Kids and the internet — Gen Xer asks a millennial tween to explain Fortnite, tween asks Xer how to get on Youtube

Until recently I had no idea what Fortnite is. I know that it is yet another game where you shoot people while being shot at and that it’s popular with a lot of kids. This 10 year old I am talking to is apparently a huge fan of Fortnite, she wants a Fortnite backpack for school, so I ask her to explain to me what the game is about. She regals me with the names of Greek and other gamers she watches on Youtube who do Fortnite gamestreams: the hilariously named KarpouziFetaGaming, Panos Dent Games, CiccioGamer89, Ninja, USK Gaming, Jack Doherty. She doesn’t know a lot of English yet, she writes “I don’t like” as “i dont laik” in the comments, so I teach her how to pronounce the name “Doherty” in English. I wonder whether any of these guys know or care that 10 year old girls are watching them. We watch a bunch of Fortnite videos together as she explains in broad terms what the game is about. She tells me what “1# Victory Royale” means and what the “Battle Bus” is. I decide that this game is a 15+ game at best, definitely nothing a 10 year old should be looking at. It’s not just the copious casual killing that bothers me, because unlike most of Americans and other Westerners I as a Greek woman do not believe in sheltering kids from death, as long as this topic is presented with the humanity and gravity it deserves. It is rather the premise of the game that bothers me — kill everyone to be the last man standing so you can dance on a pile of skulls — as well as the ironic way each kill appears to be presented. There is a scene where someone is running through what looks like an idyllic green field only to be suddenly impaled by these elephant tusk sized nails that emerge from the green grass, the joke being that games of old would reveal these as an obstacle to be overcome whereas here they appear without a warning. Death is presented as a sick joke in Fortnite and there are compilation videos of the most ironic deaths. This might be appropriate humour for a cynical 18 year old, it is definitely not something anyone below 15 should be looking at. There is a llama piñata in the game, or actually 100s of them, that you have to locate and smash up to obtain weapons and other goods. This llama piñata, which can be viewed as a kind of modern day cornucopia, has become a symbol that is appropriated by fans in various creative ways. Being Greek I mistake the llama for a purple donkey and the 10 year old thinks it’s the funniest mistake ever, so she has me repeat it several times (“It’s a donkey!”, “No, a llama! Hahaha!”) while we browse t-shirts of the Fortnite llama. She shows me a video with “All The Dances of Fortnite” while she dances along to almost every single one of them. She shows me how to do “The Floss” and makes me promise to listen to a video of the Fortnite theme songs, and to watch another video titled “The Cube In Fortnite Has a Secret Message”. I tell her I want to know what the secret is right now. She refuses to tell me and says, “Just watch the video.”. She asks me which Youtubers I follow, so I show her Ready To Glare and The Gothic Alice, think it is harmless because she doesn’t understand English, but she freaks out at the tattoos and the coloured hair/wigs and complains that “They look crazy!”. She tells me that she wants to be a drummer so I show her a video of Kittie’s female drummer Mercedes Lander, but she too has a lot of tattoos and is headbanging while drumming so she says: “You only watch these crazy women!”. I fantasize about someone making a video “Kids React to Gothic Youtubers.” (Instead there is a video of adults reacting to gothic kids).

She asks me: “You know about making videos, right?” and I say “Sure.” because I do know a few things. She then proceeds to scroll through screen upon screen of videos that she has recorded of herself in private on her mom’s Smartphone. I cannot recall how many but it was dozens and dozens of video thumbnails she was showing me as she scrolled down. At 10 years of age she has already figured out how to shoot a video of herself on the smartphobe, but her problem is that she hasn’t figured out how to upload these videos she has shot on her mom’s phone to her mother’s Youtube account, and she wants me to do it for her. I realize that she does not have her own Youtube account at this age but that she is using her mother’s account to access Youtube so that her mom can keep track of which videos she is watching by looking at the videos she has given a thumbs up. She wants to me to upload her videos to her mom’s account. I explain that she is under 18 and I would be breaking the law if I uploaded a single one of her videos to Youtube without parent permission. She lies and claims that her parents allow her. I tell her I need to hear this from her mom. I don’t have to explain the concept to her, at 10 years she already understands that a portion of the internet and the world is inaccessible to her because she is young. Still, she runs off to mom to get permission. Of course mom refuses to give permission and explains that there are bad people on Youtube who target children when they find their videos. Then she explains that there is cyberbullying on Youtube and people who find her on Youtube might bully her to make her upset. Then the inevitable Argument About Social Media Use®™ ensues, which begins with desperately pleading murmuring and ends with an angry tween marching away throwing the door shut behind her. “Don’t say anything more!” she snaps at mom as she puts on her shoes. “Of course not, we are not at home!” mom retorts. “OMG, thank Gawd I don’t have children!” I think to myself, but at the same time I am glad I get to witness this scene up close and personal, a scene which I imagine is commonplace in any other household, to get a sense of how frustrating this must be. I wonder how I would have handled such disputes if I did have children. My answer in this case was a neutral-legal “It’s illegal…”, which is a truthful and convenient conversation stopper with kids. Her mom’s argument was that the internet is too dangerous for children, which is also true but did not deter her from wanting to upload her videos. I wonder though if there is another way to explain to a 10 year old why they should not be watching Fortnite streams and why they should not be uploading videos of themselves to Youtube.

Candy ⦿•◘ Black

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Ευάλωτος στην πνευματική αιχμαλωσία, στον έλεγχο και την χειραγώγηση είναι αυτός που φοβάται να σκεφτεί για λογαριασμό του. — “Αιχμάλωτη σκέψη”, Czeslaw Milosz

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