My son is a HUGE fan of YouTube videos.
It makes up about 75% of his viewing.
He is 5 and he loves watching mainly anything factual; usually stuff to do with animals, reptiles and gaming.
He’s especially loves FGTEEV YouTube videos, which is an abbreviation of ’Family Gaming TV’.
The channel consists of a bombastic and hilarious real American family who have over 12 million subscribers, all from making videos about games that they enjoy playing together.
My boy enjoys watching them play iPad games like Redball and Hello Neighbour. They’re relatively easy games but ones which are based on logic and problem solving.
They’re actually great fun to play with him, on the occasions that he actually wants to play alongside someone.
He also loves the process of making videos and is keen to get involved in what daddy does (I make videos for a living)
So my boy has been so inspired by FGTEEV that he wanted to make his own video, doing the same thing - playing his favourite games and talking about them.
Now - those who know him will understand that he can be quite a shy boy. He doesn’t like people like having uninitiated conversations with him. He shyly hides behind us when anyone says hello. Even family get this kind of reception from him.
He just struggles making a first connection sometimes...
But when the camera is on OH MY do we see a transformation!
He talks so freely and confidently to the camera by skilfully introducing himself before talking about what he’s doing in the game.
He talks in a totally comfortable way about his game play whilst playing. Commentating on what you’re doing like that can be tricky, even for many adults. He handles it perfectly.
It’s a bit unbelievable that he can do this so easily, in an almost professional TV presenter style way - he has certainly learned a lot from his YouTube videos. And he’s only 5.
We did a two camera shoot - one on his face and the other focussing on the iPad in a birds eye view style shot.
The other is a portable battery powered light on a stand.
The video he made is 11 minutes long and it is so joyful to watch back with all the final graphics, titles, edits, sound effects and music.
Last thing to say is that we in two minds about what to do about with these finished videos. He says he wants them to go on YouTube, and I’m sure they could be very successful, but as tempting as that is I’m not sure it is the right thing at the moment.
We’re generally very protective about what we share online about our kids and family.
We never post pictures of them on Facebook (not even on private settings or with family) and certainly never on Twitter etc.
STEEM is probably the only place we have shared most about them (that being stories or updates on cool things they have achieved through unschooling)
So we’re very careful about just putting stuff out there.
Equally, there are numerous child YouTube stars with huge followings like Ethan Gamer and CKN Toys who present their own videos about things they enjoy. They have millions of viewers and must make a fortune.
Now I’ve absolutely no idea the level of parental involvement in making decisions here - but I know it’s a big big deal to have your child identified and have millions of views online - I’m not sure there the individual privacy starts and ends with someone like a child who doesn’t understand the online world.
Someone must be making a fortune from these kids anyway, be it a production agency or simply a cottage industry at home.
Anyway, we’re still not sure how to navigate this brilliant potential future.
I guess for now we will make videos for him to share privately with his friends, develop his skills and then see where things go from there.
This won’t be the last video we make with him :)