kids YouTube: a diatribe.

Remember a couple of months ago when I complained a bunch about Paw Patrol?

I take it all back.

I thought that was as close to the bottom of the barrel in the children's entertainment universe I was going to get.

HOO BOY was I wrong.

I'm talking YouTube.

We've all ventured into YouTube. There is some truly amazing stuff on there - you can watch long-lost TV shows, learn how to do almost anything, listen to music... it's pretty great.

Every video platform has its problems, though - people have been known to post some pretty horrific things. The stuff of nightmares.

I am not what you'd call an avid YouTube user. I'll go on it every now and again, but I'm definitely visiting YouTube just a couple of times a month. James, on the other hand, is a YouTube addict. He watches the most boring videos I have ever come across - watch repair, old toy restoration, trumpets... snore. 

Unfortunately, James passed his love of YouTube onto Phineas.

It started off innocent enough. There are all sorts of videos aiming to help kids with colors, numbers, and shapes, so James showed Phineas a few of those. 

Once you find something on YouTube you like, you'll get suggestions for other videos in the same vein. That's how you fall down the rabbit hole.

Phineas's color videos came to my attention one day when James pulled up YouTube on the TV and started one of Phineas's favorite videos. This particular video is a part of a massive YouTube channel called Genevieve's Playhouse, which is basically a grown-ass man playing with children's toys and providing narration in his creepy grown-ass man voice.

This particular video is said grown-ass man feeding gumballs to one of those PlayDoh heads where you make his teeth out of PlayDoh. The premise of the video is this guy eating too many gumballs (his teeth turn a different color for each gumball) and having to have his teeth replaced. This video is like 20 minutes long.

It's been a downward spiral since then. 

I have watched one too many of these types of video, and as I'm watching them, I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience. Like - is this it? Did I finally lose my mind? Am I accidentally on drugs?

Phineas's current favorite is a super long one where various objects get dipped in colors. Eventually, a rather disturbing animated baby shows up and dances.

Soccer ball ice cream scoops. Makes perfect sense.

Phineas is super into videos with unsettling animated children. They all have gigantic eyes and talk like they are aliens trying to trick us into believing they’re human. 

At first, James was reluctant to heed my pleas to end this kids YouTube garbage. "It's educational!" he said. "So are books!" I said. But even James was driven over the edge by the dancing baby, so we are redirecting Phineas to basically anything but YouTube.

So... Paw Patrol, here I come. And I will be grateful.