My 5-year old daughter was on her tablet yesterday evening.

Yeah, she has a tablet. I don't want to hear it. You're a better parent than me. Your kids never look at screens, watch TV, play video games, or anything so blasphemous.

You are the king of parents, I know. I am working on getting a trophy made for you, it just takes time because the trophy place near my house is backed up with orders. Be patient, please.

Anyway, she was watching YouTube on her tablet, all short-form video content. "Shorts," I think YouTube calls them.

I think I'm old now, because I'm going into this world of short-form content kicking and screaming. I hate it. I'm not exactly sure why. Actually, yes I am.

Everyone yells too much, they talk too fast, there aren't any natural pauses to speak of, and they spend a good 75% of each video telling you to like and subscribe.

I get that content creators need to promote their brand in this fashion, because more subscribers equals more money. What I DON'T get, is why it is always done in a way that makes the user feel like they're supposed to give a shit about how many subscribers someone else has. I also don't get why the like/subscribe thing has become such a massive chunk of the overall video.

Seriously, if a video is 30 seconds long, and you spend 22 seconds telling me about how I need to like and subscribe or you won't get to buy as big of a speedboat next month, that leaves you with approximately 8 seconds of actual content.

Let me spoil it for you: those 8 seconds ain't all that great.

The term "content" is doing so much heavy lifting here, it should be pumping iron at Gold's Gym.

One particular video that popped up for my daughter said "Like and subscribe if you love your parents. If you don't like and subscribe, that means you don't love your parents."

My daughter looked up at me awkwardly and said "Dad, I don't know how to like and subscribe, but I promise I do love you guys."

My God. I can't believe this is the world we live in now. An AI Ice-T voiceover impersonator is bullying my kids into liking shitty garbage content, under the threat of her hating her parents.

Back in my day, if you wanted to be on YouTube, you had to actually DO something.

Now, you just have rich parents and an overly-caffeinated personality, hop on there, copy the same exact videos as everyone else, fill up the rest of the space talking about your subscriber numbers, cut out any pauses whatsoever, turn the volume on everything to +15 db, and BAM. You. Are. Famous.

And there's a good chance that I hate you and everything you stand for. So yay for that I guess.

Until next time,

-Alex

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