Welcome toSmall Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2019 and we have the entire internet to contend with.
If you thought that the big-headed babies from YouTube were done with eating sugar and telling lies, then you'd be dead wrong.
From the depths of cursed children's videos on YouTube, Billion Surprise Toys, the production company who produced the bizarre viral smash "Johny Johny Yes Papa," has another mind-boggling animation that has been making the rounds on Twitter.
The video, titled "Sick Song | + More BST Songs for Kids" features more of their classic nightmarish trappings — babies with absurdly large heads, random sound effects, and a tune so repetitive that your sanity will be questioned should you choose to sit through more than 30 seconds.
The video starts out with a truly horrible sound emitting from a sick, young girl, which I can only describe to you as akin to when SpongeBob's horrible breath makes a random fish citizen cry out "DEUUEAUGH." Her father rushes in, and she tells him "I'm having fever daddy."
The father takes her to the doctor's office, and in waiting room he confusingly pulls a ticket number, as if they're at the deli meat counter in a supermarket.
When they enter the exam room, the baby tells the doctor she's "not well," and just to emphasize that fact, they overlay the Sad Trumpet Sound Effect™ over her walking. Dear reader, this is when I, emotionally, lost it. I wasn't sure I could carry on from this point, but because I am the certified meme critic, I watched it so that you don't have to.
At this point, none of the singers have any regard in matching the syllables to the droning melody, and sing lines like "Ohhh…you’rehavinga hiigh…temperaturrrreeee." The father's shocked look is accompanied by another wAaAacky sound effect, and the doctor then prescribes medicine. Baby replies with "Ok sure I will do like that."
Then the girl imagines herself popping three different colorful, club drug-looking pills, just for a fever. Now I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that's now how giving medication to children works and definitely not a message we should be sending to children. Are you sure one of those isn't a hallucinogenic? Cause I sure do feel like I'm on one watching this video right now.
After going through the motions of bed rest, drinking fluids, and staying inside, the clip ends. But the actual video itself is eight minutes long! Eight minutes of nightmare fuel. Parents out there, I don't understand how you could willingly sit through this, even for the sake of your children.
Twitter's reaction was similarly a swift and immediate "hell no, what did I just watch?" after Grace Spelman shared the clip.
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Tweet may have been deletedSEE ALSO:'Johny Johny Yes Papa' is just one of many terrifying YouTube videos made for kids
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However, the absurdity of videos like these from Billion Surprise Toys is a symptom of a much greater problem with content made for children on YouTube. Many are labeled as "educational" content, but pass on bizarre and simplified morals using horrific visuals — all aimed at capturing kids' tendency to autoplay through these videos, maximizing view counts though YouTube's algorithm.
The uncomfortable scenarios present in many of these videos are nothing compared to the violent and graphic animations from other creators that have even made their way to the YouTube Kids app. Ultimately, they show that these companies often care more about monetization of viewed videos than creating quality content that will actually help kids learn.
It should also raise a red flag or two that Billion Surprise Toys seems to be acting so weird about their own creations reaching meme-level status — Mashable reported last year that BST has started removing memeified videos and tweets of "Johnny Johnny," claiming copyright, as well as disabling video playback on other websites.
Could it be that they're incredibly self-aware that their content is not actually meant to teach kids valuable lessons, but to hold their attention just long enough to see dollar signs?
But in the meantime the internet will continue freaking out over this latest big-headed baby horrorfest.
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