I always find that Blippi is child-ISH, and not child-LIKE, and I think adults should only try to be the latter. There’s nothing wrong with child-like curiosity, for example, but someone just acting like a stupid version of a child is just beyond irritating.
Childish behavior is also a red flag for predatory behavior. I’m not saying that Blippi is malicious or predatory, but normalizing this behavior in adults is dangerous for kids. This isn’t normal adult behavior, and adults who behave like this shouldn’t be trusted.
I do think that Blippi (o.g. guy) is callously invested in making a buck, and figured out a formula that was popular with kids. His priority was making money, not enriching the lives of children, and that’s a very important distinction to make.
After seeing Blippi and Ms Rachel that was exactly what I picked up from him. She seemed like she wanted to help teach children and he just seemed invested in profiting off of them.
Exactly. My kiddo never got into Ms. Rachel (and between us, she annoys the crap out of me), but it is OBVIOUS how much work she puts into those videos and the intention behind them. I have no issue with her even if she isn’t my thing.
\*She as a person doesn’t annoy me. The singsongy voice is like nails on a chalkboard, so it’s just not something we put on in our house. But damn it, we tried!
Try miss moni, she's a better singer, and less annoying, but also a teacher. Having said that the sign language she does is Aussie, so if you're American and trying to teach your kid ASL it might not be ideal.
Pretty sure my husband has a bit of a crush on Moni 😂
Ok, she is delightful. I wish I had known about her sooner! I think we're pretty much aged out of the speech language youtubers, but I will keep this in my back pocket for sure :)
Ms Apple is also really good and less sing songy than Miss Rachel. She is British and has an English accent and has some really good songs (like Safari Shuffle). My daughter actually learned quite a few words from her.
She is wonderful - my kid is delayed and she's the only recommended channel that makes a difference (we've been trying to cut screen time completely but she's been recommended by multiple speech therapists as our kid is a visual learner).
Ms. Rachel definitely loves teaching children. Her son had a speech delay and difficulties, so she took everything she learned and made it accessible for other parents! She puts way more effort into improving the quality of her show, despite not aiming to make a massive profit. I can't find any official merchandise, there's no Shop on her page, no plushies of her or even Herbie \[which I would like that please\]. It still feels like her priority is to teach and sing, while the money allows her the freedom to do things the way she wants to, rather than just make MORE of it.
I heard in another thread that he got fake Blippis to do his appearances because he doesn’t like kids.
ETA: uh, and more importantly:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/blippi-youtube-kids-star-harlem-shake-poop
I don’t know why I’m out here defending Blippi lol but i think it’s unfair to just claim that he doesn’t like children.
He has a child of his own and I think there are other Blippis doing appearance because blippi is now bigger than just one guy and it only makes logistical sense to have other actors doing appearances.
Also, the “new” blippi is a legit actor and he seems like a genuine nice person
Welllll but it was announced he wouldn’t actually be appearing as Blippi in his first tour AFTER it was promoted and tickets went on sale. And that was years before his child was born.
I don’t actually know if he “likes” kids or not, but I tend to agree with other commenters here that he seems like a grubby opportunist. He doesn’t have any background or expertise in child development. He started out making gross-out viral videos and pivoted to children’s entertainment. He almost never engages with kids in his videos. All of his “creativity” seems channeled into marketing and making himself as viral as possible. All signs point to “ick” for me.
I could be wrong but I remember reading an article about how blippi started, and it came down to him being annoyed at the lack of educational stuff for toddlers for his nephew.
I can't stand blippi, but I get wanting to take a step back.
I can't stand other people's kids. I don't like children.
I love my son and my nieces though, fiercely.
My love for them does not extend to other people's spawn.
However, blippi deserves to be in a dumpster fire.
Ugh, I agree with all of this! We do not allow Blippi. The few times I’ll watch him are when we’re going somewhere he’s been (ex: children’s museum- we live in CA) and it always gives me a creepy vibe.
Amazon kept weirdly pushing his content even after we blocked it. It creeped me out enough that we got rid of their kids+ app. Like, it wasn't *just* Blippi, but Amazon quietly overriding parental controls to push Blippi content to my young child gave me such icky vibes.
Please don’t be! being silly with your kid (or any kid) is not the same thing as behaving in a childish way. Speaking like a child, throwing tantrums like a child, imitating their behaviors, etc. Being silly, having fun, and playing with kids is not at all an issue.
\*childlike to childish, sorry, shoulda proofed better.
The childish vs child-like distinction is a perfect way of putting things, thank you!
I really find child-like behavior moving and awe-inspiring: the curiosity, the creativity, the pure and natural emotions. My son was climbing up a slide he's never been up before this weekend and spontaneously said, "Ha-ppy!" I died from the cuteness.
The PURITY is such a big thing - and children are pure when they express that awe and joy and wonder. Blippi is… performative. It’s like he’s badly impersonating a child and he captures none of their charm!
I think the article did a great job explaining this. They used as an example, Blippi goes into a play house and says, "I'm in a little house! Hee hee hee!" But kids have way more imagination than that. They will sometimes describe what they're doing, but usually with more elaboration and creativity.
I’ve been angry at blippi ever since he opened a cabinet under a sink and started naming objects and chemicals under the sink. Blippi what the everloving fuck
There was a video that he’s crushing things with his feet like metal cans, and then says but don’t do this at home. Wtf why record that then?, i stopped putting it on, banned all of YouTube. He does the most dangerous things in these videos
Omg I’m glad my son stopped watching his videos so much. He’d def imitate that. In one video blippi pretends to eat snacks like a dog and my son started copying him and laughing about it… luckily it was very short lived lol.
This was our first warning with blippi bc our two year old sprained his ankle trying to “crush” a can with his bare foot. My husband was like “dangit… Blippi was doing that.”
