Kids with Youtube channels

As I really like Youtube and watch many channels and videos something started to bother me. One day Youtube gave me one of its crazy suggestions. It was related to one of my favorite shows (would love to talk about those soon), in fact, it was a response to it. It was a video that was around 20 seconds long of this little girl saying incomprehensive stuff. I went to see her channel and it made me very worried.

I won't post her channel as that is not the objective of this post. Well, she is probably 10 or 11, in one video she claims to be 11. Nevertheless, she can't be more than 12. In her channel she posts "vlogs" of herself and most of her videos are not even a minute long. Of course, I didn't really watch any of them expect for one here she addresses people who "leave mean comments". In fact, a group of "I have absolutely nothing better to do or any real interests for that matter so I'm always bored" group of teenage girls posted a response video to that in which they make fun of the little girl. She then posted a video of her being sad.

Why I watched all this? I got seriously worried. I tried to find in the web articles or anything related to children having youtube channels. I found many about the quality of youtube for the children's audience... but none about children having youtube channels. I tried to contact youtube, but they are not very prepared to control channels only single videos (and that also to a certain extend). It reminded me of the infamous case of "Scott" (don't know if it's just an alias) a.k.a "Angry Homo Kid" whose Police intervention was necessary. It was a situation involving a probably 12 year old boy who made video blogs about one or two years ago. The most infamous of his vlogs is an angry response to trolls who call him "homo". Concerned people contacted the police in the U.S. and they were able to track him down. His parents were unware he had the channel. I'm trying to find a good and serious article I found about the case sometime ago, but can't find it. If you find it, let me know.

Anyways, back to the little girl. In another video I "watched" (not really, just went throw it) an adult shows up and apparently was unconcerned of what the girls was doing. I really think it might have been her dad.

I'm not one of these people who are too concerned and worried about children's "safety" (sometimes it's just pure exaggeration). But I wonder.... why people don't report this? Are more people talking about this issue? Is a 11 year old girl or boy ready for the over exposure of a video blog? This girl doesn't even have the articulation when talking, she really does talk like a kid. Is it wrong? Is it something parents should be aware? Should I be worried? Again, I'm not talking about videos with kids. I'm talking about kids who videoblog, who have their own channel.

I don't know. I was wondering you could help me think in a more deep way about this issue, especially the ones with kids, because, quiet frankly, it did disturb me a little.

Friday, February 12, 2010