Youtubers and influencers - unhealthy culture for the youth of today?

[Harrison]

I know this is kind of what happens every generation, where things change and the older generations look down upon youth culture and discredit it. There is always the music and dress that parents dislike. But is the negative view of social media just an age divide or a genuine issue these days?

The younger generations today are all taken in and obsessed by Youtubers and influencers.

But have you noticed the majority of them, especially the TikTok style short video makers, and the Youtube gamers, are all young rich kids living in their parents huge houses with everything they could ever want. This is really unhealthy for the youth of today as they see these videos and the lifestyles they are portraying and think they can do the same as a career choice and make loads of money. My 11 year old son thinks this is all he will need to do later to make a living!

Randomly swipping through YouTube shorts and TikTok videos it is mad what people make, but even worse that people are actually watching this junk.

There are however some genuinely talently people buried within all the rubbish. I follow a couple of artists that show them creating their artwork speeded up. Their work is amazing to see, and for that it's a great way to share what they do. But for most it seems to boil down to girls showing off their ability to perform the latest dance routine, apply makeup, eat something or change their clothes. And I hate those fake voiceovers!

I suppose if they can't make a success of Youtube or TikTok they always have OnlyFans to fall back on!

[Demon Cleaner]

Is it not that those platforms make even more money because of it and don't give a ****ing shit. Just make it over 18 and several problems are history, but where does the money come from then? They play a big part in turning kids into zombies but are there any restrictions or rules?

The times when we kids were playing outside all day long are over since long time and I would strongly recommend all parents to take their kids out, no matter the weather conditions and restrict their online time. But the older they get the more they get into rebel mode (immature obviously), I see that more and more with my girlfriend's sister's 16 year old daughter.

Schoolyards are also not anymore what they used to be, definitely not helpful when everybody is on their phone and you want your kid less involved, you just cannot control it. I guess you just have to deal with the situation and try to make the best out of it.

[Harrison]

Thankfully Tom isn't really interested in social media. He thinks TikTok is stupid and for girls. It's locked out on his phone anyway. He uses Whatsapp to communicate with his friends and seems happy with that. He does watch YouTube but it's locked down to 12 year old content at the moment. And he only watches gaming channels we know about plus he watches a lot of documentry style stuff on there.

And at his new school phones are banned. They must me switched off and in their pocket when they enter the gate and not turned on until after school. They do all walk out of school staring at their phones though.

[J T]

I think what the kids need to understand are the odds and the chances. They need to realise that for every streamer that 'makes it' (be it Preston, or Mr Beast, or whatever) there are many many many many thousands that do not.

Just like when we used to dream of being a rock star musician, a famous actor, or a professional sports player, maybe a video game designer or a tech mogul - there's a whole lot of people that simply don't get rich from it, many don't even make a living from it but can still find it very fulfilling.

The big problem for me is the influencer-drive rise in misplaced 'main character energy', where it seems that many people think the whole world is revolving around them.

[Stephen Coates]

Much as I disprove of the whole 'social media' thing, I don't think it is really any different to when I was younger and we had famous people on the TV and in magazines.

As for people's ages, I find older people are just as likely to have their lives revolve around smartphones and facebook as younger people are.

[J T]

Both good points Steve.

I watched an interview with Billy Corgan and when he was asked about kids on tik tok etc, he took whatI thought was a very reasonable view and stated that kids always will flock to where the excitement is. He also mentioned a 'dopamine rich' society which I also thought was interesting.



On a personal note, I do think a lot of this move towards very short-form engagement has been terribly bad for my own individual ability to concentrate and focus.