The Kid's Horror Spiral

[@TheTaleFoundry]

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[@missmozzarella5487]

Mr.talefoundry you looked at the wrong things this what you showed was no brain rott

[@ZayZay017]

Wall it is brain rot, it’s not good example of it. Good work on the child lore stuff I’ve bin doing it for years without noticing

[@MoondustManwise]

ngl I wouldn't consider the infection mlp aus as childlore, since most of the people participating in it aren't children at all, but adults who were in the fandom as kids.

[@Hexagonal865]

Wanted to watch this but it’s night Damn it

[@spideygaming2001]

@@TheTaleFoundry damn, you rwally know nothing about Skibidi toilet, omg, ive never been dissappointed in you until now

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

The idea of Horror Mascots being profitable enough to get its own merch towards younger demographic (like Huggy Wuggy from Poppy's Playtine) has the same energy as how R-Rated films like _Robocop,_ _Toxic Avengers,_ _Terminator_ and _Rambo_ are marketable to sell toys to kids.

[@Dragowolf_Rising]

Don't forget Alien and Aliens. I had xonomorph toys.

[@Stephen-Fox]

Some of them also got children's cartoon adaptations - For example I remember watching cartoons based on both Robocop and _checks notes_ Attack of the Killer Tomatoes as a kid... (no, seriously, why did a fairly niche 1978 comedy-horror musical become a franchise in the late 80s and early 90s with both sequels and an animated children's series?)

[@Dragowolf_Rising]

@@Stephen-Fox Attaaaaaaack of the killer tomatoooees!

[@adrianakanska1295]

Why are you everywhere

[@staticaleel5068]

Honestly given that historical context, I’m completely fine with kids latching onto popular horror just as they did with violent action movies in the 80’s. Sure it’s way more cringe than it was in the 80’s, but nothing against it personally. God knows I definitely did the same. However, the whole brain rot epidemic on the internet is horrid, like it doesn’t feel like a normal enjoyment of media anymore, it’s legit making them stupid.

[@dogdemon1522]

"gone are the ways of neopets--" me, an adult, with neopets in a separate tab pulled up as we're about to celebrate the 25th anniversary tomorrow: *HEAVY SWEATING*

[@KiiVoltos]

NO BUT SAME-

[@sprinkletragedy]

Millennials still having an attachment to Neopets is my favourite thing. I have approximately 20 Lennies and I have no intention of stopping, haha.

[@KiiVoltos]

@@sprinkletragedy My husband is the same with Draiks XD I have a few species I'm attached to (I'm early gen z not millennial but the sentiment is still there)

[@sanityisrelative]

I long forgot my password and don't have access to the email account I used to sign up. My Kougras have been abandoned and I feel bad at least once a month about that.

[@Packlunch]

My ears perked up when Neopets was mentioned, lol. I’m still there as well 🤣

[@DropsOfMars]

In FNAF 1's defense, it didn't TRY to cater to kids intentionally. ADULTS knew animatronic animals were creepy, establishments like Chuck E Cheese had long fallen out of favor. Then it was a surprise hit with kids and what do you know, it was colorful mascots that did the trick.

[@dionettaeon]

There's also the fact that Scott Cawthon originally made FNAF in response to criticism that one of his previous game's mascots gave off the vibes of a creepy animatronic. And he made those previous games _intending_ for them to be child friendly.

[@gscsilvavaladares7065]

Yeah , the creator only created the game because of some comments telling that the models that he made for his past games looked scary so he did his shot at it , and ohhhh boy he had no half of an ideia how far this would go.

[@Chronuz]

And the fact that it didn't have gratuitous realistic gore like most horror media had, made it safe atleast visually, to kids.

[@TheMightyO999]

My issue is when people lump poppy playtime in with something like skibidi toilet or garten of banban, at the end of the day Poppy playtime is still a very gory game with some dark themes, just look at chapter 3 and some of the things in it. It's not made for kids, and I'm annoyed that Tale Foundry (who I respect and enjoy a lot) is lumping the game where kids are drugged and surgically transferred into monstrous forms with SKIBIDI TOILET.

[@King63Kobra]

I think people also under sell how much children are obsessed with the macabre. Children are infatuated with death and fear because those are two things they don't really understand. Not only do adults understand that old animatronixs like chucky cheese are uncanny, so do the kids. Freddy Fazbear appeals to them too because it's massively relatable. The same reason why kids were into movies like Chucky. Yeah, of course kids are gonna be enthralled by a film about a killer doll coming to life and attacking a kid! It's practically *about* their feelings

[@marcusguerrero8755]

You guys remember crazy frog, Hampton the Hamster, peanut butter jelly time, Amazing horse, Badger badger badger, or oogachaka baby. What comes to my mind is the HUGE stick figure animation craze that swept kids and adults alike. Brain rot was a big part of our lives we’ve just forgot lol.

[@CryptidZealot]

And that's a very good point, we got incels out of it. Our brainrot consisted of a lot of 🌽 and the result wasn't pretty. You say that we also had brain rot like our own generation doesn't have internet addicted people.

[@This_awesomeguy64]

Crazy frog was a banger ngl

[@hermithefrog629]

Yep. Life was never better, it just came out around our time and seemed new to us

[@yodxxx1]

Nono For us it is culture Everybody else who likes strange stuff has brainrot xD

[@yodxxx1]

​@@CryptidZealotpron is probably even more prevelant now tbh xD However i think incels arent really linked to that, but more other problems, and it just gets blames on pron because thats the easiest target, like how fps games get blamed for a bunch of bad stuff all the time

[@simonsnowlock5937]

the true horror is kids no longer having a safe place online, designated for them. and children wanting to ve influencers/ being concerned with how they appear online is sad, concerning, and dangerous.

[@fjordivae3007]

even in real life, we're starting to have a lack of þird places. it sucks because it's eiþer home or school and if you live in some suburban hellscape or an insanely rural area then you kinda have nowhere to go. where do we go to play and hang out? malls are dying god dammit

[@Cubeytheawesome]

Yeah, on Bluesky, someone was talking about what the Darkness from that rejected show Pibby, and one person mentioned that the darkness was likely meant to represent the loss of childhood

[@DarthBiomech]

The true horror is that kids _can't_ have such a safe space. Eventually but inevitably, it gets accounts that _aren't_ kids...

[@kqlolll2618]

Kids shouldnt even be online anyway, but if your dumb enough to let a child have internet access then your probably a bad parent, anyone with a mind seeing a person shove a tablet in front of their kids face instead of teaching them knows they are a bad parent, since they only care for themselves not being bothered and not about the child itself, and that also shows they shouldn't have had kids in the first place.

[@lubue5795]

@@kqlolll2618 I don't agree. It's the reality now that being online is important and expected. Companies hire via websites, school sometimes send material that way etc. And it will only become more and more important. There's no denying that. Keeping children fully way from the online world to protect them seems to me similar like not teaching them about death, smoking and other "grown up" topics. Instead of banning it, you should teach your child about it, let it gather experiences in a protected and safe environment where you can also control what they sees and explain to them what it is. Because you won't be able to keep it away from them forever. They will hear about it at school or from friends. At some points, they'll find a way to get access to it, be that at a public library, a friend's place or in some other way. We should know that much from alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc.Trying to keep your child away from something will only make that something more interesting, while at the same time does not help them to understand what's dangerous about it.

