Teh One Who Knocks
03-27-2017, 11:51 AM
By Joe Simonson and William Hicks - Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/qOcqYhDh.png
YouTube has become the new Saturday morning cartoons, the great pacifier of young children. Some kids spend hours glued to the site, falling down a rabbit hole of related videos.
YouTube’s toy channels, where a kid or multiple kids and their parents review toys, play with toys, or act out wacky skits, are among the most popular destinations for kids. Many toy videos can reach well over 10 million views with the right keywords.
But on some of these kid-friendly toy channels, a new type of weird and graphic content is popping up that many moms and dads probably wouldn’t be thrilled to know their children are watching. The videos feature children, some as old as 10, playing with fake human excrement—sometimes even eating it. Often these videos will wrack up exponentially more views than straight toy videos on the channel.
If you think this is just a puritanical overreaction to harmless potty humor, watch one of the videos for yourself. Warning: It’s not for the faint of heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllDEnMkAaU
The video above is made by the YouTube channel Toys AndMe, which has 4.5 million subscribers and features a variety of videos about a young girl named Tiana the Toy Fairy who lives with her parents in Nottingham, England. This particular video shows two young girls who appear to mock defecate in a toilet and smear themselves in fake poop. One of the girls even throws a realistic-looking stool at the other girl, who catches it and then drops it on the floor.
The channel, run by her parents, is so well established that Tiana is even the subject of a book published by Hachette. The channel was already a hit before the poop-themed videos were made.
Toys AndMe isn’t the only toy channel with this kind of content. Some even take the feces videos further, such as a smaller channel called Surprise Tube, where a doll projectile defecates fake poop on a child’s face. Meanwhile, a video on the channel Bad Baby Tube features young children eating fake feces out of a toilet with spoons. All of these channels claim to be for young children and babies in the channel descriptions.
None of these channels nor Hachette returned calls requesting an interview about the poop videos.
These lurid videos seem to appeal to some children’s obsession with potty humor. While most cartoon shows and other adult-sanctioned child entertainment have clearer boundaries, these videos can serve children’s baser desires.
The poop videos are part of a quasi-unregulated market on YouTube for entertainment that kids want but their parents won’t let them have. The site is also filled with strange videos of grown adults dressed as Spiderman, Elsa and other children’s cartoon characters engaged in semi-sexual situations. You can even find on YouTube channels dedicated to Minecraft, a computer game hugely popular with children, where the blocky animated characters have sex with each other.
YouTube doesn’t specifically censor any of this content, although they do have features like restricted mode and YouTube kids that block children from seeing explicit content. When these videos appear on established children’s channels, however, they can fall through the cracks.
When asked about the trend of poop videos made for kids on their website, YouTube responded with a canned PR statement:
We’re always looking to improve the YouTube experience for all our users and that includes ensuring that our platform remains an open place for self expression and communication. We understand that what offends one person, may be viewed differently by another. As a platform we strive to serve these varying interests by asking our community to flag any video that violates our strict community guidelines.
We spoke with one parent, Michelle Grewal, who routinely watches kids YouTube videos with her three children, who are between the ages of one and three. Grewal has found a few YouTube channels she trusts and her kids love.
She was unfamiliar with Toys AndMe and some of the other channels that make poop videos, and had not come across any similar content in her travels on YouTube.
When we sent her a link to the Toys AndMe poop video, Grewal was instantly disgusted. “As a parent this doesn’t send the right message about potty training,” she said. “I would be appalled if my children came across that and I would definitely report the video to YouTube.”
Grewal feared that if her 3-year-old, who is being potty trained, saw the video she would might reach into the toilet and try to play with her own excrement.
These videos can be very lucrative. YouTubers can make roughly $1,000 per 1 million views from shared ad revenue with YouTube. This means that some channels can make $10,000 on a single video, and they typically upload more than one a week.
