Why Kid's Stories should be Darker
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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We all know that classic children’s stories tend to have some darkness in their past, but there’s something even darker going on with children’s stories that, beneath the glossy, plastic veneer, has become sort of hard to see…
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Hi Tale foundry, your videos inspire me to make small short books for my family! Your channel has taught me so much, so thank you.
Fnaf is a an
Do you know the Legend of Ouch?
absolute best thumbnail
Im a kid and I've seen heeps of horror movie clips like Friday the 13th predator and ghost face and horror game like fnaf
As a preschool teacher I'd say kids need stories with strong emotions. They don't experience quaintly. They're not angry. They're betrayed or furious. They're not sad. They're in despair and alone. They're not scared of their imagination. They're terrified of things that might be real. And, with them still learning their way out of ego-centrism, they are the only person who has ever felt like that. Stories give them a chance to experience a character fully feeling an overwhelming emotion and finding a way through it. They learn empathy, resilience, and emotional processing through seeing and hearing experiences like theirs and their experiences are darkly exaggerated, not lesser.
In the preschool I was in, all the books were silly and to do with poo or a fish with fingers. No characters to relate to really. Im glad I'm not the only one noticing the lack of adventure and feelings in kids book, it's all so dumbed down
@@mil4023 whats that?
@@Whiskerbin Teletubbies
@@Whiskerbin with all do respect there's nothing wrong with being toned down.
My favorite book as a child was Struwwelpeter, so I would like more strong emotions and consequences in stories for children.
I think the Bambi example is actually a really good test of how to approach dark subject matter in children’s media: don’t show it, but by all means imply its presence. Let the story have the shadow of violence or horror, just not those things directly
Yepm honetly a lot of adult jokes in family is by that kid cant know the contet, and why family media can be the most mature out there (it alo help you cant be just edgy a replacement for thoughtful dealing with it.
And i think the implying is the mot impactful, not only for kids but even adults.
Also kid will be confronte with like death or , it nessesary to have a coated in metaphor but a preperation of that things that will happen or do exist. .
Its just a doiferent medium to explore that, and more thoughtful, and dives more in the horrors of imagination. That is the best horror.
And the world is very scary, horror is a good way to deal with that by giving it room, especially for children and teenager.
That is what i liked about Tales from the Crypt (the cartoon version). It sticked close to the original and also had some very original fates for the evil doers. For example a narcissict had escaped the vampire, but was bitten in the process and couldn`t look in the mirror anymore. Meanwhile the brother he left behind could defeat the vampire and save the princess.
There is a reason that was one of the movies I rewatched the most as a kid.
yes!
These stories are safe ways for children to encounter tough subjects. The problem is that adults don't want to talk about these things with each other, let alone their children.
Did anyone actually have a “happy” childhood? I had a pretty privileged upbringing, but I remember the chronic bullying, realizing that my parents marriage was not that great, the death of my grandfather, gratuitous amounts of homework, learning about violent crimes that were just going to be a part of my world, being told that these were the best years of my life and really not feeling it...
A manifestation of anxiety disorders can be repeated/compulsive exposure to things that are upsetting, and in that case, the child should have someone there to help them regulate that impulse. But as this video says, most children will put down something that genuinely upsets them. And sometimes they might make it through something upsetting and just have questions.
I work in a library, and I frequently have parents ask if something is appropriate for their child. And, I mean, I wouldn’t hand a five-year-old a copy of Tokyo Ghoul just because it’s a comic, and I once had to explain that Princess Mononoke wasn’t a children’s movie. But when a precocious nine-year-old wants to read a young adult book, I don’t always know what to say even if I have read that particular book. I suggested that the parent just be available for conversation, because the kid might have questions. I think the parent ultimately passed on the book because they took that as a, no, this is not appropriate, but my point stands.
As said, “children aren’t stupid: they lack context”
Yeah it just that people think that kids can not be sad at all
@@Sayyar615 Which is delusion and denial. No one is meant to be happy all the time. Desperation for fun and happiness is why people suffer without knowing why and kill themselves. In the hundreds of millions.
Other emotions and even the lack of them happen for a reason. Turning a blind eye to it is a mistake.
The top part is what I'm feeling as a teen.
@@audiobooksforfree7857 It gets better. Life isn’t exactly a cakewalk, but I’m way happier and healthier at 30 than I ever was as a teen.
If your criteria for "happy childhood" is "never faced any form of hardship", then no, I guess no one has ever had a "happy childhood".
No joke, the sheer ammount of sterilized content is one of the reasons I think there are so many edgelords. When I was a kid (and even as a pre-teen) I was very edgy, along with many of my friends and I think one of the reasons was the fact that we were from a full-time school. We would attend to classes in the morning and spend the entire afternoon under the school councelors watch. And the sheer ammount of sanitization of EVERYTHING was immense, specially considering almost all of the facility was composed of evangelical christians. One time a teacher even changed the symbol of our cultural fest for a symbol of another country because she said that the mask reminded her of the devil. This sterilization makes so that even children can't relate to really anything and they end up going for the extreme opposite of it as a sort of escapism from the flowery cotton candy world they are spoon fed since birth.
This is why I hated being sheltered growing up. Once I realized how cruel and heartless the world can be, it crushed me. I learned about politics 2020 by having half the people praising trump and hating Biden, and the other half praising Biden and hating trump. Growing up in a religious household and community, they taught about instead of “me” it’s we. And I really followed that, i followed that until I was a doormat for anybody, I learned to be submissive. And repress emotions that others didn’t like, anger, sadness, and more. I’ve recently been rewatching a lot of kid movies and shows, certain movies just hit me differently, like Toy story 3, the letting go, abandonment, and sadness are a big part of that. I hated that movie as a child, because I was never taught that letting go was ok
Traditional evangelical Christianity is a blight on children because of things like this.
@@ajimtiredplsletmesleep2521 kinda the same, but my dad is ex-Mormon. He jokes about God existing and stuff, but this is kinda my life.
omg yeah-
wait how did this type that cuz I didn’t- HUH
My mum NEVER let me read Coraline. I never knew why, but when I read it at my friends house I realised it was horrifying, still I loved it.
I actually remember watching the movie adapation a few times throughout my life and I'm fine with it
Love the Cattails pfp!!!
@@lilymorgo3412 the book is totally different
@@Leopard_211 The book is totally different because it's a book and not a movie, but as adaptations go it mostly follows the book - both are quite cool and creepy in their own style.
@@MagusMarquillin I never really read the book, but people say it's much creepier, but one thing I know for sure is that the movie adaptation is different in many aspects
I was friends with Don Bluth a few years back. Not super close; just the same community, same neighborhood, etc. So I had a childhood friend with me at a Christmas party and I introduced them:
"This is Don. You remember those movies like An American Tail and The Secret of NIMH, and all those? Don's the one who wrote and directed them and did the art and stuff."
And my friend says, "You wrote The Secret of NIMH? That movie scared the sh*t out of me when I was 6."
And do you know what he said? You know what Don Bluth actually said?
"Well, it was supposed to!"
Yep. Children's stories were a bit different back then.
This is also a reason to take issue with "it doesn't have to be good, it's for kids", I think. Because yes, it IS for kids. And kids are still people, they're not a monolith of fabricated innocence and bliss you have to maintain by only feeding them sweet sugary garbage. Kids WILL get bored of bad media, especially if you expose them to good media early on, and good media includes those darker and heavier elements without flinching at them.
If anything it neds to be better because uit should be mature, and talk about stuff while not being explicit and metaphorical. Like family series are anmong the best to go maningful dark, and yes, children are the best and worst critics. They need good media, that is mature and deals at least implied with the darker sadd things in life.
Hey! Just becouse something is sweet and sugery doesn’t mean it is garbage! Something can be sweet and sugery and be nice media too! They can have both! They can have The Dark Crystal and Candy Land!
@@Master-Works You're right! I guess I should have elaborated a bit. It's not that kids can't HAVE Candyland, it's just that when everything is Candyland, it's easy to say everything sucks.
Who cares all they know is eat sleep work repeat
@Will N I’m not talking about kid shows I’m talking about kids I still think a lot of them are dumb punks
When I was a child I was terrified of a lot of "scary" movies, tv shows or even concepts. I was even scared of vampires and werewolves, something that with a lot of modern media in mind, is almost completely unbelievable to me.