[@lancerguy3667]

I do think there's a nature to kids that has always been around that parents are kind of just blind to for a while. I remember my nephews were talking about Among Us a few years back, and my mother made a crack about how kids are always pretending to fight and betray each other these days. I was, like, "'These days'!? Are you under the impression that little boys playing Cowboys and Indians in their back yards during the 1950's were pretending to make happy friends with each other?"

[@catdownthestreet]

That's really funny

[@gabsmarg4048]

This^ when the kids i was trying to teach English to presented me a drawn picture of an among us character with a fat ass I didn’t come back after that

[@Dekubud]

Absolutely true! My mom has always been good on that aspect and when people complain about how kids are "these days", she reminds them that when they were kids and played Cowboy, they argued all the time about who was dead and who wasn't lol

[@jadedesigns6171]

Kids are 100% dark

[@QualityCandor]

The brainrot issue is less to do with mascot horror and stuff like "Skibidi toilet" in and of itself, but the frenetic pace and sensory overwhelming nature of the content around them. Games are able to control pace through gameplay and the player, but video content in a nonstop stream thru sites like TikTok and KZbin Shorts, dumped into youngsters' eyes with no context, and often no adult supervision, is where a lot of the concern comes from. There are reports of markedly shortened attention spans, and concerns with cognitive development. I do agree that the story elements themselves are not necessarily the culprit (I myself was equal parts horrified and fascinated as a youngster by FNAF), but the concept of brainrot here is a bit misunderstood.

[@katarzynamedynska1682]

You're right

[@animeandwieardness6132]

Cocomelon is a bigger threat

[@princesspikachu3915]

Cocomelon is just awful.

[@KirbyZilla]

I mean he talking about horror mascots specifically…. Not really umm…. Misinterpreted…. At the end of the day he did talk about lack of supervision, but that’s due to being on the Internet for too long. That will be to you and that’s the parents fault. That’s what he talked about here so it’s not really he’s not really misunderstanding. He’s pretty clear about it. Maybe it’s just your interpretation of it.

[@Zachsomervill1249]

Coco melon is another sign of brain rot and it's supposed to be a show for babies

[@CrazyMama75]

As the parent of kids who've got autism and one of which will seek out horror stories, the scarier the better. I tried encouraging what I saw as "safer" kids horror like goosebumps but the more I tried to avoid fnaf and poppy playtime and skibidi (my youngest doesn't like most horror but loves skibidi). But eventually I realised that some kids feel real horror everyday. Like the trauma that comes from trying to live in a world that you don't feel safe in, or feel like you don't fit in, or where you never know which of the adults around you will be safe and supportive or authoritarian and cruel, intentionally or not. So I realised, my kid (the one who loves horror) has so many traumas that I need to support her through each day, so having some content that can help her process those fears and feelings can have value, even if I don't grasp it. I've never enjoyed horror as a genre but I can understand that if other adults enjoy certain genres more than others, why can't kids. Plus, even with content control and constant surveillance from me when my kids were online, I couldn't protect them from the stories because they'd hear everything on the playground anyway. We've never watched squid games, yet my kids knew everything about it, more than me (I had to watch several discussion KZbin videos on the show to understand what they were talking about). And places like kids KZbin are actually so full of trolls making deliberately gross and problematic videos, that it's like there is no way to fully protect our kids online. So I decided to change my approach. Instead of fighting to protect them, I decided to support them through these contents and learn to think critically about what they're consuming. I set all the family devices to the same KZbin adult channel, that I could keep on top of on my phone without them feeling like I don't trust them, and I took more time from my day to watch content with them and have conversations about what we're watching, what it means, how it makes us feel, etc. Which also means I've had to face my own fears, cos I hate horror, especially the gross bloody stuff (due to my own childhood trauma), so I can best support my children with these interests. Instead of fighting the new cultural norms for kids thesedays, I meet them on their level and then we can work together through the content and help them better process and understand the meanings and lore and morals, etc. And my kids have been thrilled to show me these interests, I've noticed they've become less obsessive about it all now they're not having to be sneaky to keep up with their friends. They still enjoy the horror, especially the lore and layers and story telling, but in a healthier sense (I hope). I personally can't stand FNAF or skibidi, it seems so pointless to me, but then so was lonnytunes and other stuff I watched as a kid. Like one of my fav cartoons as a kid was one where Penelope Pitstop was being constantly kidnapped by dastardly so-in-so and recused by a cartoon network version of snow whites dwarfs. Like alot of playtime when I was little was of friends tying each other up with skipping ropes and scarfs on the playground and being kidnapped or rescued over n over again. If my kids played a game like that I'd be horrified lol. Better we adapt with the times through conversations, sharing knowledge and teaching our kids to think critically rather than blindly consume content. Or that's what I believe anyway, others will have their own parenting approaches that work for their families.

[@jmrabinez9254]

Why do you say that the child of yours who loves horror had so many traumas? I would like to understand better. Just asking out of intrigue.

[@sonicloverlol2]

I don't understand why you can't stand fnaf

[@lainiwakura1776]

Your kid does not experience trauma everyday, unless you're abusing them or something.

[@MsIvalane]

Living in a world hostile to the way you *are* is traumatic as hell; you sound like a good and thoughtful parent

[@StudioHannah]

To those commenting about and not understanding the “daily trauma” thing… that’s ok! I’ll try to explain for those who are genuinely curious. People who have autism or other conditions/disorders where interacting with the world is hard can have happy lives and be cared for, but still have daily difficulties that can be anywhere from annoying to traumatic depending on how sensitive the person is. Imagine having a headache that won’t go away. Some days it might be a little better than others, but if a friend asks you to go on a run with them you either can’t go, or you go and have to deal with the pounding in your head the whole time. Or, if you have a friend that understands your headache condition, maybe you ask them to come over for a puzzle and some tea instead, which will still be painful for you but less so. You can’t just enjoy the time freely like they can, even if you do have a good time with them. That adds up over time and just makes you feel tired and over it, and that is a daily issue. It might not be exactly “trauma” every day, but it’s something that never quite goes away and makes everyday things feel harder than they should, yet you’re still often expected to function like everyone else who doesn’t have an eternal headache. People learn to deal with these things (I have), and can thrive alongside the difficulties, especially when they have the support of family and friends who help them deal with the “headache” in some ways so they can learn to deal with the “headache” on their own - and know when to ask for help and accommodations when they can’t - when they’re older. Hope that helps in understanding.

[@Volcano22207]

Part of the root problem is that companies are trying to be an “everything site” without separating kids and adults Combined with no places for kids in person (at least in the US) outside of schools and it leads to them being rampant everywhere

[@musicsbricabrac7195]

Yep, I find it quite easy, even cowardly, to summarize the situation "well in fact the children have always done it like that" or the opposite "the children were better before". If we have created child protection laws over the decades and changes in perspectives, it's not for shit

[@Volcano22207]

@@musicsbricabrac7195 to some extent is it’s just kids being kids , but ya the real issue is when it’s capitalized on for gain (Elsa gate and cheap slop content) But also parents need to parent and it’s gotten harder since they both need to work in this economy

[@j.2512]

there should be no separation, kids should not be online , period.

