As a mom of children ages 8 and 10, they are living in the world of YouTube. YouTube videos of families where they are on perpetual vacations and gamers who always win the battle and never make a mistake. My kids watch all these videos and believe. Oh they believe. These people have perfect lives!
I talk to them about how no one is perfect. I say things like "Practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes better. We strive for better because no one is perfect." And when it comes to themselves, I think they understand this. But then they watch these videos of other people's lives and it gets mixed up. What are they to think?
This morning I spoke with both of them about videos they have watched recently. How videos are edited. How people "take out" mistakes or the "bad" parts and you only see the "good stuff".
My son understands a little better that gamers edit their videos but pointed out one of his favorite gamers will leave some "fails" in his videos. Yes, he does. But not a lot. Probably edits out 50 fails for every 1 that he leaves in a video.
My daughter gets mad at me. Because this family is FUN! (the little family she watches on YouTube) They go on adventures every day! They have parties all the time! It is REAL Mom! she tells me.
This new Insta, Facebook, YouTube world - where you can edit your life down to the best parts only - worries me. It reminds me of how women's bodies are photo shopped in magazines to unrealistic beauty standards (that no real woman can actually achieve, INCLUDING the model who was actually IN the photo!).
Be real people. Because no one is perfect. Everyone struggles. Everyone has bed head in the morning and smelly breath before they brush their teeth. Everyone gets mad and acts out and regrets it. Everyone has bad days, bad moods, and bad hair sometimes. No one's life is a constant celebration. Because boring things still happen daily - dishes to be washed, laundry to be done, grass to be mowed.
So in this life of "edited content", I hope that my kids will learn that those videos and those posts and those pics are "not real" or at the very least, not showing the full picture of someone's life. That they don't need to strive to be like those "perfect" people. That they should strive to be REAL.
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Minimal Living during Coronavirus
This has been an unprecedented time in our history. I have read this line in many articles and blog posts in the last months. It is true but...
What a world of YouTube.
ReplyDelete"No one's life is a constant celebration. Because boring things still happen daily - dishes to be washed, laundry to be done, grass to be mowed."