Besides the constant bombardment of sickos and weirdos trying to groom my children to perversion, adults hardly concern themselves with the little people. When they do, it's in a very clinical and dry sort of way. "Make sure your kids don't have more than two hours of screen time." ... "Make sure your kids are eating at least 3 servings of vegetables a day." ... "remember to take your children outside at least once a day" ... You may as well be describing the care and maintenance of household plants. For those of us who actually have children which we plan to send off into the world one day, we know that raising children is full of twists and turns and that each child is as different from the others as the seasons are from each other. But just like big humans, there are certain things that universally cheer them and bug them.
Lectures are one of the bugs that kids just squirm at. I'm guilty of this; it's easy to lecture, as that is what I plan to do as a career, and sometimes I wax heavy with words of wisdom for my little ones. Part of me thinks that sometime in the future, it will all come rushing back to them "Ah! This is what dad meant by not burning bridges and taking responsibility for my own actions!" -- not that there is anything wrong with giving direction and advice. It's just got to be in small doses. Children will listen, but effectiveness tapers off with exponential decay.
Which is why I don't understand how Nickelodeon thought nearly 9 minutes of anything would be useful, or appropriate. Certainly the complete lack of context about the George Floyd killing should leave us as parents all wondering what exactly they expect our children to do with that. Nickelodeon is a kids channel, but it's a kids channel ran by adults who appeal to kids in very "fat, sugar, monosodium glutamate" sort of way. They may not be the drag queen at the library reading "Sally Has a Penis" but they're definitely looking at your kids from their white, windowless cable channel beckoning, "Hey kids, you want some candy?" And that's what they think appeals to children. Of course it does. Children don't know any better. Children are meant to be molded, shaped, and directed, not catered to. Even when you take into account a child's taste or disposition, it is to more effectively inculcate your values.
And when suddenly the pompous executives feel a moral pang in their hearts due to the evil that befell Mr. Floyd, they take their complete lack of understanding and apply it to inculcating terror by running this ad.
The Twitterverse of course is ripe with the nonsensical statements of social justice warriors claiming that it's parents' fault that their kids were subjected to bizarre sounds and an impending doom clock. Luckily, Nickelodeon is so inept at understanding kids, that most kids probably became bored and changed the channel or went to play somewhere else after about 20 seconds.
So it's like Nickelodeon is one of those "terrorist fail" videos were the guy shoots an RPG about 10 feet down range. This is in contrast to a television show and man that understood how to talk to children about even the toughest of subjects (including racism), Mr. Rogers. Let the gap between the two approaches be observed for ten seconds. I'll watch the time.
Unfortunately for Nick viewers, it has become self aware. Now that Nickelodeon has gone down this path they are more likely to do it again in the future. There will be no end to the wokeness, and the best we can hope for is a "get woke go broke" scenario.
Which brings me to Paw Patrol. This show airs on Nickelodeon, but it is not original programming. Wondering who made such a successful children's show, I find out that it's actually a toy company. Spin Master started as a toy company, selling (I kid you not, no pun intended) pantyhose with seeds to children. To the dry adult in the audience, that means a nylon bag of choking hazards probably. To a child, however, that's a sock that GROWS HAIR. It's at this point I should tell you that this company eventually made Air Hogs, a much larger financial success, even though they had cornered the market on "ladies undergarment gardening." It's important to recognize the difference between a cartoon television show company and a toy company. Cartoon companies have an incredible leg up on the toy company. Children have eyes. Households have t.v.'s. It is inevitable that the two meet, and whatever is on, those eyes will stay glued to it until they starve. It will then sell to your child all the candy, video games, and toys it can without your child losing interest. Toy companies have tried to keep up; they put batteries in them, make toys with loud sirens and fun music, flashing lights and so forth. But it's just not a fair match. To be successful, the toy company must make something that will appeal to the child and the parent as they roam through the stores (or browse amazon) and then they must follow through with their promise to provide entertainment that can't be had elsewhere. "Sure," you cynically say, "but once that toy is sold, the company doesn't care what happens to it." and I say you are wrong. They want that toy to go over a friends house, be seen by a friend at their house, or make them want another or the next in the set or series, ...like Bakugan. But if a toy is not fun, forget it. The kid will just not play with it. A child can make up more in their minds to do than any toy maker could conjure. So another strategy is to get your toy in front of eyeballs on television. And this is where Spin Master succeeds the most. They combine toys and t.v. so that the circle is complete and your child now is a Paw Patrol junkie.
This was long journey. I'm glad you took it with me. I feel like Bennet Foddy.
The fact that Paw Patrol is being cancel cultured* is on its face ridiculous, not just because social justice warriors be cray-cray, but because SJW's simply have no creative ideas, only destructive ones. They can't come up with ideas that will entertain children, assuage parents, and be profitable enough to continue the whole thing. But here is a company that specifically caters to the interests of children in play which also makes a television show children wear to bed at night (and cover themselves with, and drinks from, and eats on....). And there's a reason for that. SJW's have no sense of play, no sense of childhood, no sense of creativity. You can't truly be creative if you can't disconnect your filter long enough to explore ideas outside your ideology. And if everything is oppression, play becomes burdensome. Jokes become microagressions, rules become racist fetters, the word fetter becomes racist because it's in some song written by some white man from England, and we know all about that racist isle.
*There is some gaslighting that occurs in the progressive communities (now that the word has gained popularity in their midst) whereby numerous 'jokes' are said calling for some obviously ridiculous (to any sane person) action to be taken, and then the jokes are reported on as news, and then that news is editorialized to ask the question, "yes, but what if it wasn't a joke?" -- when this nonsense is called out, the left wingers throw their hands up and guffaw at the notion that what they are doing is normalizing some ridiculous idea. They say that they were jokes, and always jokes, and anything to the contrary is conspiracy theory territory. Thus it was with Paw Patrol, as jokes were pushed about removing Paw Patrol because of Chase, the police dog, being a good representation of police, which of course doesn't reflect SJW reality. These jokes were then reported as news, and then those reports were questioned so that a serious conversation could be had about needing to cancel a children's t.v. show about imaginary dogs that save turtles.
This is done, not because they want to do a better job providing entertaining and encouraging programming for children, but so they can 1.) push their ideology 2.) in order that they can prevent any empathy or feelings of humanity toward cops. I heard it on the radio yesterday, and it makes perfect sense: this suggested kids programming is the kind that Palestinian children's shows pushes about the Jews.
But thank God, they are so inept when it comes to children. Chalk it up to the fact that the elite L.A. and New York types find having children of their own to be a burden to their lifestyles and the leftists and intellectual types think it's evil to bring children into the world. Chalk it up to no sense of play or childhood.
What would they replace Paw Patrol with anyway? Nature abhors a vacuum, and children abhor being lectured to. But hey, that won't keep them from trying.
-gcm