With the Internet being the Wild West that it is, it’s no surprise YouTubers have found another way to game the system. Unfortunately, they’ve found that the most gameable target is kids.
Because, as any babysitter knows, kids mean views — multiple views of the same video. Over and over again as long as it takes to stop the crying.
This has lead to a new ‘tube trend of highly optimizable videos aimed at tricking kids into thinking it is something that it’s definitely not.
Some of these vids (which have millions of views, mind you) consist of weird Sims-like animation, oozing with a distant, goofy morbidity.
Things like an animated bucktoothed teen learning how to survive being buried alive, or a live-action Spider-man toy cleaning poop off a baby doll titled, “Bad Baby Doll & Spiderman Learn Colors.”
Not gonna lie, sounds pretty frigging awesome…
Or at least that’s the debate. And since some experts believe a video of a mob of Disney’s Sofias shoving a toy pig in an oven to make a ham sandwich may have lasting effects on children, YouTube isn’t taking any chances.
They’re tightening the leash on content controls and making it harder for these “offenders” to monetize their highly-viewed, thinly-veiled, play for ad dollars.