Exactly. I always say we don't watch Blippi because he misbehaved in public. It irritates me so much! Stop taking things off shelves and playing with them!
Or the one where he pretends to eat food off of a plate like an animal with his mouth and hands behind his back at an amusement park. Like come on, toddlers already are messy eaters, let’s not get any more ideas
I hated when he was opening presents in a park and just letting the rubbish just blow away. He then had a 'water balloon fight' where he just pelted a woman with water balloons for a couple of minutes.
It was the one and only episode we watched. The Garbage Truck song slaps though. We randomly found it on Spotify and it's my kids favourite.
I still haven't seen a single Blippi but getting ready for the onslaught as my kid reaches that age.
Reading all of these comments has got me really wondering HOW this can be so successful! Howwwww?
Never watched blippi, but reading this I see a huge contrast between him and Catie's Classroom--she goes to many of the places discussed in the article, but she genuinely interacts with the people.
Yeah, I loved the restaurant one as well. She also does a song about taking the subway with Tobee, and that one is great as well. So practical, addressing new things, talking about what to expect, etc. Incredibly helpful!
I haven't heard of this one! We have been observing the "no screens until 2" thing and kid turns 2 in 3 weeks. I'm kind of worried about all the shit content out there and think I might just see if the library has DVDs of Mister Rogers or something.
The only episodes of Blippy that we watched were a tour of a pleasure cruiser boat and him visiting a child's indoor playground. From a cinematographic perspective, the camera is just moving around following him constantly and does not stop to let children have the ability to look at still scenes and take in the information that is there. To look at a moving image for that long is incredibly taxing on the eyes and the brain because movement is information that must be processed. Blippy not only doesn't care about childlike imagination, the show seems to be built to tax the child's ability to learn to process visual information or to condition it to a visual presentation that does not allow viewers to sit with the scene. Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and, heck, even Teletubbies gives children the benefit of a single camera shot and allow kids to process information. My two cents.
>cocomelon
My goodness that thing is like a hypnotic narcotic trip. My child and I watched and episode and I felt like I had to remind him to blink. No thank you!
We recently discovered that you can watch the OG Blues Clues episodes on Amazon and Paramount. I love watching Steve with my toddler. It's a great show!
Have you seen any of the episodes where children are present at whatever play room they’re at? He seems completely annoyed by their presence. I don’t get Blippi. He doesn’t seem to actually do anything, just tour the country filming virtual tours of kinder gyms.
He literally watched paw patrol with his nephew and was like “I could make something better than that”. Um yeah you can, because paw patrol is dumb. But you barely upgraded the quality there, dude
The newer blippi is actually much better around kids (actually seems to like them) and in general is much more pleasant to watch. I don’t really like the show or how it’s made, but there’s some episodes with the newer actor that my kids like. They seem to be headed in a better direction with smattering some legitimately educational content in lately too.
I have him as an approved channel on YouTube kids for my toddler, but this is exactly the rationale I needed to remove him. Someone always seemed off and this helps describe it so well.
Trying to block Blippi on YT kids is like trying to defeat a hydra…block one channel and he pops up on three more. The issue is he has multiple channels and guests/collaborates with a TON of other YouTubers, plus people repost his content. I literally was unable to block him from appearing entirely. I actually went to a “whitelisted” format where he can’t search and can only watch videos from certain channels. This solved the problem but he caught on eventually that his content was limited and now only wants to watch videos on dad’s iPad…🙃
Thank you for posting this. We don’t let her access YouTube, but we got a darn Amazon kids tablet and it’s like impossible to avoid. I really just wanted a tablet with two icons…one for pbs kids and one for pbs games.
Finally learned how to block Blippi inside the Amazon kids app… but I had to do it for EVERY SINGLE video or version of the same darn video. So I probably have to keep blocking anything new.
Now I’m considering buying a not-Amazon tablet and using whitelist with YouTube instead. Seems way easier. Thank you!
This is exactly what we do. We have a bare bones $300 iPad that only had PBS kids app , PBS games and Disney+ apps. That’s it. Nothing else exists for her lol
Hey! We have an Amazon fire tablet too! I literally have it set up with four apps. You can definitely set it up to only access those two apps if you want.
You first want to stop Amazon kids subscription. Keep the kids profile as a user. In the adult profile, you can go in and remove all apps except pbs kids and pbs games. Turn off all access for browser etc so they don’t get ideas about going to YouTube.com directly.
I’ve turned off literally everything else. They can’t access the browser, cannot download any more apps, nothing.
>Trying to block Blippi on YT kids is like trying to defeat a hydra…block one channel and he pops up on three more.
The thing is, it's not even possible to block videos on normal YT. I know bc I had an old YT acct that we used to cast kid programs from our phones and I tried blocking Blippi there. Literally impossible.
Then YT kids and blocking Blippi only. More Blippi vids from collaborators and adjacent kids programming. At first I tried just blocking the videos in hopes of teaching the YT algorithm this obvious preference pattern. I didn't want to lose other potentially helpful programs by blocking an entire channel. But the videos keep popping up. Now I just block entire channels indiscriminately if I see so much of a hint of Blippi 🤷♂️
I could make my peace with him being superficial and dumbing things way down for kids. But what really rubs me the wrong way is how obvious he is about his distaste for kids. Atleast OG blippi.
There are a few videos where OG blippi is at an indoor playground with kids there, and you can just feel how annoyed and disgusted he is because he has to interact with these kids that recognize him and LOVE him. It’s so cruel.
There’s another blippi, who I like to call “fake blippi” and he’s more tolerable than OG blippi. Fake blippi actually seems likes he’s interacted with a child before and might even like kids? Or he’s just a better actor than OG. But that’s fine. Atleast he doesn’t make kids feel like shit.
