Image source: Visual China
Our parents after the 80s, the educational concept is very unified and pure: "no fight can not be talented", "filial piety under the stick", the means are thunderous, and its core is the heart of the father and mother who hope to become a dragon. A "hope" word contains the patience of parents to endure, pay and wait.
More than 30 years later, I found that today's parents have disdained the educational concept of "hoping for a son to become a dragon". Perhaps because the times are changing too fast, the rapid development of science and technology, or the rush of life has been unable to tolerate the long-term consumption of waiting for the blossoms, this year's parents are more pragmatic and more shrewd, using various operations at the moment when traffic is king, pushing their children to become dragons and phoenixes early.
Therefore, at the moment when short videos are popular, we can see that the original warm and sweet sunbathing baby has become a deformed show baby. Through a series of operations, designs, controls, and even harms the physical and mental health of children, parents make children who should be carefree and cute to grow up become tools for making money for themselves.
The deformed "Nibblers"
In the past, I have only heard of the old people running rampant, and recently watched the hot search #How do you think of the nibbling family#, only to know that the original two or three years old "mediocre" children can also become cash cows, so that parents can suck gold and earn silver.
However, the situation of these little cash cows is not too miserable.
For example, let the two- or three-year-old cute baby who is still wearing diapers perform the kitchen cooking for netizens, to know that the kitchen is a high-risk place for children.
Or, a young child as young as 3 years old was fed 70 pounds by his parents and took the cute route of "little fat mound".
Even in the video, the child repeatedly begged her parents in a childish voice when eating: "Don't get it, don't get it", the parents agreed with their mouths, but still filled the plate she had just eaten empty.
In addition, the little girl who has just passed her 5th birthday skillfully picks up foundation and eyeshadow, introduces how to make up to the camera, skillfully introduces cosmetics with a crisp baby tone, and guides netizens to buy.
Even, some small Internet celebrities on the Internet, after the "authorization" of their parents, took explicit videos to seek profits.
According to news reports, some parents who operate children's short video accounts can even earn 150,000 yuan a month, becoming a veritable "nibbling family".
This is no longer simply showing off babies and sunbathing babies, but allowing children to squeeze and even abuse children in the case of physical and mental damage to seek commercial benefits.
In the face of this phenomenon, netizens are of course attacking it in groups.
Therefore, at present, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has issued relevant "Opinions", which strictly prohibits the use of "internet celebrity children" to make profits and protect the legitimate rights and interests of minors in cyberspace.
Foreign parents also nibble on babies
In fact, "nibbling on the baby" is not a phenomenon unique to us, and it is also popular in foreign countries.
For example, youtube's most profitable blogger for three consecutive years is an American boy named Ryan Kaji who is only 10 years old.
At the age of 8, Ryan became the number one on the annual YouTuber revenue list with toy unboxing videos, earning $25 million (180 million yuan) a year. This year has been his third consecutive topped Forbes' world's highest-grossing YouTuber list.
In addition to a steady streaming of traffic and advertising sponsorship revenue, Ryan has built a personal toy brand to sell on Walmart, Amazon and other platforms by virtue of his fame; in addition, he owns his own Nickelodeon program and has signed a copyright agreement with the AMERICAN television network Hulu.
Proper gold sucking little prince.
There is also a little Belarusian girl named Anastasia, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, and in order to record the treatment, Anastasia's parents recorded her usual images, originally just to share them with relatives and friends through YouTube. Unexpectedly, in 2019, an interactive video of her and her father became a hit, with more than 700 million views.
Now Anastasia is also a child influencer, plus advertising, sponsorship, distribution platform and other income, she earns $18 million a year, lego, Dannon and other brands pay sponsorship fees as high as six figures.
Parents like Ryan and Anastasia, who are the top influencers, almost all quit their jobs to take care of their children's careers full-time as agents.
In the eyes of the outside world, they are also the parents of nibbling babies. But compared with the parents of those who nibble on the domestic hot search, they are mainly based on records (of course, there will be some design parts), and from the perspective of the program, they have not done anything that harms the child's body and mind.
Even so, these parents have also been criticized by many netizens. Think they push their children in front of the camera too early, as a tool to make money, and don't deserve to be parents. Perhaps because they have suffered too many attacks, both Ryan and Anastasia channels have tacitly chosen to turn off comments.
Behind the children's fame and money, there are injuries that ordinary people can hardly imagine
"Fame should be made early" is true. On the bright side, the benefits of early fame are not just financial benefits, children's early exposure to real society may be better integrated into them in the future; becoming a KOL will also help them in their future lives.
But behind so many benefits is the guardian's scientific and healthy "cultivation" concept, and those who create Internet celebrity children must know how to properly protect the child's mind and body.
But in fact, most parents do not have a scientific and healthy concept of creating children's Internet celebrities, and more are parents behind the manipulation, design to let children imitate, and even force children. In the long run, it will cause more harm to the child.
For example, leaking children's privacy and causing Internet violence that may target children. Like the former child stars Zhang Zhaoyi, Alpha and Lin Miaoke, they have all suffered from different degrees of online violence.
In addition, parents are prone to become control freaks, destroy parent-child relationships, and let children establish an incorrect view of money.
In the Japanese drama Legal High, there is a story about the child star Ernst & Young and the agent's mother who turned against each other.
Ernst & Young's child star debuted, Renmei had good acting skills, and the star path was bright. However, underneath the glossy exterior, there are little-known troubles and behind-the-scenes life.
