It is insane to me that we allow any advertising to young children at all, whether online, on TV, or anywhere else. I think deliberately manipulating kids is heinous and I genuinely don’t understand why this isn’t the consensus opinion.
Seems like every Zelda game is described by their fans as the 'Greatest Game of All Time', despite flaws that would be called out if the corporate mascots were not in the game.
On a similar note, seeing the iphone use in teens due to the bubble color makes me think this is manipulating people with in-group bias which is extremely strong among teens. I personally remember begging my mom for clothes that were popular(abercrombie/american eagle).
I'm not sure the solution, but as an adult, I hate these companies for manipulating people.
The first (and only) Zelda game I played was Breath of the Wild, and it was indeed one of the best games I've ever played. Certainly Nintendo is guilty of peddling mascots as monetary vehicles, but there is substance in the occasional great video game they develop, so I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same category as Disney...
But Disney, on the other hand...they are a merchandise company -- full stop. Everything they do funnels directly into the licensing and selling merchandise (and not just to children -- those Loungefly backpacks are basically a contagion for adults). This made them $56.2 _billion_ in 2021.
If you have young kids, it's incredibly hard to avoid the gravity well of toys, apparel, and all the other merchandise that Disney vomits out. And the funnel is the entertainment they produce, which is often feel-goody to the point where you begin to pass them off in your head as benign.
If we hide the real world from children too much then how do we expect them to learn to deal with it all at once? They will turn 18, get a credit card, and be bombarded with ads they haven’t learned to control.
Unless you want to argue that ads shouldn’t be shown to adults either (which has major free speech issues) I think it’s better for kids to learn to deal with them responsibly.
The fact that kids crave fat, protein, and sugar and don't like vegetables isn't some mystery or a product of Cap'n Crunch and is as old as refined sugar. What do you think those visions of sugar plums were all about? They're growing and their bodies are sending them the "more calories" signal 24/7. When I was in HS I could put down two Chipotle burritos without breaking a sweat. When I bake for my nephews I have to make them sickeningly sweet to my own pallet but they practically unhinge their jaws to eat it faster. Little kids also haven't developed a taste for bitter and sour which adults for some reason forget and act shocked they don't like broccoli. It stopped being bitter to you.
I put all my chips on the fact that I had nowhere to expend all the excess energy. My neighborhood didn't have a park, I got a 30 minute recess, and the only entertainment that was readily available growing up was books, tv, and video games.
I got cornflakes, oatmeal, etc. If I wanted sweet, I got a few berries thrown in. Up to the point that the kids start earning their own money, parents decide what they eat.
Nintendo and Disney corporate mascots appear to be classic characters.
Apple makes products that make you look cool.
Bud Light is the beer of young, good looking people at parties and watching sports.
Ads aren't just selling you a product, they are brand marketing and brand positioning.
They're handing away their data or having their desires manipulated, and I don't think children can be reasonably asked to make a judgement on whether that's a good decision for them or not.
I do see the point that you're making about turning 18. Fortunately, I think that's somewhat of a self-limiting problem. If kids turning 18 genuinely can't withstand the ads, they'll start filing for bankruptcy and credit card companies will stop issuing them lines of credit.
Nor me. But in those days, they couldn't push cigarettes, booze and gambling at us.
So I'm wrong (forgetful old man!)
Religion has entered the chat.
Parenting in general has entered the cat.
(That said, I do agree that we need boundaries on the manipulation of younger minds. I've seen others make this analogy before: We don't let kids buy cigarettes in stores -- why should they have the full force of addictive algorithmic social media unleashed on them? [for that matter, why should adults, but that's another story])
Agreed. It's also extremely lucrative, and far predates the Internet. Manipulating kids is one of the most lucrative things a business can do, because getting the kids to ask the parents to buy something is far far more effective than even a close friend suggesting they buy something.
I think they are exposed to far less ads than I was actually because TV ads are mostly gone. I never hear them asking for some random toy like the kind I remember from my youth.
Not sure what I feel about it.
I still feel a bit different about cartoons that were toy ads vs pure toy ad, somehow.
I've mostly seen them on kids shows (kids are unlikely to skip an ad at all anyway, though they should probably be taught how to) but one or two on other shows. There was a five? ten? minute chick-fil-a ad over Christmas if I remember correctly, about a girl and her grandfather making shoes or something.
For example, teaching and parenting is a form of deliberately manipulating. Picking my kid up when he's about to fall down a slide is deliberately manipulating. Handing him a banana is deliberately manipulating. We are deliberately manipulating children constantly and for critically good reasons.
You knew exactly what they meant, why pretend otherwise?
Statements like "manipulating children is bad" are kinda worthless statements. They are simply inflammatory. We need to speak more precisely and with more clarity in order to elevate each other's understanding. We cannot simply make simple statements for decades and expect things to progress in any meaningful way. The conversation itself needs to change.
Yeah, i hate religion too.