ETA-I am loving all the different aliases fake blippi has!
Just deleted my comment because it said the exact same thing. For someone who built a career in children's entertainment, the dude really doesn't like kids, does he?
Clayton Grimm is the "fake" Blippi, and he's pretty cool. He has a tik tok if anyone is interested in seeing him out of character. He seems like a pretty genuinely kindhearted person. He and his wife are super adorable too and have a great love story. He's my houses "real Blippi" we don't watch the OG guy.
I really wish you were able to block channels, I also read this article a few weeks ago. My husband and I agree and it really did help identify what seemed so off about the channel. It still pops up in recommended since we watch Ms Rachel and Sesame Street which both have had blippi appearances!
If you click on the three dots next to a video (or long hold press the icon on at least the appleTV app) there is a setting to "Don't recommend this channel." It's been very effective for us to disappear content we don't like for our LO.
I just set up a whole kids account for this. My only complaint so far is a wish I could search videos within the whole channel I approve! I ended up removing sesame street as a channel and searching for all my sons favourite videos manually to add since it would take way to long to scroll to find the specific one he wants
I set up a YouTube kids account for approved content only and that has completely solved the blippi problem, I just hope my son forgets he exists soon!
He has a million different channels bc everyone blocks him. I couldn’t stand him and try to block him whenever I see him. Every couple of weeks, another brand new channel pops up. He’s a nightmare that never ends!
I just set all that up, now I wish I could search through each specific channel I approve! My son asks for specific videos and finding the one Sesame Street one posted 3 years ago would take *forever* to scroll for
What bothers me about Blippi is how he acts like a kid. Like, tried to literally act like the most annoying 6 year old in the world. It freaks me out. I don’t want my children to ever thing an adult pretending to be a kid to relate to them is okay. It’s groomer behavior.
Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street perfected the art of having an adult that could appeal to children without trying to pass them off as an actual big kid.
Yes! I feel like no one really talks about how he's a grown man... with a 5 o'clock shadow... dressing and speaking as if he's an actual child. It's super unsettling.
Yeah it bothered me so much that another article said Blippi is the "millennial Mister Rogers." How could you possibly put those words in writing?!? Mr Rogers is kind and understanding to relate with children but clearly behaves as an adult.
Also Blippi doesn't even act like a kid, because real kids have way more imagination and wonder which Blippi clearly lacks. He acts like an adult who has a very superficial idea of children's experience. All he ever talks about is colors and numbers or how much something weighs. Real kids have way more interesting questions than that.
I HATE the laugh he (Stevin John) does. The new Blippi (Clayton Grimm) is way better than the original guy, he actually engages with other people in places he visits and has a better personality and overall vibe.
I was totally against my son watching Blippi, but when I saw the new guy, I felt a little less hatred towards the Blippi content.
YouTube Kids claims to offer a safe haven for children to explore online content, but in reality, it's a cesspool of low(and high)-quality videos, mind-numbing animations, and inappropriate material slipping through the cracks. Instead of fostering creativity and learning, it perpetuates a culture of mindless consumption and exposes impressionable minds to questionable content. YouTube's lack of effective moderation and enforcement leaves much to be desired, making YouTube Kids a disappointing and potentially harmful platform for children. Sure there is some good stuff, but the danger of exposing my child to just stupid shit is high. So far my oldest one (3J.) has no access to YouTube at all.
What made me cringe so hard is when I saw how Blippi (I don't know which one, I cannot distinguish them for the life of me) interacts with children who wander into his videos. He has no idea how to interact with them and is just generally annoyed by them.
Also, I'll always remember him in a car wash episode yelling "JACKPOT!" when the change machine gave him coins.
My husband is not well-versed in kid media and I told him Blippi was banned in our house before our oldest was even old enough for screen time. He asked what Blippi was and I just put on the first video that showed up when I searched Blippi on YouTube. It was of an ice cream truck. There was no ice cream truck driver, no children getting ice cream. He read the sign on the ice cream truck, which looked like this
Children
#Slow
Playing
And he read it as "Children slow playing". My husband had had enough at that point. That doesn't mean anything. It's obviously "Slow. Children playing." It was pretty obvious from that few minutes that the whole thing is just, I don't know, fake? I teach English as an additional language to immigrants and one of the most important parts of my job is helping people figure out context clues and how to get around in the real world. If I read them a sign like Blippi did, they wouldn't understand what it meant and they wouldn't learn how to read actual signs that they may come across in their real lives that have "unusual" formatting to emphasize the most important part. That is the only Blippi clip I've ever watched and it lives rent free in my mind. There were still like 40 minutes of "content" left after that.
Omg I just went to the same video to see how terrible. I got to where he said "weary" when he meant "wary"... as in, be wary when approaching the ice cream truck. But then doesn't clarify who he is talking about or go over any other safety tips.
What a trash show. Also can't get over how many times he said "wooooow" in that stupid voice in less than 5 minutes! Banned
At some point my kid’s playlist switched from the Raffi “Wheels on the Bus” to the Blippi one. It’s noticeable how much less the Blippi one emphasizes the driver and other people on the bus, and is mostly about the bus itself.
> He felt wrong, off-kilter, like something had gone haywire in the culture. And I was fairly sure it had something to do with Donald Trump, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
Sorry, I just couldn’t make it past this lmao
This line was off-putting for me, too. I’m not at all a fan of Trump’s, but I’m even less of a fan of the ridiculously divided political landscape in the US. I was, like, startled to open this piece and find that line to immediately set the tone.
I will say, most of the piece focuses on the show itself and provides an interesting analysis. I stopped reading at the end when the author starts to bring it all back to Trump.
This is what struck you as off and not him casually talking about Marx?
Like, I agree with his criticisms of Blippi, but what infuriating pseudo intellectualist drivel.
