A few weeks ago I was playing with my 7-year-old little cousin and I asked him the simple question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” My naive self thought he would say the typical answer we’ve all heard such as “a police officer” or “a scientist”… boy was I wrong. He looked straight at me and said “a youtuber!” I reacted as if he told me he wanted to be a murderer. “NO! You can’t be a Youtuber when you grow up, you can do something better!” I said to him and almost immediately regretted it. I went home and thought about what he said, asked myself if I reacted accordingly, and contemplated the future of our youth…. Is this really what kids want to be?
According to a survey conducted by Harris Poll in 2019, “3,000 kids ages 8 to 12 to were asked to choose from five professions to answer which they wanted to be when they grew up: astronaut, musician, professional athlete, teacher, or vlogger/YouTuber. Though the top choice among kids in the US and the UK was vlogger/YouTuber, 56% of kids in China said they wanted to be an astronaut.” After digesting this statistic, my mind was running a thousand miles a minute. Is this the new normal we have to face? Who do we have to blame, if there is anyone? Capitalism? Parents? What’s going to happen to my future kids? Who are they going to idolize?
As a society, we have glamorized social media stars and influencers for so long that naturally our children want to become them. We have put them on a pedestal and given them an astronomical amount of power to influence our youth and create content that is meaningless. Our children don’t look at people like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai and think to themselves, “that’s who I want to be when I grow up”… They look at “The Vlog Squad” and Addison Rae and make it a goal to act, dress, and be just like them. Trust me, ask any 10-year-old who David Dobrik is and then ask them who Greta Thunberg is.
I’m not saying all Youtubers and social media influencers are awful. I just don’t think they deserve the praise they get. They make people happy? What about knowledge, intelligence, and education? What about encouraging our youth to look up to people who fight for what is right? Alas… call me cynical… I could complain about this all day. It just makes me sad that this phenomenon is inevitable.
Leskin, Paige. (2019). American kids want to be famous on YouTube, and kids in China want to go to space: survey. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/american-kids-youtube-star-astronauts-survey-2019-7
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