David After 5 Years
11:35 PMOne of my students came into class today and wanted to share a funny video with the class. I had already seen it and I laughed too; at first. Then I got to thinking.
This video has gone viral; over 15 million views to date.
Searching YouTube for David After Dentist reveals over 1800 results. In classic YouTube fashion, the video has been remixed and parodied. You'll also find that since the video went viral there is now a blog collating all the remixes, parodies, other humourous and viral videos, an Amazon store, various other ways of monetizing the video of a 7 year old boy who went to the dentist, was medicated, and took a while to fully recover his senses.
I wonder how young David is going to feel about all this in five years; when he's in high school. As he struggles to establish his own identity and "fit in," how will he feel if (when?) this video resurfaces and spreads throughout the school?
I wonder if David's parents have fully thought through the future ramifications for David; from the point of view of his future self.
It's cliché; the internet changes everything. That includes our perception of time. I think this is a really important thing to get our heads around: digital footprints can last a lifetime.
It used the be the foolish things kids did faded with people's memories. The internet has a better memory. I think kids today need to learn not only to "think before you post", but to think, from the perspective of ALL your future selves, before you post.
3 comments
I'm sure this has been said before, but it seems to me that we are really heading towards living in a global village. If you live in a village now (as friends of mine do) then everyone else in the village knows pretty much everything about you. People actually quite like living in villages despite, or maybe because of this. Soon we are all going to be in the same situation no matter where we live, if we choose to live sizeable portions of our lives online.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about this one. It reminds me a bit of child stars, many of whom experienced trauma growing up and struggling with identity because of their exposure. Others did fine.
ReplyDeleteI also think we're moving to a new view of privacy which is currently creating much of the struggle and prompts a post like this.
My view is with more and more of these types of viral videos, they'll become less, well viral. We might view them differently rather than forwarded them on, we might see them as background noise. I don't know for sure, just speculating.
The one thing I do think is important is the transition from parent owning our child's identity to them taking it over. How do we do that? I think about parents who have set up blogs for their babies and begun that process. Is that bad? Might it be helpful?
Maybe this comes down to the parent-child relationship? Maybe it's about making good decisions for our children, that may not be exactly the same as everyone else? I'm not sure this Dad has done a disservice to his child. I'm not saying everyone would choose this but depending on the type of father he is, it may end up being a positive thing. Maybe I'm naive.
I didn't think before I read this about how posts will affects students later on in life. I look at students who post videos of themselves doing things that don't make them look good, never considering the fact that those videos can come up later in life and then maybe they won't think it is so funny. Many times I think students and people in general do not think about the long term affects of what they post and many times later in life they regret that post that they made.
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