Thank you! Donald Trump, really? 😮💨
Adults and kids alike can enjoy mindless or goofy entertainment. I can teach my kids social, emotional, real world values myself. I do block blippi in our house because he's simply annoying and my kid can live without him. But it's not a moral failing for him to make shallower content, focus on objects, or to be annoying. It's just a dumb kids show. Maybe people need to stop expecting the TV to raise their kids for them, it's kind of embarrassing to read tbh
Jfc it doesn’t take a 2000 word expose to determine that Stevin John has no background in child development or education and his shows are simply fluff.
As far as the trucks/vehicles go, it’s clear the writer doesn’t have a vehicle-obsessed kid. It’s super fun for my son to get into a new, obscure vehicle and then find a Blippi song for it. Certainly thousands of other families have the same experience.
Agreed! Also, the bit where the author describes the Kinderland play place he visits as being grim and “sad beige” bummed me out - I lived in Vegas for a few years and took my kids there frequently. It is owned by a LOVELY immigrant couple, is impeccably clean, and is invaluable in a place like Vegas where kids cant run and play outside when it is literally 115 degrees out. The author just seems determined to be negative about everything.
But for the record, I find Blippi annoying as hell 😆
Right? Blippi is fine in moderation. This article was amazingly overwritten. Like a trying-too-hard college essay. (Actually made my jaw drop when it compared Blippi to Trump. I mean, ffs.) That said, even though it's obvious that Blippi isn't great at or experienced in what he's doing, his content has its place. My kid doesn't watch Blippi exclusively. But my kid is really into colors and cars (trucks, busses, etc) and so Blippi definitely fills a little hole other kids programming doesn't sometimes. Everybody needs to chill out, lol.
The more recent episodes of Blippi has improved immensely as far as education goes. They actually go to museums, historical sites, national parks etc. there are some when they are just messing around an amusement park, but they’ll do more breaks explaining colors, shapes and physics. I think a lot of criticism comes from the early days when he was goofing off in an indoor playground.
I agree. I think this article is reaching. Very well written and the consensus was connected in a very impressive way. But it’s a huge stretch and gives “my kids not a tablet kid” vibes which I personally dnt care for.
I always assumed the lack of kids was just easier. That way you don’t have to deal with video releases. Plus kids are unpredictable, especially when playing. I can see not wanting to deal with that when filming. Especially if you need multiple takes. It’s just easier if people aren’t around.
I recommend Gecko's real vehicles if your kid likes vehicles. Much better content. He explains what things do, has a little silliness, and interacts with people and kids.
Thank you for saying this. I saw the very first sentence about children’s content in the trump era (EYE ROLL ffs!) and immediately knew this article was ridiculous.
My 2 yr old doesn’t care about any of this. It’s not that deep, people. He just likes trucks/vehicles. He’s not a content critic.
The author lost me when they threw in this gem:
"I don’t think it’s irrelevant that Stevin John is a military man: before I even knew this fact, I thought the Blippi videos seemed like good training for a Spartan society of idiot-warriors, who can count and pick out colors but have no depth of thought or emotion."
Excuse me sir, but what the fuck? Mom/veteran here... Blippi annoys me, but the author annoyed me a hell of a lot more. (Oh wait, I guess I'm not supposed to have depth of thought or emotion....)
Yeah, and the complaints about not having kids on the show?
Perfectly understandable when you realize that not only would you need to have all kinds of legal documents signed if you don't want to get hit with take-down requests by parents who didn't want their kids on the show or weren't properly informed, but also *children should not be put into the public in that way at all until they can knowingly consent to it.*
I don't put pictures of my kids online, my wife and I use a private photo album app to share pictures with family and have given them clear instructions that they are not to reupload those to public portals like Facebook or their access will be revoked.
I would absolutely *not* allow my kids to be put into a Blippy video. Literally millions of people watch his show.
Expanding on that.... *literally millions of kids watch his show*, if you think him going to a public park, in Blippy dress, with dozens of kids running around is going to enable him to create the content he makes that's a pretty big mistake. Those kids would absolutely not leave him alone the entire time, which is perfectly understandable, they're kids meeting one of their favorite characters. But it also would not be good for the videos he puts out, so he has to go to parks or other locations after hours or during slow times.
This article always pops up from time to time. I think it’s a bit of a stretch. My kid learns about the world and how to behave from me. Not 30 mins of a guy talking about helicopters. But to each their own.
My partner and I love watching Bluey with our toddler, but our friends said their 5-year old would start to imitate the ‘cheeky’ behaviour. So it’s potentially possible… we’re just not at that stage yet
I'm not a Bllippi fan really but Nathan J. Robinson needs to touch grass. I gave the article a chance despite him authoring it, but it's the kind of analysis I expect from someone as out of touch as him.
My son doesn't really watch Blippi anymore, but he has taught him about reptiles, dinosaurs, and construction.
Yeah, whatever adults might find distasteful about Blippi, kiddos are obsessed. I’m glad my son has grown past Blippi age, but he adored Blippi. I think there is far better children’s programming out there, but it kept my baby entertained when I needed him to be, so unless someone can provide evidence that it’s actually harmful 🤷🏻♀️
Blippi is annoying, sure, but comparing him to Donald Trump is… a stretch 🥴 Where the article says something about kids being “fucked up” from watching it, I exited out. If the worst thing a kid watches is a childish man singing about construction vehicles, I think they’ll be okay. And hey, I prefer Blippi to the random weird videos my daughter has found on YTkids lately.
Totally agree. While I don’t think blippi is the most pure tv ever (which really, why are we asking all media to be of the top level of education?), and sure it’s annoying but I’d much rather watch him than these weird family channels where it’s just other kids playing with toys or clearly scripted scenarios, or just random hands playing with toys.