[@admin-ji2pu]

@@j.2512 Good luck with that

[@aaronlopez5163]

⁠@@j.2512as unfortunate as it is, it’s far too late for that now. The mistakes of adults who took the easy way out have grown to be irreparable and because of that, there is no fix, merely patches to the problem. FNAF has been able to regain control of its enormous community due the experience of the creator who was able to interact with his community every chance he got. Scott made the right move to expand Five Nights at Freddy’s as control over the children in that mess of a community was regained but the same can’t be said about Bendy and Mob’s pet project. They do not care as much as Scott did and thus, the fanbase is allowed to run rampant and inadvertently cause chaos without any leashes. I’m worried that the same thing might happen with Indigo Park but Mason has the advantage of it being known only to the target audience and thusly the fandom being subservient to him. What needs to happen is for Mascot horror creators to do what they can to minimize their fanbases to keep them under control and not cause unintended spill over. It sounds incredibly authoritarian but it’s our only choice at the moment.

[@SteppefordWife]

I'm glad this wasn't just another "x is bad for kids" or "kids are stupid" video that tends to crop up in discussions of mascot horror. Never thought about it as folklore, but that fits so well!

[@marvibun]

I always enjoy artistic breakdowns of those kinds of games, because usually, the discussion is never about the games at the end of the day. It always boils down to artistic integrity, the lack thereof, and how much we just need media for children that has more complex nuances.

[@Cubeytheawesome]

I agree, because I think the reason society isn’t doing well these days is because children aren’t doing fine. Their entertainment now is lackluster, there aren’t any spaces for them, parents are concerned about what schools are teaching them, and Their getting reheated leftovers on TV rather than fresh and original content. With the rise of indie content, it’s important to have some stuff made for kids. It may be risky, but it’s really important.

[@angel_of_rust]

good children's media at large has been slowly fading away, sadly.

[@princesspikachu3915]

What about Bluey? As a parent, that show is a godsend.

[@jadedesigns6171]

@@princesspikachu3915Bluey is one of the exceptions to the rule

[@OpossumIRL]

As a folklorist myself, I appreciate how you talk about it here. Something I’m always having to convey to my students is that folklore is not a thing of the past- it’s created and recreated every day. I will say, although we were largely established by anthropologists, we are our own academic discipline now! There’s certainly still a lot of overlap, but we use different approaches/methods

[@unluckyp]

You were right about horror being a petri dish for this kind of stuff. I still remember being a 10-11 year old tasked with writing a horror story and mine was just a Slenderman fan fiction which ended with the protagonist's younger brother dying.

[@SayisSpeakin]

The goosebumps book series was really popular. Kids have always loved to get scared, it doesn’t mean they’re dumber or that they got brain rot. I also think those mascot horror games got some artistic integrity that’s worth looking at with sincerity. Kids are cool cause they don’t pass immediate judgement on the things and media that they engage with

[@musicsbricabrac7195]

That's the difference, it's a book and not a speam of shorts contents that influence even us, adults, when website like tiktok was create to make us stay longer, and consum again and again. Hype to be in some year with the next recommendation on kids

[@gemstone108]

@@musicsbricabrac7195 thankfully kids still read Goosebumps too. They made a graphic novel of The Haunted Mask!

[@gemstone108]

@@musicsbricabrac7195 Goosebumps still exists! They made The Haunted Mask into a graphic novel recently

[@Twink6629-lg3te]

It suck’s how milked to DEATH popular kids games and content gets. There is an absurd amount of FNAF merch doomed to fill up landfills in the next couple years, I hate how toys marketed for kids from popular games and brands make the cheapest slop and its mass produced and marketed. Some of the FNAF toys are just cheap TACK but kids will want anything with FNAF on it. (Not all of them are bad I personally collected action figures when I was younger of FNAF) but how many god damn plushies are they gonna make there has to be like 1000 now!

[@Remove-x3w]

How fitting this comes out when Piglet's Big Game has become "Baby's first Silent Hill."

[@andrewthomasprism9388]

I've already gotten two separate news articles about it...

[@lincolnmiller4757]

Me too

[@BBWahoo]

Finally, the normies get to talk about one of my favorite games!

[@bsgfan1]

Among Us is technically “baby’s first The Thing” considering it was directly inspired by it

[@ally5993]

Skibidi toilet's humour actually reminds me a lot of early 2000s internet humour! I remember watching equally absurd things on sites like newgrounds and albinoblacksheep, so I'm surprised that so many of us forget that. Kids will be kids, always.

[@seashell3403]

Exactly!! I’m a teen and I don’t exactly find the appeal, but I really can’t judge given the stuff I thought was funny lmao. The fact is, kids are always gonna be weird, that’s just how we are lol.

[@gremlin8604]

4:00 Wait, so, can "Ring around the Rosie" be considered 19-century brainrot because kids use a sinister song allegedly describing a girl that dies of Great Plague and is cremated as a game?

[@alephorsmth9140]

oh my god imagine 200 years into the future people start singing the huggy wuggy song not knowing what it meant

[@russianvalkyrie2358]

Thats not true its a myth. Its not actually about the plague at all.

[@Phantomcrustacean]

Research has shown that there isn’t any connection to the black plague, no one’s really sure where exactly it came from

[@ATHFNoobie]

There is no evidence to support it being about that. That interpretation only started in the 1950s. Also English version is roses not Rosie. Suggesting more it's not about a person

[@gemstone108]

@@ATHFNoobiethere’s lots of other children’s nursery rhymes that are likely about much darker topics. The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz did an episode on nursery rhymes that goes into them more in depth!

[@roxywolfdragon]

I’m one of those Fnaf kids, as early as 8 years old I was enjoying the games and characters and talking about its lore on the playground. To this day, it is still one of my most passionate special interests and I’m about 6 months away from being an adult. I look back and just remember how much this series made me smile, I made so many friends and picked up awesome hobbies. I was initially scared of it as a kid but that only drew me in more, considering I have a really morbid sense of curiosity (I’ve always loved parasites, other infectious diseases and disaster documentaries from as early as I can remember). The takeaway is that content like this is positive and lets kids explore things like social interaction, connecting dots of storylines, creativity and just having fun! Now I’m sitting here with my collection of Funko and Hex Fnaf plushies and figures and thankful that I did interact with Fnaf like I did

[@sonicloverlol2]

If you like fnaf, I suggest you to watch the nightmare fredbear encounters by foxy faction and family comes first a short horror film based on fnaf.

[@notthisyourlight]

Freak

[@Rapid26]

This video really has opened my eyes and gave me a different perspective on "brain rot". Never really thought of it just children being children and having fun with it. Thanks for the different pov Tale Foundry.

[@HolyApplebutter]

Imo, as much as kids get flak for it (even in my own mind), the worst part of brainrot has never been the kids but the creators capitalizing on it. Kids just go off and have fun with things, it's adults that create these annoying brainrot videos like "SIRENHEAD VS SONIC.EXE IN MINECRAFT???" They should be the hated ones, not the kids.

[@serazvi5387]

That's surprising for me, when people talk about brain rot all I can think about is the lolrandom XD humor that was pervasive when I was a kid. Same tiger, different stripes 😂 kids are just a little more exuberant I guess

[@Vekuyo]

@@serazvi5387yeah, the brainrot content never really changed much. Its just way more available and publicly shared now and the parents are finally noticing. Only select kids knew of newgrounds or ebaums world back in the early 2000s. Gmod shitposts and brainrot memes were common among gamer kids in early 2010s. Every kid knows skibidi toilet in the 2020s.

