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> My kid is only two, so I'm not quite there yet, but most of this children's advertising makes my skin crawl. I'm glad to see that I was right about Paw Patrol, it's clearly modeled to be source for many lines of toys (wide cast of characters, each with their own theme and accompanying accessories that can be infinitely re purposed in different toy sets). Slap on "super hero" mode and you've added a whole other dimension to the matrix of possible toys.

That was always the case though. Star Wars isn't worth billions because of the movies, it's worth billions because of the branded products.

Never seen Transformers toys? GI Joe? TMNT? Childrens TV shows were always about selling toys, that was always the bread and butter.

I agree with everything else though, theses unboxing videos and theses "loot crate", they are quite new and play with the instant dopamine rush. They are quite dangerous and seriously need to be stopped. It's crazy that the FTC put so much effort with COPPA to stop "tracking kids" on Youtube, but did nothing against theses kind of videos.

Yeah, it's not new. It's a tried and true strategy that has been refined over the decades. That doesn't make it any better. It was as slimy then as it is now.

> That doesn't make it any better. It was as slimy then as it is now.

Oh yeah definitely, it still quite bad. It was just to mentions how that strategy isn't new and that we lived through similar abuse.

It is maybe worth noting that TMNT started as an indie comic making fun of superheroes. Think about it, superhero turtles livin in the sewers... No particular point, I just think it's funny.

The point I choose to see is that consumerism and capitalism do not discriminate. Anything and everything can and will be assimilated and squeezed for every cent that it’s possible to extract, no matter how punk and anti establishment/anti commercial your original creations may have been. (see also: the appropriation of feminist/LGBTQ/other originally fringe movements iconography by major companies the moment it became profitable to do so)

This is one of the strengths of capitalism, I have thought about it many times.

It came up in a fairly exemplary way once when there was a fashion photographer in a group I went drinking with. Nice bloke with some interesting stories. He mentioned a plan for an elaborate practical joke at a fashion show by showing some crudely made post-apocalyptic style collection. Anything "scandalous" would effectively just end up being good publicity.

Yes, TMNT was very cool at the start, I always assumed it was some 'big monolith' that they sold out to, in fact, it was the original creators themselves. They saw $$$ in toys and completely adapted the creative line for toys, cartoons etc.. They pretty much cashed in on their indie creation.

As well they should have, the toys were great.

The story that I always remember is that TMNT is based roughly on Daredevil

In Daredevil, Matt Murdoch pushes an old man out of the way of a truck that contains chemicals that blind him but give him superhuman abilities. He is then trained by his mentor Stick the fight against The Hand.

In TMNT, there is an incident that involves chemicals getting into a sewer that transforms the turtles as well as the rat that is with them. That rat is named Splinter, and he trains the turtles to fight against The Foot.

Also no particular point aside from my own amusement!

There’s a lot of comics nerdery scattered throughout the early issues. Up to and including an issue that is basically about Jack Kirby and how Stan Lee screwed him over.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is a another classic example, as much of its storyline and character designs were constructed around being able to reuse random molds left over from other toy lines.

And all of the transforming robot series (Transformers, Gobots, etc.) were just attempts at repackaging existing toy lines from Japan for the US. That's why one of the Autobots (Jetfire) is a Macross fighter.

There is a Netflix series "The toys that made us" which chronicles the history of the toys and the TV shows. In some cases, the cartoon came first. In most, the toy came first followed by a manufactured cartoon to sell the idea to kids:

https://www.netflix.com/title/80161497

The Youtube channel Toy Galaxy[0] does the same thing.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjoe3Qo_DymYyBR6X9VxFjQ

If anyone wants a taste of this show, this 1 minute clip about the arbitrary origins of He-Man’s Battle Cat is one of the funniest things I saw last year.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ponettplus/status/113087611982831...

"Merchandizing! ...every kid's favorite: Space Balls the Flame Thrower"

As a kid in this era, toys lines of shows/books were an immense joy. I understand concern over teasing kids too much with commercial products.. but unless it devolves into large social mania..(in which case makes some regulations) I don't think it's a problem at all.

Toys are what kids want. They want to connect reality with imagination at their level. Just like video games.

I remember transformers being one of the worst. Evey episode introduced new "characters"... Voltron was good, and then they needed a robot with like 50 cars that made up the big guy so there were more toys to sell.

> Star Wars isn't worth billions because of the movies, it's worth billions because of the branded products.

Counterpoint: Scarcity of baby Yoda merch. The show purposefully withheld information about the character from marketing departments for fear of spoiling the story. Star Wars wants to make tons of money, sure. But it's not why they're huge.

What scarcity? They may have played that close to the vest to not spoil the story, but just look at Disney run with it now[1]. It's hard to imagine a scenario where they weren't fully aware of the demand for merch that the character would generate.

