A Guide to Children’s Culture for Disengaged Adults: Animated Kitten Horror on YouTube
It doesn’t matter much to those who have jobs, but summer is approaching and only the low-grade students are still paying attention to school. The rest of the kids spend their time exactly as you’d expect: watching horror videos about kittens, discovering role-playing games from 20 years ago, and throwing bowling balls at helicopter blades. Here’s what’s shaping (and warping) young minds this week.
Spread of terrifying AI kittens on YouTube
If you have younger children, summer can mean more screen time, and I wanted to check what kids were watching when their caregiver handed them this tablet, so I spent some time on YouTube watching animated videos that seemed aimed at kids. The place is crawling with algorithmically generated kitten torture videos, where big-eyed little cats are hurt, operated on, surrounded by monsters, and otherwise subjected to horrific violence in videos like ” A Cat’s Belly Contains Countless Worms !”
and ” Kitten Abused by Own Mother Cat .”
and my personal favorite: ” There are spiders, rats, worms and alien parasites in the Cat’s Belly ” (I’m a fan of Oxford commas).
Countless YouTube channels (and Instagram and TiktTok) with names like Kittens Kitten and QQ Meow create these videos by combining commonly used keywords like “cute cat” or “kitten” with scenarios that shock or frighten children, like going to the doctor or being abused by a parent. Videos that rack up views, such as ” Father Cat’s Betrayal and Kitten’s Revenge Plan ” (viewed 72 million times in the last three months) or ” Kitten Unexpectedly Encountered by a Mutated Big-Eyed School Bus ” (63 million views), are ripped off endlessly , with AI honing and repeating them in a nightmarish feedback loop that kids watch for hours.
This is not art made for children. This is art created by children .
But on the other hand, whenever everything can be reduced to the following: “Please, won’t someone think about the children ?” It’s time to look a little deeper. Adults tend to look at children’s world through rose-colored glasses, but this is exactly how we want to see childhood. In reality, children are almost powerless in a world they cannot understand or contextualize, so of course they will deal with their fears through art; that’s why we have art.
Well-meaning adults have spent decades sanitizing children’s media, removing disturbing and horrific elements under the guise of protecting children, but judging by the 19 million views of Cruel Cat Father, kids clearly want it and, more importantly, they get something out of it. Death, betrayal, evil, horror and violence are time-tested staples of children’s literature. Is there a more classic theme than “an evil mother (or stepmother) abuses an innocent child?”
I just wish it wasn’t done so badly. The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and others like them were written by talented people, not those real-life ghouls who use AI to trick YouTube’s children’s video algorithm. I’ve never had a problem with my child watching movies that society deemed too mature for him, as long as they were good. I draw the line at bad art.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion : Young gamers play an old game
As a graybeard from way back when, I love it when a new generation of nerds discovers something amazing from the past. On April 22, developer Bethesda surprised the video game world by quietly releasing its 20th-anniversary action role-playing game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion . And the kids love it; bores, anyway. Some of the original game’s quality of life issues have been addressed, but the quirky, glitchy, shitty fun of Oblivion remains intact. They even left most of the glitches untouched . I’ve been playing it since its release and it’s different from modern games in the genre. Players are held back less and directed towards specific experiences. There is less of a feeling of board approval of every decision and more of a sense of freedom, and the kids love it. They make memes and post videos of funny glitches. It’s like old times. As RiceLife659 wrote on Reddit: “Now I can finally play Oblivion and I’m in love. A deeper system than Skyrim , and it’s fun. 20 hours and every minute I wish I was born earlier.” .
I want to say, “Gather together, young people, and let me tell you the story of the cursed horse armor of Oblivion…”
What does “deriod” mean?
The slang term “deriod” combines “penis” and “menstruation” and is used to refer to a male (hypothetical) period. If you’re interested, here’s more Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang.
What is a “0.5 GPA Activities?”
“0.5 GPA Activities” (or “0.3 GPA Activities, or (SOMETHING) GPA Activities”) refers to videos that show what kids who aren’t aiming for class salutation do in school. It’s based on a video called 4.0 GPA Activity, which features the supposedly smart kids in the group balancing things precariously. In response, less, um, successful students began posting videos of themselves making food sculptures in the cafeteria:
stacking soda cans in cabinets:
intentionally shorting out their school Chromebooks:
and theft of fire extinguishers:
It’s such a trend that’s quickly gone from fun to a little harmful, so watch these videos now before TikTok bans the entire genre.
Viral video of the week: Bowling ball against helicopter blades at 700 km/h! Who will win
How can you not click on a video called “Bowling Ball vs. 700 Kmph Helicopter Blades”? This is the kind of content we all need as summer approaches.
One bowling ball would be enough, but the guys from YouTube channel How Ridiculous also throw tomatoes, a hard hat, a phone, a baseball bat, a guy (a fake guy, anyway), and more through the rotating blades of a helicopter. It’s all presented in super slow motion, just the way you want to watch everything get smashed to pieces by a helicopter propeller.
As for the video’s dramatic question, you might assume the answer is obvious: Blaydes wins. But life is full of surprises. This is why we do science.