A while back there was an interesting article comparing Bluey and Cocomelon: https://www.readtrung.com/p/why-i-love-bluey-and-hate-cocomelon
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
54 points (95.0% liked)
Parenting
2458 readers
506 users here now
A place to talk about parenting.
Be respectful of others' parenting decisions.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Thanks for sharing! It was interesting (and horrifying) read!
Once a month, children are brought to [a London studio], one at a time, and shown a handful of episodes to figure out exactly which parts of the shows are engaging and which are tuned out.
For anyone older than 2 years old, the team deploys a whimsically named tool: the Distractatron.
It’s a small TV screen, placed a few feet from the larger one, that plays a continuous loop of banal, real-world scenes — a guy pouring a cup of coffee, someone getting a haircut — each lasting about 20 seconds. Whenever a youngster looks away from the Moonbug show to glimpse the Distractatron, a note is jotted down.
“It’s not super interesting, what’s on the Distractatron,” said Maurice Wheeler, who runs the research group. “But if they aren’t fully focused, they might go, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ and kind of drift over. We can see what they’re looking at and the exact moment when they got distracted.”
What a waste of all lives involved.
Children's entertainment has been doing that for a century. But the tactics are getting more elaborate, planned, strategic.
It's been a constant development, and it's getting worse.
Pretty horrifying, that video you linked. 4.5 billion views? 7 Billion?
You always, always limit how much they watch. Never ever let YT autoplay take over.
They're banned in this household.
My son doesn't watch it and we have no intention of starting.
My twins were hooked on it for a while. Made us parents absolutely insane. The kids learned a lot of simple English words though, so it wasn't completely for nothing.
This is nightmare fuel. Is this a real thing?
Edit. I thought that was mr beast in the thumbnail and expected the worst. Glad it's that guy Rybread. Good video!
You can tell it's not mr beast because he's not making that stupid false smile.
I think it was the mustache that made me think it was him. You're absolutely right.
Did people not know that?