In addition to the risk to the kids (e.g., upsetting, traumatizing), I suppose there's also a risk of some authority somewhere considering this illegal (e.g., intentionally sending explicit material to children) and putting you through the life-ruining machine over an edgy joke anti-piracy measure.
One sentiment that’s different from when I was a teen till now is that the youth today is so afraid of nameless authorities. No one wants to do anything even slightly controversial, lest their peers drag them for it.
I fondly remember my first butthole. It led to tubgirl and to that one video of the fella having his throat cut after being stepped on by a boot. I was about 11. I turned out ok, and I don’t think it’s survivorship bias.
Speaking as a father now, when Kess grows up a bit, I’ll likely give her unrestricted internet access. And I’ll bet you a signed dollar that she’ll turn out ok.
I hope to counter this not by avoiding the internet, but by being close with Kess. If she has someone in her life, I hope she’ll feel comfortable enough to talk to me.
And yeah, I sensed that it would be a matter of time till someone hints that it’s abusive to give kids unrestricted internet access. If I change my mind, I’ll at least document why. But total freedom was a massive part of why I turned out the way I did. I’m not sure my love of math and science would have survived in isolated rural America otherwise.
Jesus I remember all of these.
It’s a phase. Eventually I stopped wanting to see the videos. I try to be vocal about this (hopefully not in an unsubstantive way) because so few people are willing to say that they saw shock videos, so thank you for voicing that. It otherwise gives the impression that hideous things are harmful, which gives ammunition to authority figures who use the age-old "think of the children" argument. Remember, we narrowly dodged Apple putting sniffers in our phones on the same grounds.
Wasn't that always teen conformity? Kids desperately aligning to one group or another, unless they were popular enough (good-looking, wealthy, good at sports) to cross multiple groups? (Even the "counterculture" groups had uniforms and approved consumer product fashion categories.)
Kids these days have a pretty good understanding of "Everything you do is being recorded by someone, even if you don't see it"
Unfortunately it'll be really hard to explain to them as they get older why government surveillance is a bad thing.
You don't need big brother when you have an actual brother the could be recording your at any moment. I guess the only thing I can really place it with is how back in the USSR days, us US GenX'ers were always talking about how the KGB gets you because your neighbor turns you in.
Edit also remember the throat slitting video. It was somewhere in eastern Europe like Serbia or something? Anyways, nowadays a kid just has to do is scroll through r/all and they'll see videos of Russians and Ukrainians massacring each other so it's not like things are any better now.
Ah yes. https://www.logicalfallacies.org/anecdotal.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/cutting-edge-leade...
Personally, goatse was disgusting and I don't like being reminded of it. Did I turn out okay? I could have been better and happier, but that's the distractiveness of the internet and computers in general.
Edit to add: This is also, in part, why things get worse. Not only do we continue to add disgusting and horrific content, but we retain the disgusting and horrific content of the past. Meanwhile, how much good content from that era is permanently gone?
I'm an adult with couple decades behind me, and I am afraid of "nameless authorities" - between the law enforcement ready to chase you for real or imagined violations, full-time victims and their allies waiting to Richelieu you out of your job and all the way to international infame, and FAANG with their Hydra-like reach - worming themselves into your life, and then sending it into a downward spiral with an automated, unappealable account ban - I'm often very conscious of what I do online, lest one of such authorities decides to take offense.
How the hell would kids today have coped with the internet 20 years ago. The answer is same as kids 20 years ago did, just fine.
Now the constant sharing of dead bodies, murdered kids, etc - yes that could be traumatic. Someone’s arse?
Bad shit happens in this world. if you don't think you can protect your kids from it forever, you might want to think about teaching them how to protect themselves.
"You're going to see pretty bodies and ugly bodies. Sometimes even broken and misformed bodies. The people in those bodies are a lot like you, usually, even when they look quite different."
And arguably they SHOULD be exposed to this content if we want our society to be versed enough to just maybe take steps to fight it.
I wouldn’t be the well-adjusted person I am today without having seen that man’s hole. Upon seeing the (in)famous image for the first time, I realized that with hard work and dedication, anything is achievable.