[@TheRandomMan001]

This is probably the most mature take on this topic I’ve seen in a looooong time.

[@NoraYui-Music]

"kids these days, back in my day; kids smoked and went to war"

[@SugarF-AJ]

Fr though 💀

[@TomTriyingtothink]

Nope back then people were skinny and weak unlike 50 years earlier.

[@kaekaesam6240]

Jeez ok great great great grand parent , 0-0

[@angryrabidfoxes7380]

You know there’s something to be said about neither era being problem free

[@TomTriyingtothink]

@@angryrabidfoxes7380 True life has always been hard and always will be in one way or another. Its hard to properly evaluate the problems of today without hindsight.

[@Pumpkinheadedman]

You've managed to explain this in a way I haven't seen anyone else do, and it's opened my eyes a little. I guess we all learn something new everyday.

[@illogicalconsistency]

At 6:25, something legit clicked inside me when you said Folklore That makes, like so much sense. It’s always been like this, always iterative

[@pluvion]

I run a school newspaper in which kids write whatever they want (within reason) and by far the most popular are stories. Man when I tell you these preteens come up with the most gruesome, detailed and gory scenes it's crazy. They LOVE thriller crime and horror story writing. So when I see media like this it firstly shocks me before remembering how angsty that age is. I remember when I first stumbled upon creepy pasta, I was 11 and was for the first time allowed youtube. I was in awe, I had never seen anything like it. It felt grown up to like it, because when you're younger you consume very safe rated things. So seeing this just opened a flood gate of new ideas (that was the moment I entered the dreaded chronically online tunnel, I'm still in the trenches). I really didn't care that the media I consumed was low quality because it was filling a need for a new sort of genre I hadn't ever seen before. I can definitely see the appeal with the jumpscare, overstimulating and toilet humor that this new stuff uses. Especially when it's catchy, gosh I was waitressing at a restaurant and a whole table of 12 started singing skibidi toilet it was slightly terrifying. I was obsessed with my little pony creepy pasta, and so jumped for joy when the my little pony infection came in which was basically a revival. The cool thing about the artsy ones is that encourages people to create art and their imagination on their own characters, which is one of the reasons I think creepy pasta/ the new mlp infection au was so popular. So in some ways, I think these culture moments are needed to push kids into exploring new territory and online communities, although it can get dark pretty quick so it definitley needs filtering. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff the youtube algorithm places in KZbin Kids

[@beckstheimpatient4135]

Kids have always been creepy little sh**s - always. Especially smaller children who still have that selfish streak in them. It's not a bad thing, it's part of their core development. But they ARE into scary things and always have been. It's a necessary developmental step.

[@leperface]

As a kid I spent all my free time in the library. When I wasn't learning how to get free unsupervised access to the internet, I was checking out scary books especially about old folk lore and mythology. That ended REAL QUICK when I started telling my parents about drawing a ring to summon the devil.

[@Speederzzz]

Kids are creepy shits, once I was doing a birthday party and one randomly approached me, told me "my mom was in a car crash with her friend" and left me alone.

[@slitheen3]

Kids have always play-pretended to kill each other, or violent play with their toys. I remember orchestrating civil wars or apocalyptic scenarios with my littlest pet shops & hot wheels, or copying crash bandicoot games to act out irl with my sibling and correcting him when he didn’t "die correctly". I was also one of those kids who liked learning & was particularly drawn to the darker aspects of history like weapons and torture Some kids are DEFINITELY into darker, morbid subjects than others. I was one of those. Some kids aren't interested in it at all and become distressed when other kids try to talk to them about it. Some kids DEFINITELY go too far, and dig too far into the dark corners of tje internet... or accidentally stumble into them. And im not sire its necessarily.. easier to do nowadays than it used to be, but there's more kids with unrestricted access and are more likely to come across it. Not quite sure what my point is here, except I guess that that its normal and even important kids explore and play around with dark subjects, but they need their own space to do that in and be protected from things that could actually scar them. Or at least, it needs to be a drip feed/gradual process so they arent completely overwhelmed by it and learn how to deal with it

[@zelinknalu6912]

According to my mom, when I was a kid I'd often stand silently in the dark at night (I still kinda do that sometimes). This always freaked her out.

[@kaekaesam6240]

Woooo that’s a crazy take! xD and I wouldn’t say all kids, like seriously I couldn’t handle horror/creepy genre stuff till I was in my early to mid teens!

[@elescurridizo4066]

I have one problem with stuff like Poppy Playtime or Skibbidy Toilet, but it's not really with the thing itself existing or the kids interacting with it. I still remember playing hide and seek with my friends and the one searching for the others acting as Slenderman, me drawing Herobrine, and other dumb stuff like that, so I don't care about kids doing similar things with the current trends. The problem I have is the way these things form/spread. A lot of people say Skibbidy Toilet is just Gmod animations all over again, but the thing is, even if they are equally silly and dumb, the Gmod animations were just made by random people because they thought it was fun and wanted to share it with more people, meanwhile, Skibbidy Toilet is made by one person, releasing more episodes only because of how successful they are. Even if it may have changed later, at the start Fnaf was made just because Scoot wanted to, not caring about how popular it could be, while Poppy Playtime is made by a company trying to follow a formula to be as successful as possible. It just gives me this "corporate" or "manufactured" feeling, you know?

[@staticaleel5068]

I’d even argue an over saturated vibe to it too. Because on KZbin, the whole brain rot epidemic is being caused by masses of content farms releasing disgusting amounts of slop content on a daily, no, bi-daily basis. It’s just releasing content for contents sake, no heart or soul or thought. Just a money making machine that no one is regulating.

[@royalknightsleipmon2345]

I thought Skibidi Toilet was harmless nonsense until the first time I walked into a toy shop and saw skibidi toilet collectible mystery figure boxes, the type where you're supposed to keep buying them until you've collected all 12-ish of them. The fact that popular internet memes are considered marketable now and have mainstream merchandise so quickly after they become popular is kind of nauseating.

[@Waspinmymind]

If those gmod videos existed today they’d be merch of it. In fact I think a few of them did eventually get merch. Like I don’t know how to tell you this. But everything is like this today. You’re not going to find stuff that isn’t like this. And either you grow up or end up that weird adult shouting at children.

[@mosshivenetwork117]

Yea anything that gets popular these days has to be shoved everywhere and has to be corporate.

[@KingOpenReview]

That's part of a broader thing about how corporate interests effect everything else.

[@VagueHandWaving]

If it isn't a difference in kind, I'd definitely say that it is a difference in magnitude. There is just SO MUCH of it. Kids absolutely need outlets for their creativity, places for their imaginations to run wild. It helps them learn how to make sense of and understand the world, but as any person training an AI knows "garbarge in, garbage out". At some point, either creators have to up the quality or kids have to be limited in their exposure. The world is becoming more and more online, and while that's not a bad thing in and of itself, the internet is fickle and plagued with corporations trying to milk consumers for their attention.

[@musicsbricabrac7195]

Working with kids with 10+ year, yep, that what we see. Not enough safe place, less creativity, imagination,manual manipulation. And before loopers, adult are influenced negativly by it too.