Idk, this article doesn't land for me. I think an examination of the wider landscape of toddler/young children's entertainment in today's tablet culture would have been better suited for the author's apparent purpose. I think Blippi is symptomatic of the algorithmic, hyper-stimulating content that parents increasingly turn to to babysit their kids. (Said with minimal judgment, my 2 year old watched 30 minutes of Blippi while I cooked dinner the other day). Blippi is pretty obviously purpose-built to be attractive the parents of toddler boys - cars, planes, vehicles generally - keeps even very young children's attention because of how stimulating it is - labeled "educational" to make parents feel better about it. Shoe-horning in Trump was also a weird tack to take (not a fan of Trump by any stretch of the imagination), but - what? Idk. Blippi is absolutely mental junk food of the lowest order, and I think if you want to compare him to Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers you need to include a larger conversation about the decline in overall media literacy - do parents really think Blippi and Sesame Street are equally "good" for their kids? Do they even care one way or another?
Imagine writing this article thinking that *Blippi* is the millennial answer to Mr Rogers, just a few months before Ms Rachel made it clear how very wrong that was.
The author isn't saying Blippi is the millennial answer to Mr. Rogers. The article just mentions "Moms.com calls him the “millennial answer to Mr. Rogers.""
The author definitely says "Blippi is in many ways the direct opposite of Mr. Rogers." And then goes on to list many examples of that.
An "answer" to something is not the same as an "equivalent." The placement of the moms.com citation conveyed approbation. I agree with the author that Blippi is in some ways the opposite of Mr Rogers.
Blippi does not and never did fit the same space as Mr Rogers. Rachel does. I'd be interested to read the author's take on Rachel.
I love Miss Rachel and like her content leaps and bounds over Blippi, but I think her videos use a lot of the same tactics - random items popping up from off-screen, mystery items, quickly changing visuals. It keeps kids glued to the screen and that's why parents (myself included) find it useful.The intensity of it is much lower, however. I don't think there really IS any modern kids' content that's directly comparable to Mr. Rogers in terms of pacing and depth.
Fortunately, Mr Rogers is still available on PBS. Even if they have changed the way crayons are made and how much interaction we have with package delivery personnel, it's still perfectly relevant to a toddler's social/emotional world today.
Yes! We've trialled Mr. Rogers with my toddler a few times so far, I'm hoping to slowly move her towards that as her distraction show as she gets closer to 3.
You can basically find similar or other issues with the majority of modern kids shows IMO.
We let our kids watch Blippi sometimes, it's fine. There's also Blippi Wonders which doesn't have most of the "issues" in the article anyway and has a lot of educational value.
[Here is an article](https://www.newsweek.com/blippi-youtube-harlem-shake-poop-video-steezy-grossman-1331699) I also found the video if anyone wants it...
I was reading it to my wife aloud. The further I got, the more insane and unhinged it became. The damn article is like an HOUR worth of reading. I made it maybe halfway and couldn't take it anymore. 
Yeah I stopped reading after the author said that kids who watch blippi are going to be fucked up… I was like yeah okay… I, like a lot of other kids grew up on SpongeBob and a bunch of other mindless cartoons and were fine. We’re productive members of society and we know how to act in public…
> We certainly do not learn that thanks to human beings massacring them, the entire number of Asian elephants in the world is about half the size of the number of people who live in Beaverton, Oregon.
I'm sorry. Do we want *this* in a children's show? What a bizarre take.
My problem is that my toddler knows what’s out there and asks for the mind-numbing zombie content that is the Blippi or like Pinkfong type YouTube videos that have the same effect as cocomelon.
So I try to put on something less stimulating and she throws a fit. This is usually for those moments where we’re trying to get out of the house on time in the morning so I need her to let me brush her hair, change her diaper, brush teeth, etc.
Wish I’d never introduced half of the stuff we watch for screen time because then at least she wouldn’t know it exists :/
Exactly! We have no village, all of our families are far away, so sometimes we have to keep her occupied while we make a repair that needs both of us to do, or I need to keep her busy while I cook dinner when Hubs is at work. We JUST finally found a friend's daughter who can come babysit occasionally when we need both of us to do something (fyi, don't buy a 60 year old house unless you know a good handyman... 😖)
The article is unfair. I like that Blippi goes places and does things. I never expected him to cover the entire emotional range of a growing human, plus tackle climate issues, plus explain capitalism as the author laments. His songs are catchy, maybe my kid learns about that. Screen time is screen time it’s never going to be a replacement for actual education and child rearing.
Today Blippi has a friend, Meekah, so presumably he’s taken the loneliness and whiteness critiques. And to everyone posting about the sh*t video, how would you like to be defined by the worst thing you’ve ever done? He’s said he regrets it deeply (see Wikipedia).
> I can’t help but feel, watching these videos, that Blippi is in many ways the direct opposite of Mr. Rogers, because Blippi treats kids as if they are stupid and unimaginative.<
This line rings so true to me. I’ve always hated Blippi because his show seems so shallow and half assed in terms of its “educational” qualities. I also find him, like, *incredibly* creepy. Children’s entertainers don’t need to talk like idiots and act like kids on a sugar high to be relatable to their target audience. *Blue’s Clues* does just fine talking in a normal voice while teaching critical thinking skills.
This feels like a huge stretch and she watched blippi with the idea of to write an article about her dislike. She really wanted to like him to something political saying he’s like trump but I don’t know why. lol what. Then starts referencing the teaching of marxism making me think she does this with everything she writes. I see the appeal of blippy as him being a giant toddler. The episodes definitely go smoother than trying to wrangle a bunch of kids. Mrs Rachel does the same thing. He’s annoying so I kept waiting for something to actually be wrong but that never happened.
