I just saw this video about advertisement targeted to children and I couldn’t agree more.

This kind of stuff simply disgusts me. If advertisements are is bad enough when targeted at adults, they’re even moreso when targetted specifically to pre-teen children who are far too moldable to external expectations and input. Having to deal with the question of whether I should let my future children watch TV and be indoctrinated by this shit, or act as an authoritarian and forbid TV altogether is one decision I do not look forward to.

Fortunately I hope by the time I have to decide, the question will not be relevant anymore. Hopefully entertainment will have primarily moved to a more interactive model such as gaming and the children will be allowed to choose the kind of things they like to play with, without feeling pressured by society’s expectations to like what “good little boys” and “nice little girls” should like in the most manipulative manner (meaning: even more than the gender-targeted shows do, eg He-Man for boys, Little Pony for Girls).

For those of you who have to make this decision now however, there is always an alternative: Switch to downloading the actual shows your children want to see directly, as a way bypass the averts they would be bombarded with on TV. This will provide you with a far vaster library in which you can find the shows of higher quality (as opposed to whatever the brain-dead schedule TV channels decide to throw at you), and if your children are peer-pressured at school to watch the same stuff all the cool kids are watching, then you can simply download those directly and avoid the unnecessary indoctrination around them.