But I would also read a lot of things that many would consider too much for children. I loved greek mythology and adored Grimm’s fairy tales, and reading them actually made me willing to watch more upsetting adaptations of them.
I remember that my little sister was actually scared of being scared and that was horrifiying , she haves a great imagination and that means great nigthmares so she was always looking to avoid anithing that could cause them and even had one period were you couldn´t say anithing funny if it was late. But now she is way more capable of handeling it so I´m curious if she will enter soon this zone or if she is already on it
That was me, I had the books but jurassic park was the most horrifying movie i ever saw and that was purely because of the dinosaurs. I loved learning about them and seeing them in pictures, but seeing them move on screen was terrifying
@Will N I think it was the early jurassic park movies. I've seen dinosaur teeth and dino hunting in photos. It was on of the old jurassic park movies and my first "monster movie"
it's something I wonder about. Has anyone in this century actually been scared by a skeleton? Even last century they seemed played out. Monsters aren't scary. Humans are scary.
Except xenomorphs. Those are still scary.
This is something that's been itching me since I was the target demographic. Kids are a lot more emotionally complex than adults may realize. Yes, maybe they're not *as* emotionally complex as adults, but kids can understand concepts beyond good buys vs. bad guys, objective undeniable good vs objective undeniable evil. Hell, I'd wager to say that kids *need* more emotionally complex media to help with emotional and social development.
For the VERY young, there is definitely developmental stuff to consider. But that process goes all the way up to 25 years old, and the only life experience we protect late teens and early 20s from is car renting.
Kids have the same emotional range as adults, and ultimately are little people. The, as this video says, just lack the context and the vocabulary. Temper Tantrums are only partly because a child has not developed self control. A bigger, larger aspect, and educators and developmental psychologists will back me on this, is that children have wants and desires they literally do not know how to communicate. An adult can manage their feelings from decades of practice. Can forge those feelings and emotions into words, communicate them to each other, and thus, hopefully, resolve the upset. A toddler, who has not yet been exposed to many words longer than their own curiously grasping fingers, don't have that vocabulary. The toolkit isn't there.
Which is another thing in this video that I think really nails it. Caring for a child isn't about protecting them from all challenge and harm, but being there to provide them the toolkit and experience they lack when necessary.
I was very smart for my age (keep in mind i was 7) and these things taught me the complex gray areas of the world around me: max payne 3, call of duty black ops 2, borderlands 1 2 and the pre sequel, call of duty modern warfare 2, and several of the assassins creed games.
Don't worry i didn't turn out a psychopath or anything, but i did learn to fight back against bullies which got me kicked out of a ton of schools as a kid.
The challenge is trying to understand at what stages is the child is or is not ready for more complex themes. Kids develop at different rates so going by age is inaccurate and knowing another person is difficult, especially when that person is this weird protohuman bobble head creature.
Oh I think it's extremely important to limit things the other way around - REDUCE the kids' exposure to pure good versus pure evil stories. If that's what they see in their fiction, it's what they'll expect in their life as they grow up - they will always be the good guy, and anyone they don't like doesn't just disagree - they are the bad guys, and inherently evil. The number of times I've heard a young person refer to real-life human people as "the bad guys" (in reference to everything from wars to sports events) hurts me at my core. There are no good guys or bad guys - there's doing good things or doing bad things, and everyone, absolutely everyone, is capable of doing both.
@@mr_indie_fan psychopathy is an innate personality trait that's there no matter your upbringing or experiences. If you were a psychopath, it wouldn't be to do with anything you listed.
Swedish actually has a word for remembering what it was like to be a child and retaining that childlike wonder about the world: "Barnasinne" (roughly translates to Child's Mind).
Something that I'm trying my best to keep, even *if* the adult life is very stressful and seemingly speaking against all forms of childishness. It's tough, but it makes the adult world a lot easier to cope with.
I think too many of us cast off our childhood selves believing you have to give it up to move on and grow but people aren't like that really. I feel more like a Russian nesting doll. Each younger layer of myself wrapped around the other hidden but still there. Each year a new ring around the tree that is me.
That word essentially encapsulates Luke Pearson's Hilda, it's set in a fantastic world where trolls are treated like Bears or Crocodiles, but dissapointment and unfulfilled lives are very real issues for her and those around...
That’s valid. There’s a lot of expectations to being an adult, but it’s good that you’re still able to find Barnasinne. Sometimes it’s nice to just explore things you liked as a kid or just have a day to be wild and relax
@@dissonanceparadiddle This reminds me of a quote I've read. I forgot what it was word for word, but it was something like "Being an adult is about throwing away childish things, like the fear of being seen as a child". In other words, people being so desperate to not be seen as "childish" that they become outright snobby is ironically much more childish than simply enjoying what they enjoy.
@@catbatrat1760 i feel like i can almost remember that quote is a good one
this is why I loved Animorphs as a kid. Animorphs was basically "baby's first war story", "baby's first tragedy" and "baby's first body horror" all wrapped up in one. It approached war in a complex and nuanced way. At the beginning, you think it's going to be another "good guys fighting bad guys" story, but it expands the further along you go. The "good guys" commit horrible atrocities. The "bad guys" are a complex society with a resistance up against their current dictatorship.
It plays with their villains concept, an alien slug that takes over your mind, in a genuinely chilling way. The kids never know who could be one of them, and they even discover early on that one of the main characters' brother is one. The true horror of it is that the books are very clear that the host is aware in there, unable to do anything as their slavemaster uses their body to do the same thing to their friends, family and community. And every time the good guys fight them, they have to hurt the innocent hosts as collateral damage. Oh and by the way the morphing is straight up body horror. The descriptions as they turn into different animals are nauseating. Plus, because they could morph away damage, the books do all kinds of gorey things with the kids. Like the one time one of them got squashed as a fly and nearly died, in graphic detail. And the time another kid beat up the aliens with her own severed arm. And after all that, the story ends in tragedy. They win the war, sure, but the ending isn't happy. There's no big Star Wars style celebration. Rachel is dead, Jake is depressed and lost after the war, Marco is trying to ignore his sorrow via fame and recklessness, Tobias cut contact with everyone after losing the girl he loved. Cassie is the only one to make it out remotely okay. And the series ends on a cliffhanger, with Jake, Marco and Tobias getting together to fight another battle, because there's always another war.
Animorphs was fucked up and it was the type of story that people would say is "not for kids". It believed in that kids weren't stupid and that we were capable of confronting realities about war and the type of world we live in. Because, at the end of the day, despite it being about aliens and animal morphing powers, Animorphs was also a cautionary tale about what happens to people when they go to war. How it warps them into an unrecognizable shell of themselves even after the fighting is over, how sometimes good people die. Many who've read it as children say that Animorphs played a big part in their current anti-war sentiments, and I'm honestly right there with them. In a world where adults were always trying to shield us from the darkness of the world, Animorphs was there to help us understand it. It was one of my favourite series as a kid and probably the childhood story that has stuck with me the most.
I completely agree, I got the entire 62 book series (plus the two choose-your-own-adventure style stories Alternamorphs) and loved every single one of them. It was my first introduction to children's books that didn't need pictures (besides the front covers), and dealt with complex issues. I also managed to get the other books by K. A. Applegate, Everworld and Remnants, which were for older teen audiences.
"Ram the Blade Ship."
I think the author of this series had some mental issues, probably because he was around "fresh" war veterans as a child or was in the war zone himself
Never heard of animorphs will look into it. Wow..
Rachel dies?! Spoilers!
Avatar is often praised for trusting that a younger audience will understand very real issues in the world. It does seem like some animators are getting it while whoever is in charge of remakes does not. Very concerning what happened with WB
When I was younger I thaught Avatar was boring. It was the pacing.
@@Master-Works me to, I honestly hated how slow paced and boring avatar is.
Avatar is one of those shows that I loved as a kid and I still love it as an adult.
Reccently I wrote a short one page paper on the web series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared for my scriptwriting class. This video kind of reminded me of that series. How kids watched it despite or maybe even because of it's horrifying elements. Ultimately the message of Don't Hug Me I'm scared is something that both kids and adults need: don't believe everything your told even by authority figures.
I love this show! And my kids introduced me to it!
I love it I found about it since I was about 5 or 6 It scared me alot but I still loved it And still do
I hate don't hug me I'm scared but I loved Olive fingers
@@annaireton8816 olive fingers..? you mean salad fingers?
