It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like.
I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
41–50 of 194 posts
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#42There is no substance on earth more addictive than Elmo is to a two year old. In most television shows and movies what people are looking for is somebody that represents them - call it an "avatar" if you must. When kids watch Sesame Street they relate directly to Elmo. He's younger, smaller, has an insatiable curiosity, and is in a permanent mode of questioning and discovery. He even has similar mannerisms to childre…
But that's the thing: Sesame Street wasn't created for two-year-olds. Or rather, not just two-year-olds. It was created for kids as young as two, maybe younger, and as old as six or seven, maybe older. But the increasing focus on Elmo is stripping the show of its capacity to speak to anyone older than maybe three in a useful way. It's come to the point that it's probably detrimental to older children, really to all children, because, as the author points out, it may (inadvertently?) teach things like, "Intrude on personal space! Whine and quiver your lip, kids! Guilt gets things done! Cuteness will get you everywhere!"
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
They tried. The new Electric Company lasted 1.5 seasons or so. It was totally new and different... and not nearly as addictive, funny, or clever as the original one.
My mother claims I sat in front of the TV utterly hypnotized by the "phonetics shadows," and that it's how I learned to read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfQseUDQB2o Is there anything like this available for kids now? It's so stripped down and catchy that, even as an adult, I could watch these all day long.
I bought the DVDs when they came out, about 10 years ago. Look for "The Best of the Electric Company." It was, and remains, totally brilliant. My two elder children loved it, and couldn't get enough. My son (who is now 10) never got into it, but I'll somehow forgive him.
Really and truly, the Electric Company was a very, very clever show that mixed humor and education in a unique way.
The company that produced these DVDs never imagined that children would be watching; they imagined it was only nostalgic adults. So the "best of" DVDs, when first produced, included condom ads! After enough parents protested that this wasn't the most appropriate kind of advertising to put on a children's DVD, the company issued new ones with more child-friendly advertising.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#44As with literally every article written by kotaku, oh my god I just don't care
I agree with this. Kotaku articles have no place on the front page of HN, especially ones like this that don't understand the larger context of the program, and its inability to thrive in the "junk food media" environment that is being force fed to kids. If I ever have kids, I'm going to continue to not have TV in my home. They can read all the books I read when I was a kid, or watch select TV shows from the past 20+…
> They can read all the books I read when I was a kid,
Hang on. Some old books sell well and so keep getting re-printed, but they're not very good.
There are some great books for children created each year.
The Kate Greenaway award is mostly (but not entirely) for younger children (because it's an award for excellent illustration) and the Carnegie award is mostly for older children (because it's an award for older children).
This website compares books that are "most read" (eg Roald Dahl) and "most loved" (eg not Dahl). http://whatkidsarereading.co.uk/
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#45Is that why Elmo is an evil Sesame Street Fighter character?
http://flavourmachine.com/sesamefighter/
(Inspired by http://www.deviantart.com/art/Sesame-Street-Fight-Elmo-Bison...).
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#46It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like. I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
Totally with you here. My kids were at the right age for elmo and Teletubbies when those phenomena got popular. Elmo "worked," but Teletubbies blew Elmo out of the park. My youngest would stop walking and stand transfixed at the TV when Teletubbies came on. It was positively creepy. A British friend said it was very controversial because of all the child psych research that went into capturing the kids' attention. The "Tinky Winky" controversy came along much later.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#47"I remember a storyline years ago that perfectly encapsulated this: Episode 3280, Season 26."
Too much detail.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#48There is no substance on earth more addictive than Elmo is to a two year old. In most television shows and movies what people are looking for is somebody that represents them - call it an "avatar" if you must. When kids watch Sesame Street they relate directly to Elmo. He's younger, smaller, has an insatiable curiosity, and is in a permanent mode of questioning and discovery. He even has similar mannerisms to childre…
> There is no substance on earth more addictive than Elmo is to a two year old.
The way you put this refutes your argument. Sesame Street isn't about feeding addictions. Children are addicted to sugar, too. The genius of the program was always its ability to give them more substantive fare while still enchanting them.
IMO the article makes some key distinctions, while remaining good-humored and self-aware. That's the opposite of being a "bitter internet pundit". There's real psychological insight there, applicable beyond Sesame Street, and (the grad student in me wishes to add) some fine cultural criticism as well.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
They tried. The new Electric Company lasted 1.5 seasons or so. It was totally new and different... and not nearly as addictive, funny, or clever as the original one.
My mother claims I sat in front of the TV utterly hypnotized by the "phonetics shadows," and that it's how I learned to read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfQseUDQB2o Is there anything like this available for kids now? It's so stripped down and catchy that, even as an adult, I could watch these all day long.
There's AlphaBlocks from the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
That's a more rigid synthetic phonics approach (although some people claim they're saying the sounds wrong) and it's short (5 minutes?) animated stories rather than the more abstract thing you linked to. I'm English, I've never seen that before, it looks good and I wish there was more like it around at the moment. There is way too much really bad children's tv with a tiny smear of "education" sprinkled on top.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#50I love the internet. I love that someone wrote a whole article on something so arbitrary. I'm not sure why it's on HN though.
Fascinating stories with no particular rationale are not just on topic for HN, they're primo material.