[1] https://www.shopdisney.com/franchises/star-wars/

Do you not remember the months and months in which it was not possible to buy a baby Yoda doll, at any price?

The Mandalorian first aired 3 months ago.

> Childrens TV shows were always about selling toys, that was always the bread and butter.

As the article points out this simply isn't true. They weren't always like that. It was the direct result of a change in law during the Reagan presidency. All of your examples come after that.

Look at kid's shows from before the change in law. Say, the 1960s. Underdog, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Gilligan's Island, Flipper, Green Acres, Captain Kangaroo, etc.

Yeah, that was apparent with Paw Patrol, but the show itself isn't bad. Every episode is centered around helping people and working as a team. "Hey team, there's a problem, let's go fix it!" That's the core focus and messaging. The stories aren't about buying things. When kids emulate Paw Patrol, they're going on missions to solve problems and using the associated vehicles as tools. Which is what the pups do.

Unboxing and "loot haul" videos are a whole other thing and are absolute garbage, totally agree. It's especially gross when it's little kids as the "talent", being pushed by their parents. Buy a bunch of those eggs. Film their kid(s) opening them. Slap on some wacky editing and SFX. Upload. Just gross.

I have a 3-year old, and he loves the Paw Patrol. When it comes to children's cartoons there are very few I can tolerate watching myself, but Paw Patrol isn't the worst.

As you say the themes are largely positive, there's a decent range of characters and locations, and usually he's happy to watch an episode a day.

But I do admit I find myself wondering far too much about the backstories! Where does all the technology come from? Who is Ryder? Is he a mad scientist? How did the Mayor get elected? Why does the other Mayor, of Foggy-Bottom, never actually spend time in his own town? And finally at what point (I guess I missed this episode) did the evil-cats become mirrors of the Paw Patrol?

(Also: Sea Patrol? What a crazy and impractial dock for the boat!)

Maybe I should take it less seriously.

The "STEM" in Blaze and the Monster Wheels annoys me much more than Paw Patrol. The errors in explaining friction (pushing does not slow things down until enough force is applied), cancelling sound by shouting louder, a general lack of units, badly explained electricity, the list goes on.

Seinfeld worried that they never justified his antipathy with Newman. But the audience just accepted it.

> Who is Ryder? Is he a mad scientist? How did the Mayor get elected?

These are all questions I have asked myself after the second or third consecutive Paw Pareol episode/story. I'd also ask why Adventure Bay has no leash law and why it would allow anyone to carry around a chicken as a pet (not to mention stored in a purse).

I still can't figure out how Mayor Goodway got elected unless either Adventure Bay has hereditary rule, or the producers are trying to prepare kids for the reality of government incompetence.

I recall an episode where the Mayor mentions her grandfather used to be the Mayor, there is a statute involved of him. So it seems nepotism is alive and well!

... and why are there two Mayors?

RE: Christmas

We have a friend who only buy a select number of presents for their children. It essentially follows the pattern: something wanted, something needed, something worn, something to make, something to read. There is - of course - a cute accompanying rhyme that I don’t know. It limits expectation and pushes back a bit on the whole Christmas hoopla. Their kids seem into it.

Like you, our child is too young to understand/care at this point.

At this point the biggest problem we have is extended family who all want to buy loads of stuff for our kid that they don't need. That's not even considering we have nowhere to keep everything we get. Most of it just goes straight to a donation box somewhere.

I've learned that for many people, gift-giving isn't for the recipient, it's for the giver to feel good.

Oh man, I'm glad i'm not the only one. Please let me know if you have a solution. It is really difficult to, in a kind way, tell my generous friends and family, "Please don't buy my kids anything. We have more clothes than we need, more toys than we need. They are just going to play with it today then throw it in front of the already overflowing toy box because we literally have no place to put it"

The closest solution we've gotten is to not do that, but instead use it as an opportunity to talk to the pre-schooler about charity and sharing with the less fortunate, eventually leading him to the "lets give our extra toys we don't play with very much to other kids" thought.

We're in the exact same boat. Our families will just not stop buying gifts for our three-year-old. We have two 'solutions,' which are sorta kinda working but are not totally satisfying:

- We end up making a lot of donations to local thrift stores, women's shelters, and other charities immediately following holidays and birthdays without telling our kids about it. The toys they don't play with simply disappear.

- If the gift is something we want him to eventually play with but that he doesn't have the attention span to remember in the near term, we just hide it in a closet and give it as a 'gift' for completing his 'good behavior' chart later on. He's always surprised and excited. Nice win-win for us.

For us all toys from birthday go in a cupboard and we take out only one toy each month and they have to take out one toy for thrift store/NGO/younger relatives.