Especially authority figures that lead by force and "because they say so"
Even if you feel its annoying, always explain yourself if asked. People ask for a reason.
you are one of the only youtubers that actually gives good writing advice and makes videos that are better researched and informative.
May I suggest Terrible Writing Advice? It even covers subjects such as agents, marketing, and handling criticism.
@@tomkerruish2982 Yeah it is a good channel for beginners but for as far as I remember it only covers the basics of writing and doesn't go into depth like Tale Foundry mostly does. I think most writing advice channels on this platform are so basic because the founders don't have enough reading experience to give actually valuable writing advice. Tale Foundry is great because he covers alot more ground because he talks about less popular but great literature (like Ghormenghast) and has alot of examples to back up his statements and ideas. While I don't particulary like all of Tale Foundry's videos, I still think he is one of the best on the platform.
@@writingwofl5836 Since I'm not even a beginner, I couldn't tell.
I recommend looking into the channel, "Diane Callahan - Quotidian Writer" in regards to informative and well-versed writing advice.
One of my favorite movies when I was younger was "Astro Boy". The plot of the movie is basically that the main character dies, and his dad tries to rebuild him as a robot. However, the dad can't stand living with the robot because it's a reminder that his son is dead. The dad casts out the robot, who then has to live in a garbage dump with orphans. The man in charge of the orphans takes advantage of the robot and uses him in a robot fighting competition. The story progresses some more, then the robot has to return home to defend the city from a giant evil robot by sacrificing himself to destroy it's energy core. It's really interesting, because some of the main topics of the movie are grief, abandonment, and sympathy for the villain. Several times throughout the movie, the robot boy ends up protecting the villains, at one point even stopping one of his friends from killing the man who took advantage of him for robot fighting. Some of these villains are grateful to the boy for saving them. The portrayal of grief and abandonment ties in to the idea of kids simply not having context for certain parts of the adult world. The boy doesn't understand why his dad is suddenly so cold towards him, and, not being used to the real world, was easy to take advantage of. This movie does a pretty good job of showing the importance of darker kids media while also being a darker kids movie. Unfortunately the movie was a total flop for some reason and didn't sell very well, but I loved it and I think it helped shape a lot of who I am today.
I just saw your comment and got excited haha
I don't know if you're already aware, but in case you're not, that movie's actually based off a manga/anime series, actually it got 3 separate anime series, not including spinoffs, and each one has some variation on how it retells the story, so I thought you may be interested in checking that out. And with series having a longer time to explore all the concepts it's going into than movies do, that's another bonus. I think the manga ran from the late 50's to the 80's, the first anime series was made in the 60's (and fun fact: was the first anime imported?/exported? to the US), second series was made in the 80's, and the third one ran in 2003.
I haven't compared sub/dub on the earlier series, but if you're interested in the '03 series, I'd definitely recommend picking sub over dub, as this was one of those series that unfortunately had a lot of unnecessary edits made to the English "localization," going as far as removing an entire episode and changing aspects of the main character's personality, so. given what you've mentioned you liked about the '09 movie, you'll get more of that from the original '03 version than the English dubbed '03 version :')
Also! If I haven't misunderstood, the manga is old enough that you can legally read it on the internet archive by now? the story arcs seem to be all over the place and don't actually follow one set of canon, I should mention, but a really interesting portion of the manga that hasn't had any adaptations is the "Once Upon a Time" arc, again, lots of dark themes in that, which I'm a sucker for lol
And regarding spinoffs and such, there's a more recent prequel series called "Atom: The Beginning," which follows Dr. Tenma and Ochanomizu (the original name for Elefun) in college making robots, and A106, one of their prototypes. There was 1 season of an anime for it in 2017 and the manga is ongoing, last I checked, so there's that as well.
...I just felt the need to dump this on any person who seems like they might want to look at any of it lol
I recently re-watched the movie, and found out about the anime when I looked it up afterwards. Was surprising to see that the movie didn't sell well at all and didn't get any good reviews. Dunno, I might check out the anime at some point. I'm still yet to actually try watching anime, but it seems like the kind of thing I'd be into so it'll probably happen at some point lol. Thanks for the suggestion!
@@SpaceLobster21 no problem! Feel free to reach out if you need any help tracking down a means of watching any of these, since that can sometimes be an issue with watching somewhat older series. But yeah, the '03 Astro Boy series was actually the first anime I watched since my sister found it at some point after we'd seen the '09 movie. Definitely worth a watch. :)
(side note: not to bombard you with more stuff, but I remembered another spinoff manga: "Pluto," by Naoki Urasawa, is a seinen thriller sort of retelling of "The Greatest Robot on Earth" arc. I'll leave it at that so as not to write another novel of a comment, but I wanted to add that to the list of content haha)
I also just recently watched Astro Boy for the first time. As a kid I remember wanting to see it so bad, but we didn’t have the money to. I loved it for all the reasons you mentioned, and much like everyone else in this thread was floored to find out about it flopping.
I also think it had other topics such as classism and war mongering, that are depicted in ways that are age appropriate, but also so that kids can be exposed to these concepts in a safe environment.
I remember watching Astro boy when I was young and thinking "wow this is messed up" the whole movie
As a barely child that very recently became a teenager, I 100% agree with this, kids need more context of the world around them rather then mind numbing content that is highly cliché and non interesting.
Huh, what a coincidence.
I'm a child I agree
I agree
Yomulesa, me too
It's safer on the internet to not talk about how old you are as a minor.
“Children aren’t stupid”
That’s true. Children are definitely not stupid, especially the “special” children. Like my uncle - he learned to read at 3 and started reading philosophical and “adult” books before he even went to school.
One thing is to think a child is stupid, but another is to think that a smart child is stupid. Treating a “smarter for their age” child exactly how you would treat a “normal” child can be very destructive and infuriating for that child. To them it seems like you’re treating a teen as you would a toddler - kind of.
And some of them will fricking remember everything what you did to them as a kid.
And they will proceed to do that same thing towards the next generation, because in the end they are either dumb kids or dumb teens.
Savantism is crippling when you are forced into a family which treats you as actually mentally inept child when you are the entire opposite - it's them being incapable of mentally processing things themselves so they take it out on others.
Abusive. Narcissistic. Sometimes crippling into PTSD, leading to heartbreak and cynicism of yourself. All because those around you WANT you to be sterile. The kid ends up smothered by lack of growth to their curiosity, intelligence and personality.
At no point where others supportive even in my life. They actually attempted to write me off as "retarded", forcing me to go to a psychologist to get evaluated. They just want to solve everything with pills, discipline and harming someone to pass the blame. Yeah, needless to say it wasn't me that was the issue.
On that note, I got to do some great accredited psyche tests for personalities, mapping my brain, and snuck titles of books from the psyche. My local librarian enjoyed my requests though. I wanted to figure out what the heck was wrong with those around me to act, and abuse others, the way they do. Unfortunately, I was never allowed to be a child at any point. I learned very quickly that this civilization has nothing in it for me. The world isn't the issue.... It's the people. The system refuses to acknowledge people like myself exist. There is no place for us and our talents just don't work to be monetized or pushed out into a gray corporate environment.
I wish I could have been left to my art, music and story writing. However, humanity refuses to acknowledge that there is a whole different existence out there which doesn't revolve around grinding your life away to be a tortured slave. Knowing this is very destructive...... Exhausting, and no good will come of it all because others WANT to limit growth to all but their own voracious selfishness.
This, please, I'm so tired of being treated like a kid
What? A child is more intelligent than others does not mean they can be treated like teenagers or adults. You don't even know if they're smarter or if you made it up to be prouder of your "special" child. Sure, you can teach them more, but it doesn't mean they don't want to experience childhood. DO NOT TREAT "SMART CHILDREN" LIKE ADULTS. YOU'RE ROBBING THEM OF THEIR CHILDHOODS. You're essentially taking their childhood if you treat them better, and no, they do not feel worse for being treated according to their age. A gifted kid should not watch horrors and know about messed up shit, it will give them trauma. And all of them will remember how you expected much more of them than they could give. Respectfully, never have children if you're going to think like this. Your statement is so fucking stupid that I almost died from cringe.
nah if a child is smarter than their age then they are instantly a teenager, expectations rise so high that the universe says slow down, a single B on a report card and your gonna be going down faster than gravty could ever do, you suddenly work at NASA, if your below average in anything they start pulling out torture devices
"Observe adults. Know that each and every one of them faking it. At no point was any adult actually given an instruction manual on how to do adulthood. Inside each of them is someone exactly like you." - Neil Gaiman ☺💖
11:54 it should be kept in mind that younger children have some trouble distinguishing fiction from reality, so age should be taken into account, however, fiction should have some sort of mirror to reality. What's more, fiction can open the door to crucial discussions of difficult topics with trusted adults who help them feel safe, and give them knowledge and assurance. Parents will have to be ready to go there though, to have those conversations on death, grief, fear, etc.