[@Lunarshade29]

Creepypasta has always been kids, some of the most famous are by tweens and teens which, sure are older but are still kids exploring storytelling. They’re subverting stuff. Im glad y’all were kind to the kids with this one

[@sonicloverlol2]

Was Kris strub (creator of candle cove) a kid at that time?

[@user-us7el6ss2l]

Nah i heard a glimpse of a creepypasta of In the night garden and i was traumatised

[@sadee4175]

I love that you are covering child lore. It's such an interesting phenomenon. My sister and I were recounting something that was passed around our elementary school. Some kid had seen the rug rats episode about the bully that comes to the playground when it's noon and your shadow disappears. That story got passed around the playground and shared. Most of us didn't have cable at the time so we ate it up.

[@GallowglassVT]

I think it's important to remember that sometimes, parents, teachers and any other concerned adults can often project their own idea of childhood onto kids as a matter of expectation, even in the unfortunate event that said kids have been witness to stuff that child should see. In this case, engaging in morbid or just childishly grim stuff can also be a means of reclaiming control in the face an unkind world, or even just as an act of rebellion.

[@accordingtosophia]

true! in childlore studies, they call that the “utopian ideal” of children- the parents’ expectations of childhood as perfect and innocent. children push back on this through something called antithetical play, which is what you’re describing here. they create folklore in order to define their own collective identities and to push back against adult interference.

[@GallowglassVT]

@sophiatalksmusic3588 I had no idea it had its own set of terms. That's so cool!

[@hauntedwafflecake]

It's amazing how many adults simply do not seem to remember ever being kids themselves, or are unable to look back at their own childhoods in a more objective manner when comparing themselves or people their own age to "kids these days". I can think of equivalents in my own childhood for everything that is popular with kids now, and I can also see myself being into a lot of those things if I was their age.

[@kqlolll2618]

Also most adults simply dont view children as human beings, and that can get worse into child abuse. My parents have been horrible and they havent treated me as anything but a human being, they want me to be a perfect doll of unrealistic standards, they want to project their childhoods on me when those cant even work anymore. But a child is a human being, and none of us fit in a box anyways, we are all different, and none of us are truly normal. My stories, and stories in general are shaped from our experiences, and even our characters carry the traits we have since.. we made them. All my characters have been people treated horribly, but i give them someone who eventually loves them and takes care of them, something i still feel as though i really dont have.

[@j.2512]

"just let people groom your kids reeeeee"

[@Vekuyo]

Kids are always weird and horror-coded. Grew up in the 90s singing about Barney getting offed and running around the park with bent sticks pretending they were guns. Playground classics like London Bridge, 3 blind mice, ring around the rosey, and tons more are all kids singing gleefully about tragedy and death. The fascination with horror and death is just part of being human.

[@Accidental.Creation]

My God, I love your little intro. The music, the smooth animation, absolutely beautiful. Also, hearing you say "Skibidi Toilet" is beyond hilarious to me, haha.

[@SGRS28]

How good is the intro music!! Reminds me of the movie coraline!

[@cloverlovania]

it gave me extreme whiplash LMAOOOO

[@phoenix_seven9531]

I'm an adult now, but when I was in middle school my friends and I made our own Creepypasta OCs. We did it because we thought it was fun and liked horror stories. It was never about actually hurting people. We just liked making stories.

[@omgtatercat]

In short, kids have always been weird, and adults are worried about what they consume. It's like the Pokemon craze back in the 90s and parents thinking it was either stupid or dangerous. Or Satanic, if you were a religious nut. I'm over 30 years old and my dad still doesn't really understand my interests, and that's fine. I don't understand kids, but so long as what they're consuming isn't causing them to do bad things or say bad things, then you don't really have to get it. But yeah, supervision is the most important thing to do for them.

[@joaomigueltorresbueno4457]

I mean most people dont like it not because they think its bad for kids(not entirely because of that at least) but because they think its "ruining" the comunities they like which is bs but like i get the annoyence

[@despinasgarden.4100]

​@@joaomigueltorresbueno4457 i think that the problem in that regard is that there isn't really a 100% efective way to divide kid fan spaces from adult fan spaces. The internet is so big and so easy to access that makes it incredibly dificult to keep kids away from adult spaces and and adults away from kid spaces. Even with age restrictions and content filters.

[@vito_k6479]

Turns out this time it is actually stupid and dangerous.

[@shogunpug4071]

No...this is literally the first era of kids that have this much access to the internet. We consumed the content we did in moderation. While they watch this content all day

[@TheHuggyzilla]

1:26 This isn't the kids' fault, they can't create stuff like this in professional quality and upload it to KZbin. It's the hoax channels creating characters and messing with the original thing.

[@thefunniman3285]

Never expected a mascot horror episode from Tale Foundry but I ain't complainin

[@emmalyneedwards4433]

I believe they did make a mascot horror episode before

[@artofzetsu6130]

He did already. Nostalgia horror episode.

[@ChimeraLotietheBunny]

Agreed

[@JarNO_WAY]

As someone who hasn't been an adult for that long yet, I feel a little bad for forgetting so quickly what it was like to be a child, and what it was like to have our own shared ideas the adults didn't understand.

[@momom6197]

Ngl, I thought this would be about AI slop generated for kids under 6, but instead it was nothing I'd ever heard about and extremely thought-provoking! thanks

[@IsabellaMathew]

Same. Though do think Ai slob is problem because kids deserve better.

[@megamilk9585]

I remember a big conversation around Coraline. Adults were afraid the movie would be too scary for children, but many children love it. There is an inherent need to protect children. We fear the monsters in fantasy because we know the monsters in real life. But we the hope we have as adults comes from seeing the children beat the monsters in those movies. The reason any of us goes out the door each morning is because deep down in our psyche, we are arming ourselves with bedsheets and paper towel rolls and taking on the monsters of the world. We should not fear children's horror, but vet and then foster it. Experience it with them, talk about it. Help them understand the difference in fantasy and reality and then encourage the fantasy safely.

[@dannehboi316]

This is a severely underrated comment. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, parenting should be built on fostering healthy conversations to actually prepare the child for topics they will encounter in real life. Every known human civilization has had horror stories since language has been recorded, and there is a reason for that; to teach lessons. It is up to the parent to bring up that dialogue and make something useful of it.

[@j3sterful]

definitely didnt expect to see a tale foundry video with poppy playtime in the thumbnail in my notifs

[@tomasramirez2914]

Nor did I thought Brain Rot would be related to scary I guess it’s becoming its own horror genre

[@fjordivae3007]

honestly anyþing from Tale Foundry is pretty good so regardless of Poppy Playtime being on it... I had to click 🎉🎉

[@MiaGonzalez-dy8ne]

Same I didn’t expect that

[@catdownthestreet]

​@@fjordivae3007 þorn user spotted! neat.

[@mexicaniguana9126]

The effects that it’ll have on kids is terrifying

[@jameskollinger5488]

I was thinking "we always pretended to kill each other on the playground" right before you made the same exact point.