One great option would be to open up a college savings plan (529 Plan) for your children and ask them to contribute some small amount to that. It's less awkward than just saying "please stop buying us junk", but it can have the same effect + money for education!

I have this same family problem. My brother did the 529 thing for his kids. Behind my brother's back the most problematic family member in this area was really nasty about it. They were insulted. They went on this rant about how Christmas is "their thing" and they aren't going to let us ruin it by restricting how much stuff they buy our children. I hope this 529 things works for some families, but in my experience it's a failure.

I tried this with family. - 2 older members got the point and have been very good about sticking to it.

- N-2 members got huffy that they wanted to see the kids open things. No college contributions.

You just have to be blunt. It feels kind of terrible but it will sit you free.

I stopped participating in Christmas years ago. Was very freeing.

We have straight up told extended family either not to buy big gifts for birthday/Christmas, or, alternatively, have said that they can buy those gifts for their house so the kids can play with those toys when we visit. It's been pretty helpful. We've also suggested getting the kids things like yearly memberships to local museums or the aquarium in lieu of gifts.

And then the grandparents back up the toy truck and all your hard work is for nothing.

We had been relying on the grandparents to cover all the toys for our kids (4, 2 and 2).

But then I felt bad saying that out loud, so the couple days before Christmas I bought a bunch of stuff I thought they would like.

Turns out I would have been just as well off just letting them get the gifts from the grandparents. Too many for them to appreciate all of them anyway.

My son is just past two as well. Here's a few things that have worked for us. YMMV of course.

1. Wooden toys - Brio, stacking blocks, etc.

2. Toys from charity shops. Buy, if he's not interested, they just go back. Cheap & recyclable.

3. No YouTube, no iPad, as little TV as possible.

4. Outdoor activities - scooter, balance bike, local park, etc.

5. Imaginative play - teddy bears picnic, etc.

6. Repetitive games. I hide a dinosaur toy around the house every night, the game is he has to find it the next day. It creates a nice bond.

7. Some toys we rotate. Stick them in the garage for a couple of months and swap out with others, it's like they never existed before.

8. Books, books and more books.

9. Music - nursery rhymes, music we like, him "helping" me on the piano, dancing, etc.

10. We spread Christmas out over about a month, due to the amount of plastic crap family buy him. More than he can enjoy in one go.

11. Most important of all, socialising and knowing when not to step in. Kids are mean. Sometimes too mean. It's difficult to know when to step in, but they need to learn the world is tough.

12. The most important, general comfort, love and explaining situations. Small children seem way more receptive to explanations than I would have thought before having a two year old.

He's two, he doesn't know better. Post again when he's been in school for 3 months.

> Perhaps most awful of all, are the actual-in-the-plastic-flesh "loot crate" type toys that I see at target. They're literally opaque, mystery containers that let you know all the different things you could get from it.

Variable reinforcement works. Collectible card games (all the way back to MtG in the 90's) and MMORPG PvE grinding use the same mechanism. The only way to combat it (positively) that I can think of is to offer something even more appealing, which for a parent is either impractical or unsustainable.

From a parental perspective, is there a way to combat all the advertising and variable reinforcement products other than counter-conditioning those things with aversives?

And aversives have to be carefully set up to be associated only to the toy or loot box or game, and not associated to you (which would be very bad).

Two things that came to mind were delivering bad news (not something you just made up on the spot) right when the loot box or toy is opened; or, perhaps, sabotaging the toy, if it's a present, by adding something the child is afraid of, like a centipede or tarantula, not long before they open it... but I'm not sure the sabotage is easy to do without risking it being associated with other things (like you, for putting the fear-inducing thing in the box).

>Variable reinforcement works. Collectible card games (all the way back to MtG in the 90's) and MMORPG PvE grinding use the same mechanism.

Even real life is like that though. If you don't understand the mechanism/pattern that makes something work then it'll appear as variable reinforcement. Human relationships are a prime example.

The unboxing video addiction + YouTube's creepy as hell recommendation engine/Elsagate is what got it banned in my house when my daughter was about 4. After a bout a week she didn't miss it.

Wait until you realize half the kids movies are studios trying to sell your childhood back to both you and your child.

We spend our childhood wanting to grow up and do things adults are allowed to do, and our adulthood reminiscing about how good our childhood times were.

There is a certain percentage of movies, music, toys, and other forms of entertainment that play directly, and profit greatly, from this seemingly universal quirk of humanity.

I went to this discussion thread and am gratified to find the phrase 'Paw Patrol' in the top comment. Although I don't think its anything new, tv shows as insidious toy commercials has been around since I was a kid.

Just admit you buy them. You already understand how it works.