She witnessed her mother using the money she earned to live a life of spending money and decaying, but never cared about her growth and education, but only used her as a tool to make money.
So, she found a famous Japanese lawyer to file a lawsuit with her mother to help her break off the mother-daughter relationship. Ernst & Young wants to get out of her mother's control, make herself more independent, and grow up healthy like her peers.
There is no child wage protection law in China, and how much money earned by minors will be used on themselves can only depend on the parents' planning.
As children are able to earn their own money, the original family structure begins to suffer. How parents set rules and boundaries for children who are richer than adults is increasingly becoming a new problem in parent-child relationships.
Even putting children in front of the camera and the public too early can affect the development of children's brains and minds.
Becoming a small Internet celebrity and a child star with fame and fortune seems to be a good thing, but excessive indulgence in the Internet may lead to the serious solidification of the "reward circuit" in children's emotions, which not only produces symptoms of Internet addiction, but also makes children's self-worth orientation "only from the net".
When their fame fades, their attention is no longer, and they become "past Internet celebrities", this "social reward stimulation" will appear "withdrawal phenomenon": because of the loss of the pursuit and attention of former fans, the source of happiness of the brain reward system will disappear.
The prefrontal cortex of the adolescent brain is not mature enough, which means that they are more impulsive than adults, more difficult to rationally look at the rise and fall of fame, and get rid of the dependence on the "addiction to fame".
In Hollywood, the frequent scandals of drug and alcohol abuse in the past stars are unable to face the pain of "not being red"; even if these children are able to maintain fame and fortune when they grow up.
For example, french national treasure singer Edit. Piaf, from childhood to become a French national treasure singer, but she was infected with morphine injections and alcoholism due to the hurt and emotional trauma of the car accident, and died of liver cancer at the age of 48.
Edith. Piaf
There's also American singer and movie star Judy. Garland, who debuted as a child, won the Academy Award for Best Young Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Lifetime Achievement, two Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award.
But she had a miserable personal life, plagued by alcoholism, drug abuse and emotional problems for many years, and eventually died at the age of 47 due to overdose.
Judy. Garland
These little stars who stand in the spotlight and in front of the camera too early have cast a tragic color on their lives because of the lack of innocent childhood and the lack of parental love.
A child's mental integrity is more important than a child's "early fame"
Therefore, the "early" of "early fame" also has a time point, at least until the child's mind is more mature.
In this regard, one of the celebrities I admire is one of the most famous basketball players in NBA history, "Big Shark" Shaquille. O'neill.
Shaquil. O'neill
At 2.16 meters tall and 148 kilograms, O'Neill is not a big man with well-developed limbs and a simple mind. Not only is he one of the most famous basketball players in NBA history, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but he is also one of the few professional basketball players who completed college and earned an MBA and a doctorate in education after retiring.
In addition, O'Neill is a master of the investment world. He started investing in stocks in the early '90s, and at the beginning of Google's business, he invested in Google, which made him earn dozens of times the return; he also had his own brand of sneakers, which could earn up to $6 million a year; he owned 155 burger shops, 17 pretzels restaurants, more than 150 car wash companies, 40 24-hour gyms, and multiple nightclubs in Las Vegas.
Many retired players, most of them have lived a pension life, and even have no way out of life, squandering their old roots, falling into bankruptcy, O'Neill has become a star player at a young age through his own talent, did not drunkenly dream of death in retirement, chose to go to school for further study, and has the ability to further expand his wealth, which shows the superb talent and the maturity of the mind.
In fact, O'Neill's original family was unfortunate. His biological father was imprisoned, his mother remarried with his young son, and he raised several children with his stepfather, which can be described as a cold family, and O'Neill often encountered the ridicule of his peers because he was too tall since he was a child.
But his mother took her children's education very seriously, and even though O'Neill high school could participate in the professional basketball draft, her mother insisted that he go to college before starting to play professional games.
Although 16- and 17-year-olds who go to professional games after graduating from high school may become famous earlier, these young children may not be able to go smoothly and for a long time in the mixed and huge NBA business map.
After entering college, children in their 20s are more mature in judging and dealing with the outside world than in high school, and they can cope with a more rational mind when standing in the spotlight and in front of the media.
In the process of playing professional games, many basketball players will give up their studies and end up with an honorary alumnus/graduate degree, and O'Neill once stopped college because of playing.
But after scoring 48 points in a single game in a game, his mother asked him, "What if one day you suddenly break your knee?" O'Neill realized that it was plan B to face the accidents and misfortunes in life.
So he re-attached importance to his studies, insisted on getting a university diploma, and completed his master's and doctoral degrees one after another, which not only filled his mind, but also found another "back road" for himself to play.
O'Neill's experience tells us that it is good to be famous early, but if you are mentally immature, you will face the temptations of the outside world and the fame and fortune that is too easy to get, and you may not be able to keep it in the end, and even bring a devastating blow to your life.
The mentality of "becoming famous early" is not only reflected in the fact that parents use their children to monetize, but at present, many parents of excessive chicken babies also hold this educational concept. Dr. "Tiger Dad" punches and kicks force six- and seven-year-old children to learn high numbers, and parents let primary school children publish cancer papers, which will bring harm to children's physical and mental health.
Rushing may be able to run faster, but not far for a lifetime, the gap between the child's mental development and super-outline knowledge is not a tiger mother or tiger father can fill.
The germination and fruit of a seed takes time to brew, and the same is true for the growth of a child.