Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 461 posts

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#71

Post by [deleted] »

The_Colonel wrote: post #64
robby_w_g wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This family has two mommies. They love each other so proudly and they all go marching in... the... big parade," sing the lyrics. Other terms featured include "trans," "non-binary" and "queer." > “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly,” Acknowledging LGBTQ people are capable of love is somehow an example of “culture war”. It’s incredible people can be so bothered by a simple, sweet message.

Bluey is targeted towards pre-school children. I'm not really bothered if my 4-year-old daughter sees stuff like this, it's just that she won't really understand things like "non-binary". It seems like a topic more appropriate for older children - maybe from age 8 or later?

[deleted]

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #45
hackernewds wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can I watch this episode adhoc, or do I need to watch the rest? emotional entertainment really gets me

I disagree a bit with the sibling commenter. This episode falls into about the second season of the show midway through. So putting yourself into that context: you’re watching something like 35 episodes of this show and it’s cute and wholesome and the stories are great, some with some emotional impact, but then you get to this episode and it just absolutely blindsides you. So, I think it will _make sense_ on its own,…

[deleted]

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#73

Post by BeefWellington »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27
seized wrote: post #12

As a parent it's just a genuinely nice show to watch. There is so much complete crap out there now that Bluey is a breath of fresh air. A few others are good fun as well like Grizzy and The Lemmings. But Bluey reigns supreme. Although I wish the phone game didn't have in app purchases. At least the Bluey video game on Steam is good and without in app purchases or micro transaction nonsense.

> so much complete crap out there now that Bluey is a breath of fresh air Out of curiosity, as a non-parent, what makes it crap?

I'm probably not qualified to answer this question but to thrown my own two cents out there: I've watched both Bluey and Paw Patrol with friends' kids. Obviously take these observations with a grain of salt.

Paw Patrol is essentially the laziest most nonsensical writing, because of course you don't have to write well if you have enough colour being vomited at the screen and you're really just trying to sell toys.

Bluey is essentially the opposite of that. There's decent stories, it seems to tackle some tough stuff sometimes, and just generally it seems well-written and much more representative of what life is like for people (them being dogs notwithstanding).

Separately, I've also seen some straight up terrible stuff on Youtube. Just random garbage which is probably these days more LLM-generated but clearly used to be created by throwing darts at a board. For example, I opened up youtube kids, said I was a parent, and clicked Explore and this was one of the first videos that came up: https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=tOXszq1-rxs The themes tend to be (ab)using well-known properties kids already know to get them to watch your video. This came up as related, and at least involves a Yoga routine but you can see the other elements are there: https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=QM8NjfCfOg0

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#74

Post by objectivetruth »

29athrowaway wrote: post #21

The family lives in a mansion and their entire life is about playing and exploring all the time. What a great way to prepare the next generation for a life where most real estate will be beyond reach for most families. And where most parents work all the time and are tired on weekends. The series has a good soundtrack and voice acting. The mobile game is fine. The Nintendo Switch game is disappointing.

[dead]

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#75

Post by imp0cat »

yardstick wrote: post #32
hackernewds wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can I watch this episode adhoc, or do I need to watch the rest? emotional entertainment really gets me

You can watch it adhoc. Edit: Pretty much all the top Bluey episodes have a good emotional pull to them. See https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/mar/21/the-10-best-...

Aww, they missed Puppets, the most meta episode of them all about free will!

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#76

Post by imp0cat »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #65
hdhfjkrkrme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most kids shows seem like a low effort afterthought full of contrived vapid nonsense. Kids brain is not adult brain. You need a different kind of training material.

Honestly, look. Human brains are not designed to passively absorb audiovisual dreck that's on TV. We're humans designed to interact with the natural world, plants, animals, and especially one another, in tangible ways. Video edutainment is a futile proposition. Get your face out of the screen while you still can, and be present to your fellow man.

That is the point, no? That Bluey is not the average " audiovisual dreck ".

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#77

Post by imp0cat »

29athrowaway wrote: post #21

The family lives in a mansion and their entire life is about playing and exploring all the time. What a great way to prepare the next generation for a life where most real estate will be beyond reach for most families. And where most parents work all the time and are tired on weekends. The series has a good soundtrack and voice acting. The mobile game is fine. The Nintendo Switch game is disappointing.

That's Australia for you.

Also, isn't Bandit (Bluey's dad) pretty much the definition of "And where most parents work all the time and are tired on weekends."? Except he's tired pretty much all the time.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#78

Post by [deleted] »

The_Colonel wrote: post #64
robby_w_g wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This family has two mommies. They love each other so proudly and they all go marching in... the... big parade," sing the lyrics. Other terms featured include "trans," "non-binary" and "queer." > “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly,” Acknowledging LGBTQ people are capable of love is somehow an example of “culture war”. It’s incredible people can be so bothered by a simple, sweet message.

Bluey is targeted towards pre-school children. I'm not really bothered if my 4-year-old daughter sees stuff like this, it's just that she won't really understand things like "non-binary". It seems like a topic more appropriate for older children - maybe from age 8 or later?

[deleted]

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#79

Post by bitwize »

Bluey is a fair sight better than Cocomelon or Baby Shark, I'll say that much. I haven't had much chance to see much of it, but what I did see I liked. It's not all happy, singsongy, bright-colored drivel; the characters are well-developed and have struggles and meaningful arcs.

It helps that I'm a fan of blue heelers, the real Australian shepherd (though I also love the American breed called "Australian shepherd").

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#80

Post by myspy »

jboggan wrote: post #18

Bluey is a godsend in our household. It's not annoying and the amount of classical and original music woven into each episode is wonderful. There's one particular episode - "Sleepytime" - which I cannot bring myself to watch anymore because I get so emotional. Every parent I talk to with young kids who has seen the episode agrees and knows what I mean. It's really that good, and despite being a fun little show there…

We haven‘t watched Bluey yet but when my older kids were young we watched Sarah & Duck. We loved it because it‘s chill and relaxing and a little weird.
Post reply on HN