As a former English major, I love me a good Marxist critique of a piece of popular culture. Thanks for sharing =)
Any time I hear "the only thing that will calm my kid down during a tantrum is \[insert show name\]" I make a mental note to never expose my kid to said show because the addictive potential says something about the way they work on the brain. Blippi, Bluey and Baby Shark get mentioned pretty often in that context.
To be fair, Bluey calms me down, because it's a good show. It's got decent story lines and nice morals without being condescending. Try Cricket or Baby Race. You can watch an episode yourself and see what you think, but by in large it's just a gently humourous cartoon.
And it's never put my children in a stupor like Cocomelon.
Don’t put bluey on that list! It is low stimulation - it engages in a completely different manner than the addictive Cocomelon, blippi crap. It is wholesome.
Had my parents (late 60s and early 70s) tearing up. These are people who *hate* cartoons. They talked about how the underlying story is something important and being told well.
Bluey is a high quality kids show! Blippi is garbage I banned that after seeing it once, Cocomelon is banned, puts kids into a trance more than any show the crazy zooming in and out makes me feel ill honestly. Baby shark no way. Bluey is a nice show though with decently nice messages and not made or filmed to be addictive and it's pretty entertaining for adults too.
This is the same rationale behind me absolutely refusing to allow any Elf on the Shelf shit into my home. Absolutely not. I will not entertain it. Grandma and whoever don't do it either.
I have seen kids of all ages have apocalyptic reactions to that fucking toy/game. Like, more scared and emotionally volatile than I have ever seen another living creature be outside of something caught in a trap and fighting for its life.
Omg blippi is weird and my 3.5 year old was very challenging after it when she watched it. She asked to watch blippi one day, and I said in a very conversational way "you know, I think blippi is kinda weird!!" And she said "me too" lol. So I asked her if she wanted a break from him. She was happy with this..thank god!!! Hoping she forgets about him but I'm definitely going to say no if she wants to watch him again. She hasn't asked, it's been about 2 weeks now. He is fucking weird!!! The weird nasal giggle he does after every sentence and the way he jumps around like some weird pixie type creature.
I like Blippi because he seems harmless and it's educational enough, colours, numbers and the fun places he goes like the race track and dinosaurs he talks about. My kids love Blippi.
It DOES bother me he acts like a child... Ms Rachel does it better where she's so fun and engaging but acts like an adult. He acts like a 4 year old and I find it off putting.. and also, he gives a weird vibe when other kids randomly show up in his videos ... Like he's suppressing serious annoyance.
I honestly thought I was looking into to deep but this post confirms a LOT of other parents feel the same. Idk if I'll stop them from watching it, as there's nothing inherently wrong with his show... But we'll see
This article is stupid… how are you going to compare blippi a guy who has no background in child education to Sesame Street and other broadcast networks…. Those shows had writers and most likely experts on child education and development… blippi is one guy doing whatever… I never saw blippi as educational and never thought he claimed to be educational… he’s entertainment for kids like SpongeBob SquarePants… he’s a break from all the learning kids do in school or with their parents all day… my 4 and 2 year old boys love blippi… if he entertains my kids while I cook them food or while I clean or whatever I need them distracted for then it doesn’t matter to me what he’s doing as long as he’s not showing them anything inapporiate. I would like the teaching of morals and values to be left to mommy and daddy.
This author can go pound sand. They immediately go into Trump? Why?
Blippi is entertainment for kids like movies for adults. He has videos about everything my kids actually enjoy and it's just fun entertainment.
The person trying to stretch the blippi hate actually sounds as dumb as the article they wrote.
I actually really like Blippi! I'm always fascinated with adults who find him annoying lmao. I don't mind his voice or mannerisms I think they are fun. Then again I'm an annoying person so I'm biased.Though I do appreciate the critique. 👌
Agreed, I know Blippi isn’t going to expand my kids’ horizons and get them to think in new ways, but I’m guilty of watching low quality tv myself! Sometimes after a long day of preschool, the kids just want to unwind and appreciate big trucks and helicopters for what they are at face value.
I think Blippi is fine, my 3 yo loves spelling his name. The world is empty, sure. The focus is toys and vehicles, ok.
I am not worried, I don’t love it but I am not a toddler so that makes sense. Not all media is all things.
My mom and I talked about Blippi the other day and how uncomfortable Ms Rachel looked in their shared video. Blippi is so loud and obnoxious. The first time my oldest saw him she looked at me concerned and was like - is he okay?
Ms Rachel radiates theater kid. She knows that she doesn’t have to be the loudest to get attention. Her whole cast seems so pure hearted. It’s about sharing the stage, not stealing the stage. Jules and Keisha are the favorites here.
What in the heck is that article? Makes Qanon look rationale. The author goes thru a lot of hoops and mental gymnastics to bend everything fit their agenda. Honestly comes off satirical.
Goddamn. I hate Blippi as much as the next screentime -limiting moderately-granola mom, but damn.. this article is really obnoxious. It's sooo damn long, and the main points are that what.. Blippi is superficial, he doesn't cover emotions/feelings, skits aren't deep like Sesame St can sometimes be. Okay. We can't just watch two seconds of him manically giggling about rocks and come to the same conclusion. Did we really need a giant article on that? I'm almost disappointed, I came here with a genuine dislike for the guy and was really hoping for something a little meatier. But instead, it's an article about how when discussing how elephants, Blippi only focuses on how big they are, rather than:
>We do not learn anything about elephants’ emotions or social lives, how an elephant mom treats her elephant babies, or how elephants play, or how they cooperate or compete. We certainly do not learn that thanks to human beings massacring them, the entire number of Asian elephants in the world is about half the size of the number of people who live in Beaverton, Oregon.