[@dr.loboto1171]

14:19 "I'm sure their game is great" I appreciate the optimism, but it most certainly is not

[@stephenflint3640]

You bring up "Killing Barney" as part of Childlore, and it sent me down the mental trails of thoughts and memories. I remember as a child, now a man of almost 35, of once liking Barney well enough, it was childrens entertainment in a time when the only shows i could watch was whatever was on the TV at the time, but then through a combination of "maturity" and exposure to other children who felt they had grown past Barney and taught the songs of "I love you, You love me, i chased Barney up a tree..." or something similar to the cadence of the Barney song... Im digressing- my main point was that as children mature, we go from loving and advocating for a media, Barney in this example, to outgrowing it, disliking it, all the way to adulthood where a loathing for the simple, saccharine story on endless repetition makes for such a visceral reaction that, whether apocryphal or not, a story is made of a man who dug himself out of the depths of Lock-in Syndrome merely so he could tell someone to "Change the fucking channel" after weeks if not months of being stuck listening to Barney on endless repeat.

[@JackWolf1]

Adults tend to forget that children aren’t stupid or ignorant, they just lack context. And there is honestly little difference between a child and adult, it’s just that children tend to put less restrictions on their imagination. BIG EDIT: Because people seem to be misinterpreting what I’m saying here, I am NOT saying “treat children like little adults.” That interpretation is wrong, stop it. I AM saying “Kids are smarter and more perceptive than adults given them credit for so watch what you say, because they will pick up on it, even if they don’t fully understand the context.”

[@perfectallycromulent]

Kids are ignorant. That's why they lack that context. And why they need to go to school for a dozen years before they can become useful members of society.

[@althefunkman]

@@perfectallycromulent Calling them ignorant is a bit harsh. How can you expect someone to understand "context" if they've only been alive for a few years? It's a bit weird to call a child "ignorant" if they haven't lived long enough to experience the world and understand that context, you know? They're not willingly choosing not to understand or not seek out different experiences, they just simply haven't lived long enough to experience it. How can you expect a 5 year old or a 15 year old to understand how the world works on their own? That's why they go to school, so they can learn things about the world and gain critical thinking skills so that they can figure things out for themselves. It isn't ignorance it's just a lack of experience because again, they're children.

[@musicsbricabrac7195]

Yep Well, we are starting to see an increase in developmental delay in children, the development of fine motor skills and imagination, creativity. They are the direct consequences of our own education and our actions, turning a blind eye to certain factual concerns is just as unhealthy as saying "me at the time, we weren't shit". That's because they don't have contexte, that we need to stay with us on this type of content

[@musicsbricabrac7195]

@@althefunkman They're still ignorant and it's not bad in this CONTEXT, but that's a fact, and because that's it, that we need, as adult, to be with them :)

[@kqlolll2618]

Children are still basically babies, and havent been in the world for a very long time. Expecting things so harsh to them is ridiculous because,, you do know thats basically a baby right??

[@ethribin4188]

9:20 "wether that gets out of hand, is less a matter of the internet rotting children's brains, and more a matter of supervision." This! So much! Parebts need to take part in what their child consumes!

[@seanmcfadden3712]

I'm reminded of this quote from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (a particular favourite of mine). "It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying." Children have always been drawn to dark subject matter and played with it. Part of how they learn to process it and how to handle the less than pleasant parts of life as they get older. The internet has just broadened how much they can find. Something I find funny, in a dark humour way, is how many of the adults who are shocked that kids exploring and embracing the dark, violent, disturbing, gross, etc., are the exact same adults who will actively ignore censorship warnings and not pay attention to what the child in their care is doing, until it negatively impacts them (the adult). The same people who will dismissively let a preschooler play Grand Theft Auto "because games are (just) for kids", and then blame the developers for exposing their child to horrible things by making a, clearly marked, MA rated video game. I feel like these sorts of people have a clear image in their heads of what they think their child is like, but don't take the time to actually engage with and learn who their child is. I have talked with children who have been playing games that seemed disturbing and juvenile, only to have their explanations be surprisingly mature, deep, and responsible. They don't want to hurt their friends, but safe scares are fun. They don't want to get eaten by a wolf/snake/monster/creature, but they know things need to eat. It's interesting. Thanks to anyone who read all this. Lots of thoughts.

[@Inlelendri]

May I add something more to your quote? Because another passage from Hogfather seemed to fit rather well here: "When you were grown up you only feared, well, logical things. Poverty. Illness. Being found out. At least you weren't mad with terror because of something under the stairs. The world wasn't full of arbitrary light and shade. The wonderful world of childhood? Well, it wasn't a cut-down version of the adult one, that was certain. It was more like the adult one written in big heavy letters. Everything was... more. More everything." That whole book takes such a good look at our relationship with childhood and imagination and how we cope, including the dark bits. Thank you for sharing that

[@PLKinka]

@@Inlelendri I still like the quote about the sword the most.

[@mcflurryface5457]

Never thought I would see the day when the tale foundry guy said skibidi toilet☠️☠️☠️ 2:18

[@bia5141]

I teach English to kids in kindergarten in country where it's second language and I can confirm that 5-6 years olds do love horror cartoons at very least (my colleague played them some during Halloween). Kids just love to get scared

[@emperorxenu519]

As an adult, skibidi toilet isn't confusing or surprising to me in the least. It's a pretty straightforward evolution of gmod skits and YTPs. It's not new at all.

[@ceregpurpleguy2906]

nah it's not evolution, it's degradation

[@Kligor2]

Exactly! I remember going "This is what people are upset about??" after watching some

[@CaptainRocket00]

fax

[@CaptainRocket00]

st is litterally part of gmod humor

[@SuperDoomNinja]

Skibidi toilet never confused me either. Kids love silly songs, they think toilets are funny, and kids love seeing things fighting other things. The only thing that trips me up and would scare me as a kid is the face but they probably just think it's a funny exaggeration, like a cartoon.

[@happyclown4331]

This video is a lovely deep dive, in ways I did not expect. The both approaches, slow build up into that 'adults poaching kids content' I feel like hits an important internet and human core. Thank you for making this video and the way you speak life into this type of content, to flourish the points you bring home. Lotta town of salem vibes from this video (good ways).

[@shadowslayer205]

It's ironic that the arguably most infamous brainrot mascot horror, Poppy Playtime, ultimately cleaned up its act and became a genuine successor to FNAF meanwhile FNAF has degraded to the point that even brainrot would be too good a description for it.

[@JoaoMiguelCordeiro-fl3wb]

Mob is the definition Of taking criticism

[@elminehuy]

Right?

[@VultureMax]

@@JoaoMiguelCordeiro-fl3wbyeah and they still are to this day. Fans asked for a harder ARG for chapter 4 and they delivered by making one a lot harder 🤔

[@torbjornlekberg7756]

I am reminded of something Terry Pratchett once wrote: "Imagination tends to upset those who dont have it."

[@theclockworkartist]

The fact people still remember Hello Puppets kind of surprises me. Also, I'll die on the hill that "My Friendly Neighborhood" is the best one.

[@KittycatKye]

I'm glad that you mentioned My Friendly Neighborhood! It's one of the few indie horror games that I genuinely want to play, because it reminds me of Resident Evil and Bioshock.

[@jfangm]

"They're pretending to kill each other on the playground." Me and my friends fighting a valiant last stand in the schoolyard: Yes. I honestly miss the days when the Internet wasn't just sitting in our pocket, waiting for us to become bored. Back when it took a conscious effort and a few minutes of robot screaming noises to access it.