Some Stories enable kids to celebrate life and have fun with it - while other stories help them deal with the darker side and live through it, not being alone with it. If stories miss the chance to show that actions have consequences - may they be easy or heavy -, then they are maybe not worth being told.
One of my favorite underrated children’s horror series is Wayside School
It may not seem like a horror based on the name, cover, and even beginning chapters, but once you keep reading things get darker and more eerie
In the second book, a girl suddenly ceases to exist, and finds herself a ghost walking among her friends. The only people who can see her are people who also don’t exist
In the third book, a substitute teacher steals the voices of the students and uses their voices to tell their parents that they don’t love them. This causes the children to cry mute tears because they do love their parents but they can’t do anything about it
It’s not Coraline levels of horror, but it was definitely a fun read for me as a kid and I loved how dark it was. It gave me a sense of thrill that made me feel more mature than my peers because I knew dark stories and they only knew fairytales
And the TV show watered it all down.
Dark story elements were the ones that appealed to me the most as a kid. They still do. Not because I enjoy the morbid, but because of the greater context it gives the good and the beautiful. How can you appreciate the light if you've never been in darkness?
it was shows like amphibia and owl house are such a breath of life they arent as scared of going hard and making its younger viewers feel bad
Don’t forget Puss in Boots The Last Wish.
And some people act like it has the "wrong kind of adult content"
When I was a child, horror actually was most of the inspiration for any of my first choices of research. My nightmares of my father turning into Medusa when I was 2 led to a crippling fear of him in my childhood, but also guided me to look into the origins of Greek mythology and the natural distrust of cold scaled snakes in dreams. Sure, I still don't believe in any of the religious aspects, but mythology and history are still two of my favorite subjects to this day. I get the same ping of horror and science intrigue that a forensic scientist gets at hearing a new gruesome crime scene described.
Nice! I am making a horror comic right now! It’s called The Pensuke Files.
You nailed the forensic part, I want to dedicate to that in a near future and I must say I often find myself thinking about "how did this body died" or "what damages could X do to a human" when seeing the news, a movie or reading a book
#socialstudiessweep
Alice in Wonderland is also a great example of good child literature that challenges and confronts the mind.
I prefer the book over the movie. But back then the Kids didn’t like to read much.
I remember I was OBSESSED with the Disney animated movie when I was around 3 years old. I asked my mom to play the VHS tape we had over and over again, and I also learnt some dialogues
Hansel and Gretel feels like one of the few dark fairytales that almost every adaptiation still involves implied cannibalism and burning someone alive.
Cannibalism and burning someonealive is in that fairy tale????
@@Gusenichka925 The witch is fattening Hans up to later be cooked but they got wise about it and shoved the witch in the oven to be burned alive.
@@Gusenichka925 yeah. the witch tried to eat hansel and gretel, but gretel burned the witch in the oven in the nick of time. when i first read that story i wasn't creeped out though. but now i think it's really disturbing...
As a kid i remember being so interested in the lives of adults that I watched my dads scary movies behind his back. I was scared at the time and after I grew up I realized how much those movies helped me be less scared of fictions and gave me a spine to face the challenges of reality.
I remember that when I was a kid, I started discovering horror medias at the age of 6. My parents then started doing everything to stop me from exploring it further, even though I was never really scared.
Now I'm 16 and a big fan of everything related to horror.
Noice! Then you will really like The Pensuke Files!
@@orrorsaness5942 What's that?
@@webbycroissant5692 A comic in my UA-cam channel
@@webbycroissant5692 If you see where it is, and if you watched it, is it good 😊?
i remember how fascinated i was when i first saw show that had blood on screen. it only happened once or twice but it was so refreshing. this has put my thoughts into words and now i can process what i was feeling and why. thanks.
Courage the Cowardly Dog is the epitome of how to make horror for kids that becomes re-contextualizes with age, for me at least. I especially love how it keeps the lines between Courage's true awareness of the situation vs. what's in his head vague, especially. Excellent video as always, love the message behind this one!
So true
That show also teaches kids that courage is NOT being unafraid but DOING things you are afraid to do. As Courage said, "the things I do for love."
This show, for me, was nothing more than a nightmare/trauma fuel. You need to be careful with what you give to your kids and remember that everyone is unique (I went through a few gore-filled documentaries about serial killers, I practically grew up watching brutal "police series'" but got a trauma from 1984 Spiderman
This video just made me remember one of my favorite books as a kid. "Scary poems for rotten kids." I can't find it right now, but I definitely remember being terrified of the boneless monster that would creep under your door frame to steal yours.
Edit. I found it! The poem was called "The body." The others also freaked me out but that one stood out for sure. Mostly because of the illustration to be honest.
I think I read that lol.
I think this concept is one of the reasons I love "The prince warrior series" by Priscila Sheerer so much.
when I was a kid, I remember hating when people would underestimate me and write me off as simple minded just because I was a kid. I've always loved reading (even before I could read it intrigued me immensely) and would often spend afternoons reading "the magic treehouse" or whatever other books I could find lying around the house, eventually in my search for something new to read I was looking at my big brother's bookshelf and he let me pick out one of his books to borrow. I chose the first book in the prince warrior series; it was my first chapter book without any pictures or anything and I was excited to dive in. as soon as I started reading, I couldn't put it down; I was so captivated by the characters, the epic new world and the story they were unfolding. in the story the main characters are a group of kids who find out about the magical otherworld Ahoratos, the kids learn a lot of valuable lessons such as: believing in yourself, trusting others and knowing who's a real friend and who's not. in their adventures the kids get cool sets of armor and swords and fight off bad guys from the evil part of the magical world, but in the story the kids also face a lot of really difficult situations and emotions that can be very real, such as: mis-trusting their own decisions, getting angry at other people for things that weren't even their faults, and multiple of the characters we grow fond of dying. the stories felt captivating not only because of the beautiful and unique worldbuilding, but because of how real the characters feel. it's incredibly easy to dive into the character's heads and view the world from their perspectives and I highly recommend it. I think in the end what makes the kids feel so real is how they aren't just kids who go out and become heroes and win the day, they're real kids who struggle in their journey and face consequences for their actions. as a kid I could really relate to the thought processes of some of the characters and it made the world feel so real.
sorry for this crazy long comment, but if you read this whole thing, I highly recommend you go check this series out.
For me, I was the kid who was very emotional and cried A LOT when watching sad or scary movies or shows. That being said, this doesn't mean that I wish I hadn't watched these movies/tv shows or that I hated them. Telling kids that they shouldn't watch something just because it might scare them or make them sad is extremely unfair to them, and it's condescending too, as if kids cannot handle feeling those sort of emotions. It's okay for kids to feel emotions other than happy when watching or reading something.
Sometimes I think that people forget that kids are people too. When an adult watches a sad movie and they end up crying, nobody says, "Uh oh. We need to start creating happier stories for 25 year olds. No more taking about death, abuse, or poverty." We all expect some people to cry when we see a sad movie, as this is normal behavior. That is the point of a sad movie. It's meant to make you feel sad. Same goes for horror films. No one says, "Wow. I'm 21 and just recently watched The Shining, and, oh boy, I was so sacred! I think this movie is NOT appropriate for women under 40! Why are we letting young adults watch this stuff? We this movie banned!" Why is it that when kids are exposed to something with stronger emotions that are only half as scary or sad, it's suddenly a problem? Kids should be allowed to feel strong emotions when engaging on some form of media without having to worry about parents, teachers, or other caregivers swooping in and saying, "Nope! That's too inappropriate!"
