Never thought I’d say I miss the days of Pokemon cards and WWJD bracelets
With social media taking over daily life for teens and tweens and word of mouth moving at the speed of time, are children really fit to make decisions on what they are posting to the web?
The new trend for what appears to be mostly middle aged girls is posting videos to Youtube labeled, “Am I Ugly?”
These children, stressing the word children, post video profiles of themselves, essentially posing the question, “Am I Ugly?” The internet allows for immediate feedback on the post in an often very extreme fashion. One of the first videos posted to this category has received over 3 million hits on Youtube and draws responses on both sides, “you are pretty, pretty ugly,” or, “not pretty, not ugly…. SEXY!!!”
The utter disconnect provided by any internet source poses illogical and demeaning responses of all kinds. Denise Restauri a contributor with Forbes writes on the fad as damaging to a teen’s mindset, “Many have low self esteem and looking for validation in the worst place, the Internet. There’s only one way for self-esteem to go with these videos, and that’s down.”
There are many reasons to blame for this atrocious fad continuing, the number of comments on the videos, the effectiveness the internet allows feedback, the list goes on and on, but the real problem is parents lack of interest and or complete ignorance on a subject that should have been avoided.
Youtube does not allow anyone below the age of 13 to post a video and yet, somehow, an 11-year old has a video asking if she is pretty or ugly. With a generation so involved in the internet and social media, parents need to be on hand monitoring what their children are doing on the web.
