Waffles and Mochi’s Jonathan Kidder, CoComelon Goes to China, Kids’ Voice Tech, Sesame Street Turns 50, Congress + Kids’ Apps, & Roblox Goes to School!

Kid Culture Report [March 2021]

COVID Kid Culture 🦠

“We’re seeing a lot [of young people] seeking out videos to support [their] interest in learning new skills during this time, finding answers to things that they don’t necessarily want to talk about with parents and peers, and also to support a lot of learning and offline interest to augment their interest in doing activities that have nothing to do with the Internet.” [Joan Ganz Cooney Center]

Kids Media 🎥

“Busy the Bee on Netflix’s “Waffles + Mochi” may or may not be gay. (Mostly, he’s just a sassy bee.) But proud, out puppeteer Jonathan Kidder hopes that he can inspire LGBT kids. The way Kidder looked at it is, ‘if I were a gay kid, I would have really valued having a character that felt like I felt inside.’” [Daily Beast]

Teaching Gen Z 🏫

“According to a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 parents of students grades K through 12, 62 percent reported a “somewhat or very positive experience with remote schooling.” [NBC News]

KidTech 💻

“You might be wondering, ‘why would I need speech technology specifically for kids?’ Well, kids have totally different voices to adults. Their pitch is higher, they don’t always pronounce words properly, and it changes across the ages. A 5-year-old’s voice is different from a 10-year-old’s voice. Most of the speech recognition systems you’ll be familiar with are trained on adult voices and don’t tend to work too well for kids' voices.” [VUX World]

GenAlpha 👶🏾

“Moonbug has extended the reach of CoComelon, which is already greatly loved in most of the world, giving the Chinese platforms’ hundreds of million viewers access to watch and listen to content in Mandarin and English.” [PR Newswire]

Social Impact 💖

“Boston Children’s Hospital researchers unveiled a Digital Wellness Lab, which will serve as a research hub for studying the mental health effects digital technology has on kids. The lab supporters include Harvard, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon Kids & Facebook.” [Digital Wellness Lab]

Kid Culture 🤣

“On April 26, ABC Network will air “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days,” a two-hour documentary special highlighting the 50-year impact of this iconic show and the nonprofit behind it, Sesame Workshop.” [ABC]

Kids Gaming 🎮

“YouTube has struggled to make its platform kid-friendly since its founding, and as it has grown into the de facto children’s network for busy parents, the problems have only compounded.” [WIRED]

Roblox 👾

“School teachers have increasingly adopted Roblox to teach subjects like coding, animation, and digital civility. Roblox itself has also leaned into education and lists over 300 partner educational institutions on its website.” [Fast Company]

Kids Privacy 🔐

“Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., explicitly stated lawmakers would either look at new legislation or updating existing laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” [Bloomberg]

If you’re reading this in your inbox, you can find a shareable version online here. You can follow Derek on Twitter, Instagram. You can also find Youth Pop! on Medium.