Of course, it's okay for some shows or movies to have less gruesome plots and happier endings. I don't see an issue with that. Some of my favorite cartoons growing up weren't really sad or terrifying, but they were enjoyable (Arthur, Phineas and Ferb, Kim Possible, SpongeBob SquarePants, etc.). However, I think there needs to be choices for all kids and all levels of "scary" or "dark" (aside from movies with too much gore or sex, of course). We can have both.
Of course, not every kid is going to like the same things. Some kids want Rem and Skimpy and Courage the Cowardly Dog, and some want SpongeBob SquarePants, Pokemon, and The Powerpuff Girls. Some kids want Coraline, others want Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Harry Potter. Not every kid wants to read "scary" stories, but that doesn't mean that the kids who do want to should be banned for doing so, and some kids want both. My point is that every kid is different and should at least have the CHANCE to seek darker content if they're up for it.
But it also does NOT mean that we should allow something like "Little tree friends" happen EVER AGAIN
If you think The Powerpuff Girls belongs in the second category, then you have not watched The Powerpuff Girls.
is it bad that i was scared of many things that shouldn't have been scary to me, like i could have watched, coraline and liked the movie and all that. But be scared of a youtube video of a guy who was attacked by a puppet monster that appeared in his food?
am i just a pussy by nature or is something wrong with me
I mean coco literally made me cry sooo
Pokémon, especially the Electric Tale manga, is somewhat dark early on. It’s only localization and the Japanese version following the localization’s footsteps that Sterilized it.
Something very ironic about stories for children is that when I was a kid myself, maybe 4 or 5, the stories I heard from my parents and grandparents were in fact were very graphic and dark, if you thought about it of course, but for me it was something normal to hear that (example from a traditional story) "the bad wolf fell into a pit of fire planned by the mother goat and her last son, in which he died" or "Prince Charming grabbed the monsters hand and cut his finger, then he threw him to the ground, burying him there", so yes, there still are stories of this kind, the only thing is that today most people avoid this kind of stories, but there are still people who tell the more graphic stories, making their children understand that the world is not always pink.
You know this actually puts into better words than I could explain back then what I felt as a kid. I remember once that I was on youtube(yes, when I was still too young to have an account) and was looking at other people talk about a show/movie that frustrated me with how poor the story was and bad the characters were(I can't remember what it was but I remember describing the issues in pretty simple terms but there were a lot of issues that made what it was bad), and then in the comment section someone described exactly the issues I didn't know how to articulate and even some I hadn't noticed, and I thought awesome they get it. But then someone replied with the usual dismissive argument of "It's for children stop complaining, that's how it's supposed to be". And it frustrated me because, no, it was just bad. And from then on I have had a sort of pet peeve about easily dismissing issues in media simply because of the audience, and the implication that, frankly, children were stupid and unintelligent enough to consume anything else and only want jangling keys to keep their attention. The next day from that incident, I wanted to make sure I wasn't being weird or dumb and asked my classmates and they agreed with me that it wasn't good but it was fun to just watch and they also disagreed with the "it's for kids excuse".
I've actually always loved more nuanced stories as a child BECAUSE it challenged my thinking and perspective on people and things around me. I can enjoy mindless or black and white media sure, but the media I actively craved was the more nuanced takes, not completely mature and adult like but at least treated with the same care for storytelling and character building. And from what I've experienced back then and in some cases recently, it seems other kids feel the same way. The way they had spoken and do talk about shows or scenes and characters with nuance and what it all means and how they think about it is with an amount of enthusiasm for thinking for themselves that a lot of the sanitized stuff doesn't allow for
Reminded me dearly of my father. What my brother remembers is a kind man who worked night shifts and liked golf. The father I remember was manipulative, and a emotionally abusive drunk. I hadn’t a single idea what my father was really like until I was a little older and realized what had been going on. Children certainly aren’t dumb, they can understand complex things (like abuse *and* different types of abuse).
LEGO BIONICLE is one of those examples of a story that "grew up" with its initial audience. '01 through '03 took place on a relatively calm tropical island that, despite some of its problems, the residents called a paradise. Going into '04, we had a flashback to an island city with a lot of 1984 tropes involved, and then the ruined state of it in '05 showed the monsters within even the biggest heroes. And then there was '06-'08, where the universe was literally dying and we encounter some of the darkest stuff. And then '09 came with a whole new world that has a whole slew of problems, and quite the secret to reveal... The comics were relatively sanitized in comparison to the novels, while the web serials starting in '07 were definitely aimed at the older kids - some of the darkest stuff took place in those, as back then kids were advised to ask their parents' permission before going online.
Needless to say, one of the reasons BIONICLE G1 is considered one of the classic LEGO themes is how its story wasn't afraid to get dark, especially with TV Tropes calling the main villain The Villain To End All Villains. There's quite a lot of nightmare fuel, awesome moments that will have you whooping in your room at 1 AM, funny moments to lighten the mood, and heroic sacrifices where even men cry. From a simple foundation on a tropical island leading into a lore that literally spans multiverses, BIONICLE G1 lives on in the hearts of its fans and its fans' children. Unity, Duty, Destiny!
As a kid I really like reading folklore from all over the world. One thing that still surprises me to this day is the concept of fairies. It’s derailed so far the original settings to make it child friendly, that sometimes I forget we’re supposed to fear them.
Another good reference is Raphael's story arc in the first Turtles movie in the 90s. His anger caused a situation to spiral out of control.
One of my most defining moments of my childhood was watching Horseland, a mostly sunshine and rainbows series where you know the heroes will win and that there will always be fair judgements to everyone, but being absolutely heartbroken by one episode. If you've watched the series, you probably already know which one and how the hero of the episode could still suffer in a way.
I loved scary movies as a kid and still do, When I was little, coraline and dark crystal were my favs. But I also gave a kid a drawing of a person killing somebody by stomping on them and it was really bloody in second grade and got sent to the counselor because his mom thought I was threatening him. I didn’t watch something that gory at that point I just drew it
Even though I'm an adult and can read a a fairly high level I tend to read a lot of books meant for teenagers and Middle schoolers because I feel like the adventures are more fun and to the point than books I've read that are aimed at adults.
Because I hate worrying about due dates and fines my favorite way of getting new books is to go to the Discard area and kind of blindly buy books there since the proceeds benefit the library and only set me back an average of 50 cents if I end up hating the books I choose.
This video triggered a very strong memory of a book I bought years ago. I don't remember the full title but it had something to do with dragons and crystal hearts.
I. Have never. Been so. DISGUSTED. By a book in my life.
I mean I get it. I buy books that are well below my reading level and sometimes I'll come across a tired trope or guess the "twist" early on but usually I just shake my head a bit and remember that if a child was reading these things for the first time they would be more shocking and keep reading.
But this one book was just the WORST.
The main protagonist was a young whiny girl that never actually had to do anything to further her journey. If she wanted to do a thing she just could with little effort, if she needed something someone else would just happen to have that thing and give it to her, if she encountered something scary it was a misunderstanding, and if battle was necessary someone else did it for her.
The amount of coddling this character got was reduculous and it was at least as thick as the 3rd Harry Potter book so I feel very insulted on behalf of the girls this book was aimed at.
I never finished the book, which is rare since I usually suffer through because I hate leaving books unfinished.
And then I committed the greatest sin.
I BURNED that book.
Well... Hate the sin, love the sinner, they say. You probably did something good--small, but good--for burning that book.
Never read it, but from your descriptions, it sounds unrealistic. Because who would have the power to just easily complete a challenge in the name of plot armor? The spoiled I-can-get-everything-I-want brats, maybe. But would any parent really want that in a child?