[@ceebee3083]

I remember in kindergarten, we had huge Lego like bricks to play with so we naturally "entombed" a friend alive in the pyramid made of these, after pretending to cut off his legs for the devil so he couldn't run away (we were playing cultists). Some people had a memory wipe or a bland childhood if they do not remember stuff like that.

[@sparking023]

The only concern with brainrot (and the reason why it1s called that way) is precisely the tangible decrease in attention spans. Even adults are succetible to that, and "iPad children" is a real phenomenon where kids just don't develop their motor coordination properly. It's fine to let kids play some of those mascot horror games, or perhaps something like Among Us, which might be a good way to learn how to cooperate and social interaction. But it's always important to supervise them while they're at it.

[@sharlharmakhis280]

5:07 'kids singing about murder is still pretty scary, right?' ~laughs in grown-up 90s Kid remembering the grim fates they sung about inflicting on Barney way back in the day~ 5:53 aaaaannnnnddddd there it is LMAO

[@seeleunit2000]

I really would like an analysis on the need for adults to start a moral panic over Pop culture. It's been happening for decades upon decades and man it's weird.

[@dragonslayer5514]

During the beginning I was terrified that this was going to be another jab at kids liking horror. I'm glad you took the time to illustrate that kids aren't ruining a thing by being interested in it and that the real issue is that people are seeing these things as avenues for money more-so than for creating a cohesive story.

[@honeybearclaw]

anyone else feels like there’s a weird paradox of an abundance to appeal towards kids to take their parents money and no place for them to actually enjoy their interests without people preying on them for any motives it’s like a weird landscape to be a kid on the internet i think how fnaf grew on the internet is a prime example because the story is interesting to a child, something you want to understand and your favorite youtubers are into but engaging in fnaf recently is very anti-kid bc ppl want this series to be so mature and avoid being called “childish”

[@StitchwraithStudios]

To be fair the main villain in FNAF is a serial killer who targets children so…

[@ceregpurpleguy2906]

@@StitchwraithStudios yeah, it's literially NOT safe for kids

[@StitchwraithStudios]

@@ceregpurpleguy2906 and honestly I hate that it’s becoming more kid friendly by replacing the serial killer preying on children with a generic ai villain with a tragic backstory, like THAT feels like it’s trying to appeal to kids when the best part of the series was how children were the main victims, it’s rare to see that in horror unfortunately, and yet FNAF has become kid friendly for some annoying reason

[@basicbamboo9132]

Childlore mention! I was nervous when I started this video, but was greatly relieved to hear it was a rhetorical technique and not genuine. It is very refreshing when adults take children and their worlds seriously, that they are full, authentic human beings with complex motivations that make just as much sense and are just as justified as adults.

[@hyperkat15]

Honestly I don't really think its bad at all. As long as it doesn't encourage them to genuinely hurt people. Also hate those channels that sexualize this content and purposely direct it towards kids and monetize it on something like KZbin kids...

[@0racle.sunrise3570]

Yh that's my main issue with Mascot Horror (& it's not even the game creator's fault!).

[@oceanb0rn05]

​@@0racle.sunrise3570 tbf it sorta is on poppy's playtime's behalf considering some of the stuff they upload in their channel.

[@Buffalo414]

Like the amazing digital circus it didn't deserve this treatment!

[@catempress5429]

@@0racle.sunrise3570 YES! SAME!

[@j.2512]

"but how does it affect you that the next generation is growing up on degenerate fetish porn" Muh let people enjoy things!!!!

[@IrisVoid-v1j]

I FREAKING LOVE YOUR ANIMATED INTRO!!!

[@SpriteGuard]

Am I the only one who sees skibidi toilet and just sees the unbroken tradition of Badger Badger Badger, All Your Base, and Rejected?

[@accordingtosophia]

you get it! it only seems weird once you’re outside that cultural circle it was created in.

[@ceregpurpleguy2906]

@@accordingtosophia still feel weirder than 2010's anyways...

[@Stupisaurusthesequal]

I love how you approach topics like these, and really make people think about stuff, and give a new nice outlook to peep through, and that's honestly really refreshing, thanks for that

[@avacornthelastponybender8583]

When you feel the need to bash Gen Alpha for watching Skibidi Toilet, just remember that we're the generation that made The Annoying Orange & Fred popular

[@mittensfastpaw]

We might have made it popular but as an adult I don’t rewatch it and very much consider it cringe. A laugh to remember in memes about age but beyond that I’ll never engage with it again. The kids will grow and one day wonder why they ever liked some of it.

[@commenteroftruth9790]

​@@mittensfastpawIt's almost like they're children :O

[@Kpopisntforkids]

​@@mittensfastpaw They're children wtf were you expecting? 💀😭

[@Uberman728]

Despite the fact that skibidi toilet was just a meme at first, at the moment this project has developed into a well-made action series with a plot and ent. A movie was announced about this. And not just anyone who announced it, but Michael Bay himself.

[@kungfuskull]

Mentioning crazy bones smacked me with nostalgia like a truck!

[@Otronator]

thinking about it when i was a kid in Australia in the 00s, me and my friends ran around pretending that our school was a cod map holding imaginary guns and pretending to shoot each other. kids will do what kids do

[@mischake]

When I think about the dozens of bad taste parody songs I remember word for word from an early childhood I don't even remember that much from, it always baffles me how these rhymes stick around in a place where kids move on from yewr after year.

[@quinnporter289]

The fnaf section is so real, i was in middle school when fnaf came out but when i was in elementary me and all my friends were invested in putting together the COD zombies lore leading to alot of 7 year olds knowing a weird amount about real human experiments from the 1940s and thinking it was game lore

[@TitusConstantine]

I always love seeing a deliciously sane video by Tale Foundry. One of my favorites on your channel was the video about "Why Kid's Stories Should Be Darker" or something, and this is just as good. Love to see your stuff Talebot!

[@selkiestorm3232]

People forget what being a kid is like, there were loads of ghost stories, urban ledgends, songs, and games we all played that adults would deem brain rot.

[@KeishBreakfast]

1:42 dang you can tell it’s bad if he draws skibidi toilet

[@emris2697]

I’m currently studying folklore and this got me so excited when you brought it up 6:34

[@Kazuma11290]

All entertainment is a spiral. But it goes outward, not inward.

[@babysleepysheepyrainbow]

This is such an important discussion. I'm so tired of young adults teasing or out right belittling their younger family members or just kids in general for enjoying these things. I was about 10 years old when FNAF1 released. I liked FNAF because of the funny reactions Markiplier had and the interesting ideas GameTheory had. I remember telling my dad and stepmom about the lore! Oh they looked horrified when I started mentioning child murder in the middle of a restaurant. That was when William Afton was still known as 'Purple Guy'. When Sirenhead was a big thing on the internet my little brother, about seven at the time, told me in earnest that it was real. He was terrified because to him it was out there. He also told me scientists had recreated dinosaurs and such is the mind of an imaginative child, but he scared himself because there are content creators out there who profit off of creating low effort videos that specifically target this 'brainrot'. This is not an issue of children consuming media it's an issue of modern algorithms of the internet. It's a brainrot feedback loop or an echo chamber and children do not have the experience to push themselves out of it.