For obvious reasons, advertisers usually shy away from knowingly putting their ads on graphic or controversial content. But because ads are increasingly bought and sold by third parties on trading exchanges to capture specific audiences, companies have little control over what kind of content winds up alongside their ads on YouTube. Some companies have been so frustrated by this lack of control that they’ve begun pulling their advertisements from YouTube.
When we clicked on one poop video last week, an advertisement for Dell computers played beforehand.
http://i.imgur.com/xNryx9l.png
Right before another graphic video, Citibank was asking us to download its mobile banking app. We also saw ads for Geico and Vevo on the poop videos.
http://i.imgur.com/Ws1OhvR.png
Dell had no idea its advertisements were playing as a accompaniment to the poop videos (nor was it happy about this fact). A spokesperson gave us the following response:
Display ad exchanges allow any website to place targeted display ads on webpages. As an advertiser on these ad exchanges, Dell works with our media partners to indicate what types of sites we’d like to be associated with and which sites to block. Unfortunately these sites are proliferating at an accelerated rate and often slip through the cracks. We have no intention of advertising on sites.
Citibank’s spokesperson gave a similar response, although both individuals we spoke to sounded concerned about the videos over the phone:
“We have a number of policies and procedures in place for our vendors designed to help prevent our advertising from appearing in connection with inappropriate content. In the rare event that an ad appears on a site with inappropriate or offensive content, we demand its immediate removal.”
****
For young viewers, it’s easy to pulled deeper into this ecosystem of poop videos. When a person starts watching one of the videos, the related-videos tab on the side will keep recommending similar ones. All the videos we found were made by parents using their young kids as actors.
Even the YouTube kids app, which is supposed to keep kids safe from mature content, is riddled with videos where young kids or adults play with fake feces, sometimes smearing it over their face or even eating it.
http://i.imgur.com/AIUX24h.jpg
****
Brittany Shifflett runs a channel called TheToyReviewer out of her home in Ruckersville, Virginia. Her videos, which get up to 24,000 views apiece, are totally harmless (meaning no poop)—and are actually pretty informative for parents in the market for a new dollhouse or Play-Doh set.
Shifflett is well aware of the abundance of disturbing content in toy-review videos. “I’m glad it’s not just me” who finds the videos “gross and creepy,” she said. Part of the reason they remain so popular, Shifflett posits, is the clickbait appeal of having something scat-related in a video’s thumbnail image. She’s probably right. Despite the ick factor, the human eye is more likely to lock onto a soiled diaper than a little boy playing with a toy car.
Because these videos are so popular, channel owners like Shifflett feel pressure to try out edgier skits in their videos, even if they’re not sure what kind of people may be enjoying them. Shifflett has resisted that urge for now, but the money is tempting.
****
We tried to get in touch with more than 10 of the poop-video creators, but most didn’t respond. Most of the channels only list e-mails for business inquiries, and the characters in the videos act under a pseudonym. The one performer we did reach, Julia Kristal of All4Reborns, is responsible for some of the most graphic poop videos on YouTube, but her videos involve realistic dolls instead of humans.
In a video entitled “POOP EXPLOSION Silicone Baby Doll Poops and Pees Diaper Change Poop Drink and Wet Feeding Baby Video,” a woman goes to a crib with a fake infant and changes its diaper. She later shoves a bunch of jellybeans into the doll’s mouth, then checks its diaper and a torrential amount of diarrhea begins leaking out. The video later zooms in on the doll’s diarrhea-covered genitals before ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv4NOl5fc0w
Kristal, who says she’s a professional musician and school teacher in Phoenix, doesn’t just make videos. She also designs and creates the dolls featured in them. Lately, however, she’s been making so much money from her YouTube channel, she says she’s taken a hiatus on making dolls.
http://i.imgur.com/l4P1zLw.png
Julia Kristal
When asked why she thought videos containing poop got so many more views (often 10 or more times her other ones), Kristal said: “I have no idea why people like those, but I keep making them because I make so much money off them.”