That's one of the reasons saying love shows like Adventure Time and Avatar the Last airbender, they had a wonderful art design and bright colors and detailed worlds that were easy to get sucked into but weren't afraid to get into darker subject matter, those were my favorite shows growing.
it's funny how adventure time began as an absolute shitpost
I love this video, as a child I was able to cope with a lot of dark films and I can understand the point of view adults experience where they want their child to stay as “childish” as possible. But my fav part of this whole thing is probably Tale’s voice, he could be an audible narrator himself honestly like-
I completely agree with this. As a child, looking back most of my favorite cartoons were the ones that involved good vs evil in some way like the Marvel and DC cartoons which all had at least 1 dark moment. A prime example is I watched Nick Jr. a lot during the 90s and while I watched pretty much whatever they played either because I liked it or my sister watched it and it wasn't really annoying to me my favorite was always Rupert Bear. While nothing compared to the likes of Coraline, it always stood out to me because I always found the writing a little too good for a Nick Jr. show. It was just so imaginative I always found myself thinking abut the episode I saw and what made it specifically good whereas the others were basically in one ear and out the other. What really helped it stand out was the presence of some real villains. Rupert has been threatened with clubs, swords and even a gun at one point. My favorite episodes were the ones with the nastiest villains like a bratty wizard who's trying to collect the last ingredient for a spell to make him grow up faster, unicorn horns. Judging from the reaction of the characters taking their horns would have been fatal to the unicorns. Another one was about an evil chalk drawing who went around the land of chalk using a piece of chalk to basically deform the other inhabitants; he gave a train square wheels so she had trouble moving, he put moose antlers on a rabbit so he couldn't stand up without toppling over and he tied an anchor to a cat's tail so it couldn't move at all. While not particularly creepy that still came across as really malicious to me. One of my favorites involved a pirate who captured the 4 winds and forced them to do his bidding by only releasing 1 or 2 at a time with the promise that if they disobeyed him or tried to run he would make the others suffer. My mind filled in the blanks and came up with horrible things that he could do to them. A villain called the Mulp Gulper even has a body count, he's called that because he eats creatures called Mulps and in the beginning of the episode we see a knight trying to face him but he gets scared then it cuts to black before showing the knight's scattered armor with the clear implication that the Mulp Gulper ate the knight which was more like something out of Jonny Quest than a preschool series. Looking back, it's insulting that they relegated Rupert to Nick Jr. while Muppet Babies aired on both there and regular Nickelodeon. Alvin and the Chipmunks deserved to be on Nick Jr. more than Rupert ever did. I'm actually working on a Rupert music video showing the best villains, and I quickly realized that I could never do a video like this for fluff like Muppet Babies or the Busy World of Richard Scarry, even if I had the passion the material just isn't there. While I would happily watch or even love shows like those as a kid, looking back it's the ones with dark moments are the ones that really stuck with me and I can still enjoy even as an adult.
I've found that books tend to be pretty good with this, especially relative to television, film, and gaming. I think it's something about how there isn't that same Stigma surrounding print media
And that it isn't a fully visual media
I’m actually a little glad my parents let me watch supernatural and all their shows with them as a kid
My younger siblings seem to have an obsession with darker media. Watching games, horror videos (that don't really scare them), and the like.
With UA-cam being on so many devices, it's almost impossible to control what they watch. Especially when it comes to keeping eveyone happy.
Even though I'm still very young, it's SO different to how things were when I was growing up. Technology has advanced SO much in just 22 years! :D
At least it's a lit more bearable, even fun sometimes, compared to watching painfully sterile stuff XD
Also, giving kids stories that are just too simple and friendly will make them be too naive. I was sheltered and that didn't help me when i went to public school.
how did you managed to get over that "shelterness"
asking, just because i feel i was a little entitled and sheltered too, and is trying too get over it fully
I grew up on Jacqueline Wilson whose stories were always about kids often growing up in non conventional families and dealing with real life sadness from bullying, to abandonment, and a parent with mental illness. Only now as an adult I realise how scary some of those topics might have seemed but maybe we're more accepting when we're younger. I think they definitely made me more empathetic towards people who were different from me.
As a kid I was very easy to scare, I got frightened by everything, and I hated scary stories but, I remember that I loved the show Are You Afraid Of The Dark? I think part of it for me was the fact that I got all of the important lessons and feeling from it, but I had the comfort of knowing that it was all just a story the characters were telling. It was comforting to know that it wasn’t real, so I felt safe and I loved to hear the scary stories, it was exciting.
This is why the Australian cartoon Bluely (and a cartoon puppy dog and her family is so well liked it’s not so dumb down and feels like a real family because her parents act like how real parents as well as do the kids) thought as a kid one of my fave stories was kind like Casper the friendly ghost; I mean i LOVED Care Bears but but I remember seeing the animated flim the last unicorn (it was on rerun on tv) and loving it even though I found it soo sad and still loved it (and I’m very happy the book behind it getting a reprint so I finally have a chance to read it and see what the movie left out)
Also remember 1st time I saw nightmare before Christmas; it was scary to kid me but i LOVED it being as I was learning about skeletons and through they where so cool
Ironically I found this video just as I was starting to reread the Redwall series because I was obsessed with it as a kid. There is so much messed up stuff in those "cute woodland critter" books, and I absolutely loved it.
Also something I worry about; that sterilization will slowly start expanding up in the age groups. I've seen some uncomfortably fangless media for teenagers. And the sheer jump from sterilized media to adult media full of sex and language almost seeming to reveal in it's debauchery. There is so little middle ground between the two coming out now.
A lot of media for the middle-aged lot is toothless too. Even the “adult” media is usually toothless behind the superficial debauchery.
I wonder what examples of that sterilized media exist so I can avoid them?
@@austinreed7343 one example of sterilized teen media was power rangers.. literally sterilized, in that the japanese version wasn't that adventurous, but the american version was sterilized even more
@@tsm688
Sentai in the late Heisei era was a fare cry from Dairanger or Liveman… & the final few PR series were even worse:
As someone who is still in early teenage hood, I still have a very clear memory of what it was like to be a child, and I can confirm that we indeed did want media that held challenges. I often sought out books made for people older than me, or tv made for adults so that I could find more interesting content than the rather boring and badly made stuff for kids.
I also hate the idea that children are dumb and don’t understand anything outside of what they’re taught. Children are people too and are more than able to process these things. I think your comment on children just having less context was very accurate. Children aren’t inherently stupid, but they need to gain this knowledge somehow, and media the best and safest way to do this.
I remember being like 5 or something when my mom let me watch the opening scene of A Nightmare On Elm Street or a few scenes from Child's Play 2 or Halloween and she would let me watch small amounts so I could be introduced to these awesome horror icons like Freddy Kruger, Chucky and Michael Myers, at a young age, but she would also tell me to leave the room when she knew it was going to be scary because she grew up with those movies and knew them inside and out, so I got the chance to be intrigued by all these cool things without being scarred for life. She taught me a trick, again at a young age, to just turn the volume down when you were worried about getting jumpscared and it worked. It was only once I got to my teenage years when I experienced these movies in their full glory.
Amazing video! Children are way smarter than we give them credit for. I remember being really young and especially enjoying the darker, more graphic stories. They frightened me, sure, but I loved that. I loved to learn and experience new emotions and concepts. That's something adults miss when writing for children. Humans, especially young ones, are extremely curious creatures. They want to keep learning. When these adult creators write for children, they only see themselves as a child. In this "lens of nostalgia" you mentioned, they see childhood as a simpler time when they weren't aware of the horrors of the world, and they, therefore, want to shield kids from anything even mildly explicit, almost preserving their innocence like you would a treasure.
"Children aren't stupid, they just lack context"
Finally some adult that gets it!
Oh yeah, also, I love the movie for coraline!
I feel like children’s media should be so much more meaningful than it is, and that sheltering children from the darkness that lingers in life and media can’t be a good thing.
The true narrative of fairy tales and mythology are dark and I love them for that, portraying them in a rose tinted perspective lessens the impact they have.
But it can’t be too dark and it has to be careful what it teaches children. Tim Burton level of dark should be sufficient at a young age. And throw in some Don Bluth too.
@@Master-Works agreed
In adulthood, I’ve always seen dragons in fiction as an allegory to a hard challenge that can be overcome and beat and you grow stronger from it. Also when I was a child, I loved movies like Coraline and Nine. I was fascinated by the environments and the story happening. I think the feeling of fear when watching these movies allowed to be feel more comfortable with adventure and the world now feels like a place worth exploring
I really feel this, like I've seen the effects of sheltering a child in the rose-colored light vs letting them see the darkness that exists. I used to watch things like Invader Zim and the Beetlejuice cartoon when I was a like around 10, and one day, in when I was 12, I invited one of my friends over for a sleepover, we watched half an episode of Beetlejuice, and she was so scared she had to go home. Sure the show is dark, but it is also ridiculous nonsense. She couldn't deal with any kind of dark fantasy comedy. Her parents never let her watch anything scary, she'd only read happy books or the "kid-safe" version of religious books, I don't think she had played a videogame until she was 11. Being homeschooled probably didn't expose her to other kids doing dangerous, scary things like they do, so she was in this bubble of safety. I lost contact with her when I was 15, but hopefully she learned to cope with the reality that life isn't bubblegum and rainbows, that horrifying things like death, war, and bloodshed happens. I wonder how she is dealing with the world today, with covid having killed millions, with the war in Ukraine, with the economy collapsing on our generation, and with school shootings. Life is and always was messy, frightening, and unpredictable, and its only getting worse, children need to know that, to see though it, and to overcome it.