[@Malikimusmaximus]

It's a very interesting tale in social media

[@TheCoyoteOutlaw]

This reminds me of my own childhood (as it should). I had a wild imagination and was very keen on making fantasy worlds. I made up my own languages and codes/phrases, creatures, plants, cities, cultures...yeah, I poached a lot too. I read a lot. Like...a lot. I was reading four books at any given time. I took things I liked from everywhere and created whatever I wanted. It was for escapism which turned into maladaptive daydreaming, sure...but I learned through it. And that's the important part. Play is how children learn. And children pick up so much from their world. And that's why I push so very hard for children's media to have some effort and quality put into it.

[@TheUniversalAxiom]

Great work as always! I could never thank you enough

[@ArianaShallow-Valley]

Bro, I'm an adult and had been the one keeping an eye on my nieces and nephews whenever my cousins decided to have free time. I don't allow them to watch Poppy Playtime, FNAF, and other similar games and videos when they were in my care, solely because I knew the lore well enough to know its not kids friendly, like at all. There're indepth layers in all of those lore which psychologically messy to process, even for adult (I was growing up with FNAF and it was creepy to think of all the details to this day). Those details have a high chance to stay in their mind years to come and if it did, I wish they can understand it through different lense as they grew up. It's a little fun though to explain why they can't have those entertainment in my house because apparently it made us discuss the layers of unexplained horrors and why what they see might not as simple as what they had thought.

[@caseylovesthesharks]

I was a little worried this video was just going to be a bunch of pearl-clutching, but it wasn't. I'm so very glad Tale Foundry was nice to kids and emphasized writing good stories and not pandering.

[@emccoy]

A good series on youtube that has talked about child folklore amongst other folklore is Monstrum hosted by Emily Zarka who has a phd in folk lore. She has gone over creepy pastas and the like as well as traditional monsters from all over the world. The fact is that creepy things have been grabbing the attention of kids for ever. Heck how many fairy tales and nursery rhymes have darker origins. Yes some people do go around taking these children's stories and making them edgier, but for goodness sake the original Pinocchio had him die by being hung on a tree. Its also been a way for kids to deal with dark things in their real life. There is a reason people grow up and are surprised Lizzy Borden was real.

[@CODDE117]

I'm very happy with the way this video went. This is exactly how it works.

[@Chuco029]

At the beginning of the video I was really going to craft an essay long video about the sameness of the complaints throughout history. When you continued talking though I really appreciate the nuance and understanding that you took with all of this.

[@victoriajeanleslie3116]

As the parent of a kid who has just started to delve into this stuff, this video is greatly appreciated. It's given me some great context for its existence and why it's important for them. I mean I was an early internet culture kid and some of the stuff we watched and laughed at was bizarre too lol.

[@michaeldlevins6608]

I just submitted a final essay for uni on childhood folklore and how it transmits, and tied it back to Junji Ito. This video is a bit of a trip.

[@burgersauce69]

5:49 "I hate you, you hate me, lets all go and kill Barney, with a baseball bat and a 4 by 4, no more purple dinosaur!!" I remember that from primary school, using digital ouija boards on sketchy website on the ipads, and searching the schoolyard in the hopes of finding slenderman (always to no avail)

[@Khichira2012]

Excellent video, Tale Foundry. Now it's time to go spread the word through whispers....

[@derekarcher8495]

Hello, so glad I found your channel. I get a lot out of your videos. You help me to understand a lot of aspects of storytelling that I just took for granted or didn't recognise at all originally. I especially like how you are able to help me make sense of a whole lot of my childhood and to appreciate the legitimacy of kids culture. Adults often forget what being a kid was like.

[@oak8594]

"Kids are pretending to kill each other in the playground" - oh, like in the classic games of "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians", or just literally "playing soldier"?

[@eoinh]

I've seen some of your videos before I think, but I've never seen this intro before and I just wanted to say it's very cool and the perfect vibe for your channel and this video :)

[@BeezeeChutter]

Bro your depictions of kids giggling at… dare I say it, skibidi toilet, actually makes it feel innocent with a child like glee. As much as I dislike _skibidi toilet,_ I can’t deny that my 5 year old brother loves it so earnestly. I almost dread the day he becomes an adolescent or a teenager, and the things he found simple fun in becomes “cringy” to him, as he becomes more socially aware.

[@BeezeeChutter]

Keep in mind I say this without ever having actually watched it. I don’t know how bad it is. I don’t know If it’s just grown ups like me, and I use grown up very liberally here because I’m 21, being paranoid over nothing, or if it’s really something to worry about.

[@rismosch]

11:10 "Five Nights at Freddies is a generation defining phenomenon. I don't think there was quite anything like it before." What? Never heard of Pokémon? Magic? Yu-Gi-Oh? Minecraft?

[@TonguelessCat]

None of those actually encouraged their fans to create their own folklore around then. Of course, that happened anyways, but none of them made that happen in the way that FNAF did, and now a whole generation is trying to recreate that

[@old_skyguy]

5:00 About this, I think it feels different (at least to me) because the sort of thing that me or some of my friends would do on the playground back then was out of a sense of connection that the folklore surrounding it brought. There was some creativity to it, every version was just a little different when you heard it through the grapevine. There was more mystique and ambiguity. Now, most of the horror going around elementary schools is just spoon fed to them through KZbin or tiktok or whatever and then spat right back out. And look I'm not trying to say my generation is any better with technology abuse, but this is definitely the first generation of kids who has definitively, 1000% grown up with phones shoved in their face and we're starting to see the effects that has on not only the kids, but on culture itself. I honestly feel bad for gen alpha more than anything. It's so bleak.

[@aabababbbabbaabba7347]

you can hear tale foundry breaking character as he talks in agony about brain rot

[@StitchwraithStudios]

Honestly as an adult who likes FNAF and bendy and other mascot horror it kinda makes me hate myself and feel childish for liking these things when liking horror stuff is basically my entire personality

[@samueldevries4637]

I used to be the same way, but everyone has their own thing they enjoy that's different. Ours just happens to be weird horror.

[@StitchwraithStudios]

@ I guess but being a fan of “children’s horror” makes me feel lesser and like I can’t be taken seriously

[@lemonjuice2597]

If you like it, you like it. Nobody really cares enough to judge.

[@redpanda6497]

​@@StitchwraithStudios It's not children's horror. Just kids like it. But I understand how you feel.

[@Emrirwastaken]

​@@redpanda6497At a certain point in the trend pipeline, it does become tailormade to appeal to children (vibrant colours, easy names, general easy appeal). It's been 15 some years, game devs are learning what format has been popular are making copies of that for pure profit.

[@shazani18]

This has given me a new perspective on "Childhood Terror." I've never really worried about it all that much, other than the people who take advantage of this niche to make terrible quality products, but being able to know for sure that this is a normal part of children's development is hopeful, thanks for making this video.

[@fmor2779]

People freaking out over the hug song clearly forgot that children would sing the "Lizzie Borden" song while jumping the rope.

[@pixie6526]

i'm obsessed with this video thank u

[@strangecolouredbird]

OK, ok, who gave Tale Foundry permission to be the voice of reason for a topic no one else has been reasonable about? This video is perfect. Just perfect. I cannot express that enough.

[@100nodog]

You had me in the first half, not gonna lie. You played Devil's advocate quite well, and i was worried the heelturn would never come!