http://youtu.be/jb3JJOmU8NM) over and over that it is becoming annoying already. Any ideas on how to get him away from this habit?
Many thanks,
Vanessa
lol my son does too! “surprise eggs! surprise eggs”! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRe1GrZ5oQ
Wonderful troubles entirely, you only picked up the latest target audience. What exactly might you would suggest regarding your site that you just made a week during the past? Almost any certain?
I’m so glad to hear we are not the only ones with the issue. My little nephew is 2 1/2 doesn’t speak much yet….but he loves watching Masha and the Bear….we are from the US and we speak Spanish and American English (we do like watching Peppa the pig together) but he watches that cartoon in Russian…and all those YouTube clips you mentioned where people are opening toy sets or eggs with toys in them…. Has your daughter stopped watching by now??
My 2 year old loves these videos. Had no clue they existed and I am still not sure how we stumbled upon them.
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