I remember being terrified of some episodes of Thomas and Friends, about some of the trains almost getting killed, but I watched through the episode and it didn’t make me scared anymore. Those episodes became some of my favorites.
My favorite thing to tell people when they ask how I never had my rebellious phase is "my parents never hid alcohol or sex from me, I didn't understand it for awhile because I didn't hold. Contempt against my parents and didn't want to rebel because. What would I rebel against"
Your parents are awful
I remember when I was a kid I was always frustrated with children’s stories. I always felt they weren’t realistic and I was being given something watered down, though I probably wouldn’t have described it in that way back then.
It’s ok to want to protect your children, but when you’re doing it to the point where they’re being given an unrealistic portrayal of the world than I think that in itself can be harmful.
I truly agree with what you as a kid thought, I have always read books that were above my age bracket ( I.e reading stuff like Deltora Quest at 10 years of age ). I couldn’t put into words like you couldn’t as a kid, and I think you put it perfectly in saying that it felt watered down. It felt frustrating because I could not find stuff I wanted to read because it all looked the same to me ( strict tastes in novels also may have contributed to that ). This is why I personally appreciate things like Where the Wild Things Are and Bluey ( tv show in Australia ) because they cover themes that I personally find important that kids are exposed to at an early age. More children’s stories need to be like Coraline and Morozko.
This is the first (and definitely not the last) video I’ve seen of yours, but I would just like to say I LOVE your art style.
Great video it is so true. My mom let me watch Jurassic park in kindergarden. The deaths barely even registered, I just loved watching the dinosaurs and seeing the few people escape. Animorphs also did a great job of stratling this line between darkness and heroics. It had a lot of horror elements in it despite being made for 4th and 5th graders.
On the other hand, how graphic is too graphic? I remember a lot of people being upset about Power Rangers back in the day, I watched it every day and didnt turn out violent. I guess it is because of context, the good guys only beat up space aliens trying to hurt other people. It never depicted violence between people as a way to resolve things.
Animorphs was so good. I remember power rangers got a lot of flak when Lord Zedd showed up because the guy was pretty gruesome to look at; that was why he become a joke villain so very quickly.
I too watched JP as a child, and spent the whole movie being irritated they used frog DNA because frogs are AMPHIBIANS!
3:51: I APPRECIATE THE BEAR AND THE BIG BLUE HOUSE SHOT! Honestly, it felt like I was the only one who saw that. And did anyone else have it on VHS?
I was very sensitive child that was scared of a lot of things, including the Goofy Movie, specifically the beginning part and bigfoot later on, but later on in life i came to appreciate the darkness that media can provide.
I remember that my little sister was actually scared of being scared and that was horrifiying , she haves a great imagination and that means great nigthmares so she was always looking to avoid anithing that could cause them and even had one period were you couldn´t say anithing funny if it was late. But now she is way more capable of handeling it so I´m curious if she will enter soon this zone or if she is already on it
@@dantedharma6252 I hope she does, good luck to her!
@@dantedharma6252 There’s nothing to fear But fear itself. So If we get scared we should panic!
"The world is not to be hidden from. It is to be found." Spectacular
A story series that does things right is "Rowan of Rin" (especially the last book) by Emily Rodda. Although it's a children's book, it doesn't treat the reader as "dumb" or "stupid". It contains it's fair amount of violence but not so much to be outrageous. It works as any fantasy novel but by tuning it down a little making it suitable for everyone. It's not a masterpiece, but it really does show how a children's story can be a little dark for the sake of enjoyableness.
Let me share my cup of tea about this. People constantly go "this isn't a kid movie" bc as a society we've distanced ourselves from childhood. Thus why people say "this is for children and this is for adults."
P.S. I hate this btw.
As a 12 year old, I am so frustrated by the sterilisation of kids shows. Like, it's so hard for me to find something interesting unless it's for teens or adults. Coraline was the exception, and I was obsessed with it for 2 years, and I still like it now. I wonder if things would be different if kids wrote the stories..
@@hellolalala It makes me feel good to know there are others that can relate.
I'm 16 now, but I do remember being 10 and wanting to read books that had violence and action because that was where all the interesting stuff happened.
It's crazy seeing people on the internet look at the stuff I liked as a kid and say "no way this was made for kids!??" now.
Kids hate being bored.
@@eladseqweq13 Exactly my point, kids stuff is so watered down nowadays it's sickening.
This just reminded me of a story I read in year three (or third grade, whichever you prefer) about a little boy who 'loved living so much, he decided he would live forever'. I'd already been introduced to death by that point in my life (my grandfather had died the year prior, and I'd watched my dad cry after we set up funeral arrangements for him). I'd come to understand death, but I didn't realise until I read that little book that I hadn't realised that death applied to me as well.
It was a... *harrowing* moment of my childhood, as all childhoods are wont to be eventually, but the story continued with an elder telling the little boy that no-one lives forever and that he too would grow old and die. This made the boy sad, and he no longer played with him animal friends, nor frolicked and enjoyed life. But, after being reminded of how fun *life* was, he decided to live every day as if it would be his last, splashing with fishes, and playing with all of his animal friends. And after a long, fulfilled life, on his 100th birthday, he did in fact die.
...now, I haven't gotten to the *end* of my own story, but getting to see that little boy, maybe only a year younger than me, have the same heartbreaking realisation was probably a comfort I didn't realise I was receiving. Kids shouldn't be shielded from every unpleasant hardship. They can't develop context without... well, *context*. They just need to know that they can always turn to *their* adults to talk about the world of things they do not know.
My favorite movie of all time, since I first saw it as a child, is What Dreams May Come... Which is at it's core, about trauma, depression, death, loss, and even has suicide, which I understood the concepts of even then, even if not the depth.
kids love dark stuff!! Theres a reason five nights at freddy's is popular mostly with little kids, why courage the cowardly dog was huge, why goosebumps is beloved and scary stories to tell in the dark is a classic and creepypastas of wildly varying quality are read by largely kids! kids fucking LOVE creepy shit!!!
Not to mention all the edgy, gorey, very much dead dove do not eat level of fanfic they create.
The funny fing is - the concept of disneyfication is somehow related only to US/West. Many eastern slavic/baltic/nordic stories are very gruesome, downright gorry and at time rather sexualized (although that part is indeed milded down).
That’s the first step in disneyfication. The milding down.
I believe in this strongly as in 8th grade were forced to hear a book called I'm not scared I'm prepared but in a world were awful people walk into schools with weapons that kill crowds in seconds from far away telling kids this person is a big bad wolf whose "day we need to ruin" sounds like its not a problem like you could knock them over and that's just not good don't show the kids with cheery attitudes show some darkness have a intruder with a weapon a weapon that could hurt not the friendly janitor the problem is that this is a real threat a threat that can't be sugar coated because it won't be sugar coated when it happens
Here, have a few.
. . . . , , , ! ! ? ?
There's a reason why Wings of Fire (WoF) and Warriors (Warrior Cats) is very popuar compared to less gruesome and less traumatic stories (for the characters), as well as Five Nights At Freddy's. As a child, I loved the move "9", which people have said is for young adults. I also loved Igor, too.
The conservative definition of trauma is "anything that causes my child to ask questions that I don't want to answer".
also know as: shitty parenting.
I am a kid, (not a teen) and most things that I watch are true crime episodes and analog horror series, for the ladder what I find to help is watching the video of somebody reacting to it. for me it makes it less scary that way.
I think a good example of dark children’s media that shows just how well children can handle darker themes, look at Five Nights at Freddie’s. Sure it starts as a simple mascot horror game with some cheap jump scares, but as the franchise grew, so did the lore, lore consumed by children (even if through the medium of Markiplier dissecting some of the more complex stuff). It’s a game aimed at children, but is a story about a serial killer and the torment of his victims after their death, and children loved it, so much so that when we got old enough to buy our own movie tickets, they made a FNAF movie.
Also, I love the idea “Children aren’t stupid, they just lack context.”
