Watch these two clips: Would you put your child on YouTube?

YouTube is fast overtaking Google as the biggest online search engine.  So how surprised should we be to see people’s home movies popping up online?.  Not very according to Mamamia Site Manager Lana who writes:

“I am immensely proud of my child.  I have hours of video footage of him that I have dutifully transferred to DVD from VHS,  even started to create digital copies of his singing and playing on my computer.  We hardly ever watch it to be honest but I feel sure that  some day he will want to see how exceptionally gorgeous (and talened) he was when he was two, three, four – even ten, because honestly, he is still creating video worthy footage right now.

And while I think the videos I have created are beautiful and heart warming and at times side splittingly funny, I only ever share them with my family.  And even then I have to demand that they watch him on film (funny thing that they always seem to watch him in real life). My friends? Mostly they have their own kids and honestly they are in no rush to see mine be cuter than theirs.  But it seems that I may be alone.

Increasingly YouTube is becoming the repository for film.  It seems that we are no longer willing to keep the family videos just for family, even sharing them with friends over a Sunday BBQ seems a little passe as more and more people are displaying their children for the world to see.  Sometimes they are cute, sometimes they are  funny, sometimes the kids are even incredibly talented but sometimes, like with all home movies there are scenes that are just incredibly cringe worthy.

So while I choose not to put up footage of my own son I have been exposed to the lives of other children online.  And sometimes it is medicine for the soul.  I could not watch this child without smiling.  Tried. Failed.  You can see what I mean

[youtube 0REJ-lCGiKU 640 390]

And at the end of the clip when he rolls over laughing hysterically and I hear his parents laugh with him I can’t help but think that all is okay with his world. A snap judgement I know, but I can tell this child is happy, he is loving what he is doing.  It radiates from within him.

My sister sent me that clip just because she knew it would make me smile.  But she also sent me this one, because it made her sad and she wanted to know what I thought.  She had seen it on TV and her her email to me simply said “Am I prudish, but who did this boy’s parents think would be watching this? ”

[youtube 1JgH5AjVxGo 640 390]

Now maybe I am judging the person who created this footage, in fact I am wondering what on earth inspired them to persuade this boy to dress up and perform because as sure as he is not Christina Aguilera he does not seem to be happy about this performance he is giving. Where is his laughter? his joy at dancing? his wonder at being a child?

With the ability to simply and quickly upload your family’s highs and lows to a global audience it can be hard to remember that pushing that publish button means it’s done. When your child is singing in the lounge and it makes headline news on the other side of the world you can’t take it back.

Do you think people should be able to share footage of other people online? What about footage of you? If you were at a party and your dancing appeared on a YouTube video how would you feel?

 

About the Author: Lana was destined to a life of editing and organisation when her parents named her Anal.  It was just a fortuitous twist of luck that the person drawing up the birth certificate wrote backwards so she has always been known as Lana.

Lana wants to be a writer when she “grows up” and also work on the fact that she cries very easily.  She is married and is the mother to a very beautiful son and a very spoiled dog. In her spare time Lana writes for her own blog which lives here.