Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
When your childs favorite YouTube celebrity is a secret racist
When your child’s favorite YouTube celebrity is a secret racist
March 16th, 2017
by Rich McCormick Mar 16, 2017, 7:30am EDT
I’m not a parent, but I feel like I took a step into legitimate adulthood earlier this month when my wife and I spent a weekend babysitting a friend’s two-year-old. Happily he was an easy kid to look after, but he’s still a two-year-old, and as I discovered (and you parents already know), he required near-constant surveillance. If we wanted a moment of freedom — to cook, to grab a drink, to go to the bathroom — then the only surefire option was to park him in front of YouTube.
His channel of choice was Little Baby Bum. It’s a giant in the world of kids’ YouTube, with nearly 10 million subscribers and almost 500 videos, each one setting a simple song to cheerful 3D animations. As far as kids shows go, it’s markedly inoffensive, using classic nursery rhymes and little branding, but it still had an incredible effect on his young mind. The opening of the YouTube app induced almost total silence: an almost-religious trance that seemed guaranteed to last as long as the playlist ran. Throughout, his only noise was a reverent sigh when he saw the channel’s mascot appear, no matter how many different variants of “Wheels on the Bus” he endured in a row.
I thought of this digital panacea again this week with the news that YouTube video gaming personality JonTron had made several racist and anti-semitic statements. JonTron — real name Jon Jafari — started his week by tweeting support for Iowa representative Steve King on Sunday, after King made the troubling claim* that “we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies.” Jafari then doubled down on this stance in an interview with fellow streamer Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, complaining of the erosion of a “unifying culture” in the United States, portraying Black Lives Matter as violent terrorists, and repeatedly making portentous warnings that white people would become the minority in American society.
....
But at some point along the way he was apparently radicalized by the far-right (or at the very least adopted their talking points). I don’t think as a general rule that entertainers should be forcibly cut off from their politics — art and entertainment don’t exist in a vacuum — but Jafari’s heel turn to white nationalism is difficult to swallow when he has such unalloyed access to millions of children. Jafari’s been making videos for long enough that, for a generation raised on iPads and smartphones rather than TVs and movie screens, he’s had the time to cement himself as a much-loved figure. It’s like if Mister Rogers started distributing KKK literature around his neighborhood, or if Bill Nye announced that the Moon landing was faked by Jewish people.
March 16th, 2017
by Rich McCormick Mar 16, 2017, 7:30am EDT
I’m not a parent, but I feel like I took a step into legitimate adulthood earlier this month when my wife and I spent a weekend babysitting a friend’s two-year-old. Happily he was an easy kid to look after, but he’s still a two-year-old, and as I discovered (and you parents already know), he required near-constant surveillance. If we wanted a moment of freedom — to cook, to grab a drink, to go to the bathroom — then the only surefire option was to park him in front of YouTube.
His channel of choice was Little Baby Bum. It’s a giant in the world of kids’ YouTube, with nearly 10 million subscribers and almost 500 videos, each one setting a simple song to cheerful 3D animations. As far as kids shows go, it’s markedly inoffensive, using classic nursery rhymes and little branding, but it still had an incredible effect on his young mind. The opening of the YouTube app induced almost total silence: an almost-religious trance that seemed guaranteed to last as long as the playlist ran. Throughout, his only noise was a reverent sigh when he saw the channel’s mascot appear, no matter how many different variants of “Wheels on the Bus” he endured in a row.
I thought of this digital panacea again this week with the news that YouTube video gaming personality JonTron had made several racist and anti-semitic statements. JonTron — real name Jon Jafari — started his week by tweeting support for Iowa representative Steve King on Sunday, after King made the troubling claim* that “we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies.” Jafari then doubled down on this stance in an interview with fellow streamer Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, complaining of the erosion of a “unifying culture” in the United States, portraying Black Lives Matter as violent terrorists, and repeatedly making portentous warnings that white people would become the minority in American society.
....
But at some point along the way he was apparently radicalized by the far-right (or at the very least adopted their talking points). I don’t think as a general rule that entertainers should be forcibly cut off from their politics — art and entertainment don’t exist in a vacuum — but Jafari’s heel turn to white nationalism is difficult to swallow when he has such unalloyed access to millions of children. Jafari’s been making videos for long enough that, for a generation raised on iPads and smartphones rather than TVs and movie screens, he’s had the time to cement himself as a much-loved figure. It’s like if Mister Rogers started distributing KKK literature around his neighborhood, or if Bill Nye announced that the Moon landing was faked by Jewish people.
*
Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies.
Link to tweet
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