Overly sheltering your child will give them more trauma than any piece of fiction.
I had friends who grew up like that in high school. They were scared of their own shadow, and had immense trouble with standing up for themselves or having any convictions of their own.
Not saying that letting them read or watch certain things would have completely changed that. However if their parents had the mentality to let them experience emotional struggle, I think they’d be able to stand on their own two feet with looking for approval.
Honestly I loved it that I grew up with a darker version of fairy tales and I loved it, same goes for movies that were more complicated. I learned the meaning of them much later but it made me love them even more now. It always made my fantasy storys I imagined myself, go places
This video was so ... refreshing? Healing? It's just so good. As someone who had a really shitty childhood, I *despise* the stereotype of "longing for childhood" and how people not only act like it's universal, but project it onto living children. The overly sanitized, happy, simple version of childhood just... isn't real. It isn't what kids experience. Even for people who aren't really traumatized or have deep psychological issues because of their childhood like me, the way children experience life is just as real and scary as it is for adults. You are so right about like... how people prefer to sell adult's fantasies of childhood rather than real experiences of children. And... something that wasn't mentioned in the video but I thought might be important to point out is that... trying to over-shelter children from dark things can often shove them into those things faster as soon as they realize something is being "hidden" from them. Often, when something seems "forbidden" or like people are trying to hide it from you, it feels really frustrating, so you seek it out on your own instead, sometimes in less safe, controlled, or darker ways. This applies to a lot more than just stories, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who jumped into stories I wasn't ready to handle yet because I was tired of being sheltered from anything that might be "bad" or "dark" at all. By not being exposed to such topics in a controlled environent, it can lead to issues later down the line of experiencing things you aren't ready for, or end up sheltering you TOO badly when you realize you've grown much older and still don't understand/don't think you're okay with something that you feel everyone else your age thinks is normal, and now it feels much too late an intimidating to try to understand it. This is just... so important, and while it goes beyond fiction, as you can probably tell from what I"m saying here, it's definitely important in fiction.
I appreciate dark stories like Hansel and Gretel. A witch that eats children, luring them in with friendly and sweet looks. That's a fiction based on a real danger, and a great way to introduce stranger danger.
0:05 bro you had to bring back this flash back? I cried for years at this scene😭
I want to be a mom (currently trying) and hearing this gives me hope and ideas and thoughts for my future children. This is beautiful...
Something I should add, growing up, I was very sheltered when it came to things like this and didn't get to experience this kind of growth until later in my life. The scary things I did experience were, let's just say, something a child should not have experienced like I did. I never learned how to properly process it until very recently, surprisingly. I'm only 24...
This is something I wish more people, especially those making mainstream media, would understand more.
One of my favorite memories of watching TV as a kid was when I watched an episode of Danny Phantom that wasn't quite like the others.
This episode showed that ten years into the future, Danny became a menace to the world and his home, Amity Park. The future is portrayed as a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is forced to live in fear for the day that their defenses are breached and Danny can be let inside.
Danny sees this future and tries to prevent it by manipulating time with the help of another ghost, but doesn't realize that he's stuck in a time-loop where he will always become a monster. He will always lose his friends and family in the same horrific accident, always go to his father's manipulative college friend, Vlad to ask for the pain to go away, Vlad will always rip Danny's ghost half and human half apart, and his ghost half will always do the same to Vlad in order to fuse their ghost halves together and kill his human half. Nothing Danny does can help, and everything he does will only lead him closer to the future he dreads.
I loved how dark this episode was and the concepts it introduced me too. To be able to see a devastating future and think you can change it, only for it to be a horribly inevitable fate, is something I'm glad I got to see at such a young age. The death, loss, sorrow, fear, and dread shown in that episode are all things I think more kids should be introduced to when they're old enough to understand it, but still young enough to have time before they have to face it themselves
I remember staying up to read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and raised my kids on Fairy Tales.
I'm the kind of person who watches content like this, and thinks about questions like this, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that I give my kids something of a free hand in the media they consume. Of course, we live at a time when, given free reign, kids have more fiction available to them than ever before, so it is interesting to see what they choose, and challenging to guide them in those choices.
Case in point: I was scrolling through my content last night, and passed some Backrooms stuff, when my four year old daughter exclaimed, "That looks like Backroom! I love Backroom!" There is an entire ecosystem of Backrooms machinima made with Roblox, published right here on UA-cam, and she's a fan. I've watched it, and it's a lighter version of full-fat Backrooms content, but it's not Cocomelon or Paw Patrol.
There is a reason that a chow like Bluey, with some of the challenging topics it touches, is the mainstream hit it is. It's the same reason that indy animation and machinima is having the glowup it is right now: both kids and parents are craving fiction that hasn't had the humanity sanitized out of it. I don't love the manipulative tactics a lot of these creators use to drive engagement ("like this video to have me do A, subscribe to have me do B" nonsense), but it's hardly any worse than the questionable (at best) social messaging of the transparent toy commercial that is Paw Patrol.
Return to oz was special to me as a kid because it wasn't afraid to get weird and freak me out. It gave me respect and reverence for the film.
I remember loving 1000 ways to die and Untold Stories of the ER.
I remember romanticizing death and graphic content.
I did grow out of it as I aged, and started realizing those weren't just TV shows, those were real people that suffered.
What helped me was those documentary shows about survivors of animal attacks.
Seeing the person talk about their trauma made me see beyond the TV screen.
Today my favorite genre of art is both Body Horror and Cute animals lol
as a child who is heavily invested in horror media, it gives me chills to realize that I've basically been gaslit into thinking i want happy when almost none of my favorite stories are happy.
That’s not what gaslighting is.
When I was little I had a book of various 'stories for little girls' and you had your fair share of innocent stories but there was also a lot of darker ones. A lot of ones were slightly loyal to the original versions of stories that got disneyfied. They weren't perfect but I read about the little mermaid dying, I read about a lot of stuff that arent 'child-friendly'. I also got my hands on a version of the snow queen, minus the actual reason the mirror shards were spread about.
I hate how adults think children don't see 'you're too young to know' worst thing ever said, your child know themselves MORE then you.
agreed. i was a terrified child, the youngest and a real cry baby. if i wasn't being scared by my older brother i was working myself into an imaginary terror alone in my room looking at the dark opening of the closet, paralyzed with fear and being sent running and screaming at the slightest settling of the house. but my favorite stories growing up were always thinks like the black cauldron, the dark crystal, and the series "the storyteller." then later right at the start of middle school i gained access to the internet and almost exclusively watched anime from then on, which is known for being generally far more mature.
then as a teen and now as an adult im one of the most mentally stable people i know. looking around at all my peers who seem to be more and more afflicted with anxiety, depression, delusion. even my own brother who was always the bully now being emotionally so sensitive i have to be careful not to make him cry over something innocuous.
im sure there was more to it but im absolutely certain the media i preferred growing up shaped a significant amount of my character and mental fortitude
When I was younger I thought Coraline was intense and creepy but I LOVED it. I loved the feeling it gave me after watching it. It didn't feel like it was trying to insult my intelligence. A lot of the things I watched as a kid like avatar: the last Airbender (my fav and best example) felt more interesting because like you mentioned, they included conflict ( and a storyline I could follow instead of things happening in one episode that was never mentioned again) great video 💗
as a teen, i 100% agree that kids need something darker. heres how i see it:
kids are going to have to learn about things like death, blood, destruction, murder, narcissists, etc one day, so the best way to help them cope is to make movies, books and such in a digestible way for them. thats why puss in boots: the last wish is so loved. its helped people like me who feared death cope with the idea of death and how it will come eventually, and to cherish what you have.
of course the occasional fun, simple movie, book, whatever is fine. but it shouldnt be the only thing children watch.
im so tired of parents who wont let their children experience anything. i had to grow up fast, so seeing kids know nothing is just so disheartening. children are people, and they should be treated as such
I think this is why I loved the Sonic Movies. They have darkness on them, but they don't run away from it. There's sadness, loneliness, obsession, the possibility to die along with those you love... But they use that darkness to make their messages stronger. There are terrible things out there, but you can beat them. You may be alone, but that loneliness won't be forever. Even the most cool and powerful can be afraid. Humans can be the worst of enemies. Your family will always be there to help you stop those monsters.
Non of these messages would be as strong as they are without having seen these guys struggling, and overcoming a great danger. And that's why I love them.