We asked her if she could see how some people could find these disgusting. “Are you an artist?” Kristal asked. “I think it’s different if you have an artistic background. A stockbroker would see these videos differently. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, the videos are for myself and others.”
http://i.imgur.com/qOcqYhDh.png
YouTube has become the new Saturday morning cartoons, the great pacifier of young children. Some kids spend hours glued to the site, falling down a rabbit hole of related videos.
YouTube’s toy channels, where a kid or multiple kids and their parents review toys, play with toys, or act out wacky skits, are among the most popular destinations for kids. Many toy videos can reach well over 10 million views with the right keywords.
But on some of these kid-friendly toy channels, a new type of weird and graphic content is popping up that many moms and dads probably wouldn’t be thrilled to know their children are watching. The videos feature children, some as old as 10, playing with fake human excrement—sometimes even eating it. Often these videos will wrack up exponentially more views than straight toy videos on the channel.
If you think this is just a puritanical overreaction to harmless potty humor, watch one of the videos for yourself. Warning: It’s not for the faint of heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllDEnMkAaU
The video above is made by the YouTube channel Toys AndMe, which has 4.5 million subscribers and features a variety of videos about a young girl named Tiana the Toy Fairy who lives with her parents in Nottingham, England. This particular video shows two young girls who appear to mock defecate in a toilet and smear themselves in fake poop. One of the girls even throws a realistic-looking stool at the other girl, who catches it and then drops it on the floor.
The channel, run by her parents, is so well established that Tiana is even the subject of a book published by Hachette. The channel was already a hit before the poop-themed videos were made.
Toys AndMe isn’t the only toy channel with this kind of content. Some even take the feces videos further, such as a smaller channel called Surprise Tube, where a doll projectile defecates fake poop on a child’s face. Meanwhile, a video on the channel Bad Baby Tube features young children eating fake feces out of a toilet with spoons. All of these channels claim to be for young children and babies in the channel descriptions.
None of these channels nor Hachette returned calls requesting an interview about the poop videos.
These lurid videos seem to appeal to some children’s obsession with potty humor. While most cartoon shows and other adult-sanctioned child entertainment have clearer boundaries, these videos can serve children’s baser desires.
The poop videos are part of a quasi-unregulated market on YouTube for entertainment that kids want but their parents won’t let them have. The site is also filled with strange videos of grown adults dressed as Spiderman, Elsa and other children’s cartoon characters engaged in semi-sexual situations. You can even find on YouTube channels dedicated to Minecraft, a computer game hugely popular with children, where the blocky animated characters have sex with each other.
YouTube doesn’t specifically censor any of this content, although they do have features like restricted mode and YouTube kids that block children from seeing explicit content. When these videos appear on established children’s channels, however, they can fall through the cracks.
When asked about the trend of poop videos made for kids on their website, YouTube responded with a canned PR statement:
We’re always looking to improve the YouTube experience for all our users and that includes ensuring that our platform remains an open place for self expression and communication. We understand that what offends one person, may be viewed differently by another. As a platform we strive to serve these varying interests by asking our community to flag any video that violates our strict community guidelines.
We spoke with one parent, Michelle Grewal, who routinely watches kids YouTube videos with her three children, who are between the ages of one and three. Grewal has found a few YouTube channels she trusts and her kids love.
She was unfamiliar with Toys AndMe and some of the other channels that make poop videos, and had not come across any similar content in her travels on YouTube.
When we sent her a link to the Toys AndMe poop video, Grewal was instantly disgusted. “As a parent this doesn’t send the right message about potty training,” she said. “I would be appalled if my children came across that and I would definitely report the video to YouTube.”
Grewal feared that if her 3-year-old, who is being potty trained, saw the video she would might reach into the toilet and try to play with her own excrement.
These videos can be very lucrative. YouTubers can make roughly $1,000 per 1 million views from shared ad revenue with YouTube. This means that some channels can make $10,000 on a single video, and they typically upload more than one a week.
For obvious reasons, advertisers usually shy away from knowingly putting their ads on graphic or controversial content. But because ads are increasingly bought and sold by third parties on trading exchanges to capture specific audiences, companies have little control over what kind of content winds up alongside their ads on YouTube. Some companies have been so frustrated by this lack of control that they’ve begun pulling their advertisements from YouTube.