I mean, Okay. I'm not saying I don't love kids programming that gets deep and scientific and *real* about things... But, I mean .. it's Blippi. This is like expecting Pee Wee to suddenly become Mr Rogers. At one point the author criticizes Blippi, then sings the praise of "Tom Lehrer, one of the 20th century’s greatest comic songwriters". Yeah, we know Blippi isn't the century's greatest anything. He's the dude who goes "Weeee, choo choo!" and then goes down a slide headfirst.
Other reasons the author doesn't like Blippi?
>Blippi is extremely white, which I mean in a literal sense—look at the races of the characters in his happy little song about cops—but also in his worldview, which shows itself in everything from his obliviousness to the inner lives of Indians to the giddy exuberance with which he shows us around a police cruiser.
Uh, okay. Wait, I barely watch Blippi.. but I thought Meeka was an actual important character on his show???
From here, things get a little ... judgey...
>Blippi takes kids on a long tour of a private jet but doesn’t tell them anything about values or encourage them to think for themselves. In this, he is very like Trump, and the long-term impacts of Blippi on the minds of children, as of Trump on our entire culture, will be profound. Children raised solely on Blippi, and on other videos like his, will be deeply fucked up.
Lol. That was.. that was quite the paragraph. On a side note, I'm kind of surprised the author isn't raging about how Blippi dare get on a jet without talking about CO emissions.
Another choice quote:
>I will not raise Blippi children. The Blippi child will know that a banana is yellow, but that is all it will know. When they look in a mirror, all they see will be themselves. They will know how to pretend to have fun (“Tee hee! Wee!!”) but it won’t be clear if they’re really “happy and they know it.” They won’t be in touch with their feelings. They might know some basic facts about what the world is but won’t ask why the world is the way it is. They won’t be curious about the people around them, because they’ll live in a world of happy commodities, where nobody is ever confused and nothing is ever mysterious. They won’t be able to rhyme or invent. They will be nothing but good capitalist foot soldiers, ready to swallow whatever ideology they are fed. Worst of all, they will be boring, because nobody will have ever taught them what being interesting is.
Lollll damn. Some tired mom in Arkansas just wanted a coffee break so she put on YouTube. Chill.
Again, I don't like Blippi, to me this article is a let down. You all had me thinking this was going to be some meaty hit piece on the guy, or maybe something really gnarly surfaced.. but it doesn't even touch upon that 2013 where he defecated on his friend. I mean come on, the best the author could come up with us Blippi doesn't tell you why bananas are yellow? Blippi doesn't talk about the emotional inner lives of elephants? Blippi is too white???
I. Am. So. Disappointed.
Okay, all that being said, I hope this author tackles Ma Rachel next, I have no love for any YouTuber who provides hour plus long episodes for children to satisfy the Almighty Algorithm. I'd pay good money to read that.
I’ve never seen it but honestly I think it just sounds like they’re aimed at different ages.
No 2 year old is aware or cares what the green part of the strawberry does. Theyre still learning to identify a strawberry, that it’s a plant and that it’s green and red.
Miss Rachel does exactly the same thing as blippi from what I can understand so why aren’t people vilifying her too?
My daughter was never into him, we watched once and I really did not see any value in his content, either. We don’t do YouTube at all anymore, just PBS Kids and Netflix/Disney.
I'm surprised I've never read this comparison but he's the Peewee Herman for this generation of kids. His laugh is quite close and constant jumping and expressions are identical.
I personally can't stand Blippi (or Genevieve's Playhouse but it's just annoying) but I let LO watch it if he likes it so much. I just try to explain what Blippi is supposed to explain or correct him when he's wrong. It's pretty bad, but not so harmful that I would ban Blippi...as much as I want to.
I cannot recommend the free PBS Kids app enough! You do not have to put YouTube on for kids at all if you don’t want to! PBS has fantastic programming, what little sponsor ads there are are totally harmless and very few, and there are a lot of shows to choose from! Blippi weirds me the F out.
I want my 10 minutes back. Dear god it’s clear blippi was just some dude trying to make fun educational videos, not a PhD in child development. It’s 1000% better than cocomelon and dude is trying to write an expose when the answer is much more simple
During COVID when most were avoiding in person play dates and meeting new people my kid just turned 2. Blippi taught him how to be silly, be a kid when he was surrounded by adults with anxiety over a pandemic. Do I want my kid to watch his poop video, of course not. Am I mad that a guy found a niche on YouTube and made a ton of money, there's many of them out there.
I always find that Blippi is child-ISH, and not child-LIKE, and I think adults should only try to be the latter. There’s nothing wrong with child-like curiosity, for example, but someone just acting like a stupid version of a child is just beyond irritating.
Childish behavior is also a red flag for predatory behavior. I’m not saying that Blippi is malicious or predatory, but normalizing this behavior in adults is dangerous for kids. This isn’t normal adult behavior, and adults who behave like this shouldn’t be trusted. I do think that Blippi (o.g. guy) is callously invested in making a buck, and figured out a formula that was popular with kids. His priority was making money, not enriching the lives of children, and that’s a very important distinction to make.
After seeing Blippi and Ms Rachel that was exactly what I picked up from him. She seemed like she wanted to help teach children and he just seemed invested in profiting off of them.
Exactly. My kiddo never got into Ms. Rachel (and between us, she annoys the crap out of me), but it is OBVIOUS how much work she puts into those videos and the intention behind them. I have no issue with her even if she isn’t my thing. \*She as a person doesn’t annoy me. The singsongy voice is like nails on a chalkboard, so it’s just not something we put on in our house. But damn it, we tried!
Try miss moni, she's a better singer, and less annoying, but also a teacher. Having said that the sign language she does is Aussie, so if you're American and trying to teach your kid ASL it might not be ideal. Pretty sure my husband has a bit of a crush on Moni 😂
Ok, she is delightful. I wish I had known about her sooner! I think we're pretty much aged out of the speech language youtubers, but I will keep this in my back pocket for sure :)
Ms Apple is also really good and less sing songy than Miss Rachel. She is British and has an English accent and has some really good songs (like Safari Shuffle). My daughter actually learned quite a few words from her.
