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| Photo courtesy of Hal Gatewood, Unsplash |
As many parents, I allow my children to watch content on Youtube, on our family television in the living room and while I'm watching. However, there have been times I slipped out of the room to fold laundry or-gasp- actually brush my hair.
A few months ago, my children were watching a video they'd seen several times, or at least, it SEEMED like the same video. It had the same title, and the content that began was the same, a funny little song by a very innocent kid's band called Parry Grip. I was right in the next room, cooking supper, and could hear snatches of the song playing.
My seven-year-old daughter came running into the room, her eyes wide. "Mommy, there was a scary man in the video! He was laughing in a scary way!"
I ran into the room, but whatever my daughter had seen was already gone. My sons confirmed her story, that the main character from a very scary video game, Five Nights at Freddy's had appeared. Apparently, the image had only lasted a few seconds. Despite the short time, my daughter had nightmares for several days.
As often happens in parenting, I told my children to make sure the videos were always from the official channel and forgot about the entire thing.
The Momo Challenge
A few days ago, my Facebook page was suddenly inundated with warnings about Momo, a creepypasta character that may or may not have been responsible for several children committing suicide or self-harm. I'm not going to post a picture of the frightening image here, but trust me, it's scary. The story was that videos of this character had been appearing in the middle of innocent children's Youtube videos, encouraging them to do dangerous things. This had been dubbed the "Momo Challenge." For more information you can go to this link, but please note it's very disturbing. https://educateempowerkids.org/5461-2/
Though many people are arguing Momo has been around for months, and indeed she has, and that the story has become more of an urban legend, which I believe is possible, it caused me to dig into the dangers of Youtube, especially the feature that causes videos to 'autoplay' in an endless chain. And what I found was extraordinarily disturbing.
The Dangers of Elsagate.
One night my two-year-old was watching a favorite kid's music video, the annoying but harmless 'Baby Shark.' As many parents know, Baby Shark is a Youtube viral video that has now been made into hundreds of versions, including Christmas Baby Shark and Paper Puppets Baby Shark.
As my son was watching a chain of these songs, I was reading a book.
Suddenly, something about the tone of the songs changed, and I looked up. The song was the same, but instead of sharks, Spider Man, Elsa, and the Hulk were swimming around in their place. It was cheap and crude animation, and rather silly, but for some reason, I felt very uneasy and disturbed. I turned the TV off.
I've spoken to other parents in the last few days and done some research, and my findings are EXTREMELY disturbing. Jamie Foley, a mother of a 4 year-old, told me, "My 4-year-old daughter loves Frozen, so videos of Elsa and Anna came up frequently in her YouTube autoplay. It was surprising, though, to walk into the living room and frequently see Spider-Man in a romance with Elsa. The more I watched with her, the stranger things came up, like doctor visits that didn't sit right and videos involving bodily functions I didn't think appropriate for the very young children they appeared to be targeting. It was just weird... We quit YouTube Kids, but my daughter is quite happy with Netflix and the custom YouTube playlists we made with classic cartoons." Other parents have reported cheaply made animation and live videos, with other well-known children's characters doing very crass, violent and inappropriate things. If you want to know more, you can check out Reddit's Elsa Gate page here. WARNING: Very disturbing and graphic.
Many of these videos have also been found on Youtube Kids. They are often titled as 'Educational,' but trust me, you don't want your child receiving that kind of education. And there are THOUSANDS of these videos, looped into popular algorithms, and they are receiving millions of views.
Youtube says they remove these videos as soon as they are flagged, but the problem is they're being uploaded again, hundreds every hour.
So what can we do, as parents?
1. Educate ourselves. Though this has been going on for years, I just found out about it two days ago, and I consider myself to be pretty well-informed and internet savvy.
2. Restrict screens. Even if your child is watching Youtube on a phone or tablet right in front of you, it's hard to know if a spliced video with a hidden message is playing. A few seconds is all it takes for an image to pop up that can't be unseen.
3. Don't let your kids have unsupervised screen time. I barely scratched the surface on this stuff, and trust me, it's sickening and disgusting. It's beyond 'Toilet humor' and slapstick comedy. It's depraved.
4. Educate your kids. Make sure they know not to watch videos on other kid's phones. Make sure they know that if scary people come on TV and tell them things to come and let you know right away.
Social content and media should be a helpful, educational thing. Not a terrible danger. We have the power to control what it can and cannot do. As parents, it's up to us to be watchful and protect our kids.
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