When we clicked on one poop video last week, an advertisement for Dell computers played beforehand.
http://i.imgur.com/xNryx9l.png
Right before another graphic video, Citibank was asking us to download its mobile banking app. We also saw ads for Geico and Vevo on the poop videos.
http://i.imgur.com/Ws1OhvR.png
Dell had no idea its advertisements were playing as a accompaniment to the poop videos (nor was it happy about this fact). A spokesperson gave us the following response:
Display ad exchanges allow any website to place targeted display ads on webpages. As an advertiser on these ad exchanges, Dell works with our media partners to indicate what types of sites we’d like to be associated with and which sites to block. Unfortunately these sites are proliferating at an accelerated rate and often slip through the cracks. We have no intention of advertising on sites.
Citibank’s spokesperson gave a similar response, although both individuals we spoke to sounded concerned about the videos over the phone:
“We have a number of policies and procedures in place for our vendors designed to help prevent our advertising from appearing in connection with inappropriate content. In the rare event that an ad appears on a site with inappropriate or offensive content, we demand its immediate removal.”
****
For young viewers, it’s easy to pulled deeper into this ecosystem of poop videos. When a person starts watching one of the videos, the related-videos tab on the side will keep recommending similar ones. All the videos we found were made by parents using their young kids as actors.
Even the YouTube kids app, which is supposed to keep kids safe from mature content, is riddled with videos where young kids or adults play with fake feces, sometimes smearing it over their face or even eating it.
http://i.imgur.com/AIUX24h.jpg
****
Brittany Shifflett runs a channel called TheToyReviewer out of her home in Ruckersville, Virginia. Her videos, which get up to 24,000 views apiece, are totally harmless (meaning no poop)—and are actually pretty informative for parents in the market for a new dollhouse or Play-Doh set.
Shifflett is well aware of the abundance of disturbing content in toy-review videos. “I’m glad it’s not just me” who finds the videos “gross and creepy,” she said. Part of the reason they remain so popular, Shifflett posits, is the clickbait appeal of having something scat-related in a video’s thumbnail image. She’s probably right. Despite the ick factor, the human eye is more likely to lock onto a soiled diaper than a little boy playing with a toy car.
Because these videos are so popular, channel owners like Shifflett feel pressure to try out edgier skits in their videos, even if they’re not sure what kind of people may be enjoying them. Shifflett has resisted that urge for now, but the money is tempting.
****
We tried to get in touch with more than 10 of the poop-video creators, but most didn’t respond. Most of the channels only list e-mails for business inquiries, and the characters in the videos act under a pseudonym. The one performer we did reach, Julia Kristal of All4Reborns, is responsible for some of the most graphic poop videos on YouTube, but her videos involve realistic dolls instead of humans.
In a video entitled “POOP EXPLOSION Silicone Baby Doll Poops and Pees Diaper Change Poop Drink and Wet Feeding Baby Video,” a woman goes to a crib with a fake infant and changes its diaper. She later shoves a bunch of jellybeans into the doll’s mouth, then checks its diaper and a torrential amount of diarrhea begins leaking out. The video later zooms in on the doll’s diarrhea-covered genitals before ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv4NOl5fc0w
Kristal, who says she’s a professional musician and school teacher in Phoenix, doesn’t just make videos. She also designs and creates the dolls featured in them. Lately, however, she’s been making so much money from her YouTube channel, she says she’s taken a hiatus on making dolls.
http://i.imgur.com/l4P1zLw.png
Julia Kristal
When asked why she thought videos containing poop got so many more views (often 10 or more times her other ones), Kristal said: “I have no idea why people like those, but I keep making them because I make so much money off them.”
We asked her if she could see how some people could find these disgusting. “Are you an artist?” Kristal asked. “I think it’s different if you have an artistic background. A stockbroker would see these videos differently. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, the videos are for myself and others.”