How To Spot YouTube Videos And Shows That Are Disturbing For Children

Peppa Pig gets her face buzzsawed by Venom. A grown-ass man talks like a 3-year-old as he sucks on a Minion-shaped ice cream. An infant cries loudly when Princess Jasmine’s head is placed on Aladdin’s body. These are not Bob Iger’s fever dreams, they’re videos recently deleted from the YouTube Kids platform after the video service was found serving up gobs of questionable content to unquestioning kids. The scandal, dubbed #ElsaGate, took parents by surprise with many shocked and concerned because, well, it’s disturbing stuff. But, in truth, it’s not all actually disturbing for kids. Some of it is benign. Parents just struggle to tell the difference because they see the world through adult eyes and, through adult eyes, all these videos look like they were directed by David Lynch after dropping acid.

“You have to be a certain age to fear certain things,” explains Dr. Joanne Cantor, author of Teddy’s TV Troubles. She notes that while adults might find a grown man acting like a baby deeply disturbing, kids will likely be highly entertained an adult is behaving in a childlike way. On the other hand, images or situations that parents may see as no big deal can have an outsized effect on a child’s psyche. “Something vividly showing a child or child-like character in peril is much scarier than things that bother us as adults,” she says.