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Comment by diminish | Hacker News Reader

My 6 y.o. lives in a youtube universe. Every content he creates, he makes a video and publishes on youtube. Making slimes, building stamps, building paper train wagons, visiting places, and of course unpacking toys and stuff. He always concludes video or other stories like `pls press the Like button, and subscribe to my channel in order not to miss a thing`. When I talk too much he says 'papa skip ad', with a tap gesture. on air.

youtube is the definite leader for <10 y.o.s around me.

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This is like some nightmarish version of the panopticon. Future societies won't have to worry about monitoring their citizens - they'll already be raised to broadcast everything by default.

I also alternate between a panoptic nightmarish future vision, and the fear of becoming an obsolete species.

You should explain to him that whatever you publish on the Internet is forever and whether he'd like someone in his adult life to be able to find that content.

Do you really think a 6-year-old who thinks it's the best thing in the world is going to say 'no' to that? If anything that's encouragement.

I expect that future generations will have a better sense of how personality changes over time, and thus less embarrassment from old videos.

Why should anybody be embarrassed about playing with toys or making stamps as a child?

It's the stupid stuff they'll do in high school and college they should be worried about.

> whatever you publish on the Internet is forever

Maaaaybe. Link Rot is a real thing. Look at Twitch. They delete a LOT of footage all the time. A lot of speedruns are lost to time due to these 'top-level' decisions.

https://www.polygon.com/2014/8/6/5975413/twitch-video-on-dem...

As a parent, are you worried about any of this? Genuinely asking as the parent of a much younger child who will have to deal with this in the future.

I don’t know why but the concept of my child being an active yt contributor at that age freaks me out.

I only freak out, when I read horrible comments - which is an unfortunate part of the youtube experience.

It doesn't have to be a part of the experience, you can disable the comments on their videos. Although other videos you watch on YouTube would still have comments, obviously, unless you use an adblocker or something to get rid of them.

While I think it's great when kids create content, what really scares me are the comments. Youtube is often times such a cesspool, I wouldn't want my kid to interact with that as a creator. How do you handle that?

He currently doesn't care about the comments but most comments are quite offensive. I see him alone, in his room, preparing for a video, rehearsing his speech, and having multiple takes and revisions. Kind of very weird. He comes up with like `papa, i need photopolymer, darkening toner,glue.. because i want to do xx.` . Of course he's pissed off when he hears, as a child he can't touch chemicals.

That is great that he is creating and wanting to share it! I think some of the personalities out there are dangerous for kids to be emulating though.

That's true. He's now mostly interested in DIY things which has challenges on its own.

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