My Nannying Job from Hell: a rant on modern marketing
I have been doing full-time nannying jobs for the past 6 years. For 6 years I have loved the job. It provides great hours, I make a good bit over minimum wage, and as a business major, I end up making some great professional connections with the parents. I have been very lucky with the families I have worked for. Usually, by the end of the summer I feel as though I am a part of the family and leave on the last day kinda sad that it's over. But, that was the PAST 6 years; this was year 7 and it freaking sucked.
I learned a lot this summer about myself, about people and about how people can really just, well, suck. I also learned that there is a new trend of marketing that is destroying children and parents are okay with it.
There were many things that were horrible about this job, so much so that I can not even adequately type out the entire thing in a blog. I knew it was going to be bad when the previous nanny reached out to me and apologized for the summer I was about to have. Great.(*insert upside down smiley emoji*) From being under paid, to be screamed at by an 11 year old daily, to the parents deciding to put the children on a special diet that made me have to serve them sandwich meat on a plate with nothing else for days on end, and much more, the summer spiraled downhill fast. Though, out of all of the bad things that happened, there was one thing that was the worst of them all; YouTube.
There is a new trend going on with younger children where they are obsessed with watching other kids open and play with new toys. Some clever (evil) people on the internet have realized this and decided to cash in on the opportunity. Welcome to a new era where kids choose to watch other children on YouTube play with toys rather than play with the same exact toys that are sitting in front of them. This summer the little boy I nannyed for was very hyperactive and the only thing that would make him sit still was watching these YouTube channels and the parents decided that this was okay.
Children are OBSESSED with these videos! They get millions and millions of views and they are not even good videos. The families that have these youtube accounts are paid by toy companies to video tape their kids playing with the different objects. It is a whole new, intrusive form of marketing. I spent hours in Target this past summer listening to the little boy run up and down the toy aisles begging to get the same toys that he sees on YouTube. The videos are typically a poorly designed plot that equally as poorly disguises the marketing of toys. Here is an example:
Trust me. Click on it. Do it. You need to see it.
Did that make you want to pull your hair out? Now imagine having that on for 5+ hours each day. It's sad that over the past few years that I have been working with children I have watched parents rely on technology more and more to keep their kids attention rather than taking the time to show them other outlets. The kids who watch these videos are very impressionable and I have experienced this first hand. The family that produces the video above do not have many rules for their children. On video, they yell "no" at their parents or even punch them and get rewarded with new toys. One time, I watched the little boy see the kids on screen punch their dad and he immediately ran into the next room and asked his mom for something and when she told him no, he punched her in the leg. No, he was not punished.
I hope that this marketing trend will die out soon. It really is going to have to be something that parents actively fight against. The video above has over 5million views. These families are being paid to endorse the products and are being paid per view by YouTube. The more that kids are allowed to watch the more motivation they have to keep going.
I learned a lot this summer about myself, about people and about how people can really just, well, suck. I also learned that there is a new trend of marketing that is destroying children and parents are okay with it.
There were many things that were horrible about this job, so much so that I can not even adequately type out the entire thing in a blog. I knew it was going to be bad when the previous nanny reached out to me and apologized for the summer I was about to have. Great.(*insert upside down smiley emoji*) From being under paid, to be screamed at by an 11 year old daily, to the parents deciding to put the children on a special diet that made me have to serve them sandwich meat on a plate with nothing else for days on end, and much more, the summer spiraled downhill fast. Though, out of all of the bad things that happened, there was one thing that was the worst of them all; YouTube.
There is a new trend going on with younger children where they are obsessed with watching other kids open and play with new toys. Some clever (evil) people on the internet have realized this and decided to cash in on the opportunity. Welcome to a new era where kids choose to watch other children on YouTube play with toys rather than play with the same exact toys that are sitting in front of them. This summer the little boy I nannyed for was very hyperactive and the only thing that would make him sit still was watching these YouTube channels and the parents decided that this was okay.
Children are OBSESSED with these videos! They get millions and millions of views and they are not even good videos. The families that have these youtube accounts are paid by toy companies to video tape their kids playing with the different objects. It is a whole new, intrusive form of marketing. I spent hours in Target this past summer listening to the little boy run up and down the toy aisles begging to get the same toys that he sees on YouTube. The videos are typically a poorly designed plot that equally as poorly disguises the marketing of toys. Here is an example:
Trust me. Click on it. Do it. You need to see it.
Did that make you want to pull your hair out? Now imagine having that on for 5+ hours each day. It's sad that over the past few years that I have been working with children I have watched parents rely on technology more and more to keep their kids attention rather than taking the time to show them other outlets. The kids who watch these videos are very impressionable and I have experienced this first hand. The family that produces the video above do not have many rules for their children. On video, they yell "no" at their parents or even punch them and get rewarded with new toys. One time, I watched the little boy see the kids on screen punch their dad and he immediately ran into the next room and asked his mom for something and when she told him no, he punched her in the leg. No, he was not punished.
I hope that this marketing trend will die out soon. It really is going to have to be something that parents actively fight against. The video above has over 5million views. These families are being paid to endorse the products and are being paid per view by YouTube. The more that kids are allowed to watch the more motivation they have to keep going.
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