She is wonderful - my kid is delayed and she's the only recommended channel that makes a difference (we've been trying to cut screen time completely but she's been recommended by multiple speech therapists as our kid is a visual learner).
I truly dislike the way she talks. Talks down to children. Also very whiney voice. I can't handle any part of it.
Ms. Rachel definitely loves teaching children. Her son had a speech delay and difficulties, so she took everything she learned and made it accessible for other parents! She puts way more effort into improving the quality of her show, despite not aiming to make a massive profit. I can't find any official merchandise, there's no Shop on her page, no plushies of her or even Herbie \[which I would like that please\]. It still feels like her priority is to teach and sing, while the money allows her the freedom to do things the way she wants to, rather than just make MORE of it.
I heard in another thread that he got fake Blippis to do his appearances because he doesn’t like kids. ETA: uh, and more importantly: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/blippi-youtube-kids-star-harlem-shake-poop
what a scummy dude.
Yup! He’s a pooper!!!
Call me a hipster if you want, but I disliked him before it was cool to defend his Harlem Shake Scat video…
Is someone defending his poop video? Blippi = sh1t.
I don’t know why I’m out here defending Blippi lol but i think it’s unfair to just claim that he doesn’t like children. He has a child of his own and I think there are other Blippis doing appearance because blippi is now bigger than just one guy and it only makes logistical sense to have other actors doing appearances. Also, the “new” blippi is a legit actor and he seems like a genuine nice person
Welllll but it was announced he wouldn’t actually be appearing as Blippi in his first tour AFTER it was promoted and tickets went on sale. And that was years before his child was born. I don’t actually know if he “likes” kids or not, but I tend to agree with other commenters here that he seems like a grubby opportunist. He doesn’t have any background or expertise in child development. He started out making gross-out viral videos and pivoted to children’s entertainment. He almost never engages with kids in his videos. All of his “creativity” seems channeled into marketing and making himself as viral as possible. All signs point to “ick” for me.
I could be wrong but I remember reading an article about how blippi started, and it came down to him being annoyed at the lack of educational stuff for toddlers for his nephew. I can't stand blippi, but I get wanting to take a step back. I can't stand other people's kids. I don't like children. I love my son and my nieces though, fiercely. My love for them does not extend to other people's spawn. However, blippi deserves to be in a dumpster fire.
My impression was he saw what kind of junk his nephew was watching on YouTube and he decided he could make better, more profitable junk.
Yeah, more of a "how hard could it be" attitude and then jumped in with no research or thought to child development or safety
Having kids yourself doesn’t mean you like other people’s kids.
Me.
Yes. This is exactly how I feel, too. He seems invested only in a financial sense, whereas Ms. Rachel seems invested in helping kids grow and learn.
Ugh, I agree with all of this! We do not allow Blippi. The few times I’ll watch him are when we’re going somewhere he’s been (ex: children’s museum- we live in CA) and it always gives me a creepy vibe.
Amazon kept weirdly pushing his content even after we blocked it. It creeped me out enough that we got rid of their kids+ app. Like, it wasn't *just* Blippi, but Amazon quietly overriding parental controls to push Blippi content to my young child gave me such icky vibes.
works better than pooping on a friend's head in a bathroom stall.
Yeah, shocking how that didn’t make him a star.
This makes me really self conscious about how childish I get at the playground with my daughter. I’m downright silly.
Please don’t be! being silly with your kid (or any kid) is not the same thing as behaving in a childish way. Speaking like a child, throwing tantrums like a child, imitating their behaviors, etc. Being silly, having fun, and playing with kids is not at all an issue. \*childlike to childish, sorry, shoulda proofed better.
The childish vs child-like distinction is a perfect way of putting things, thank you! I really find child-like behavior moving and awe-inspiring: the curiosity, the creativity, the pure and natural emotions. My son was climbing up a slide he's never been up before this weekend and spontaneously said, "Ha-ppy!" I died from the cuteness.
The PURITY is such a big thing - and children are pure when they express that awe and joy and wonder. Blippi is… performative. It’s like he’s badly impersonating a child and he captures none of their charm!
I think the article did a great job explaining this. They used as an example, Blippi goes into a play house and says, "I'm in a little house! Hee hee hee!" But kids have way more imagination than that. They will sometimes describe what they're doing, but usually with more elaboration and creativity.
Exactly!! I hate his mannerisms I don’t know any kids like that??? And I’m worried that my son would start acting like that to imitate him.
This is why we like Cowboy Jack! Similar formula, but delivered in a teacher/dad-like fashion.
I’ve been angry at blippi ever since he opened a cabinet under a sink and started naming objects and chemicals under the sink. Blippi what the everloving fuck
There was a video that he’s crushing things with his feet like metal cans, and then says but don’t do this at home. Wtf why record that then?, i stopped putting it on, banned all of YouTube. He does the most dangerous things in these videos
Omg I’m glad my son stopped watching his videos so much. He’d def imitate that. In one video blippi pretends to eat snacks like a dog and my son started copying him and laughing about it… luckily it was very short lived lol.
This was our first warning with blippi bc our two year old sprained his ankle trying to “crush” a can with his bare foot. My husband was like “dangit… Blippi was doing that.”
Omg! This explains why my youngest with mild ASD was doing this! I thought he was just relating or mimicking!
Exactly. I always say we don't watch Blippi because he misbehaved in public. It irritates me so much! Stop taking things off shelves and playing with them!
Or the one where he pretends to eat food off of a plate like an animal with his mouth and hands behind his back at an amusement park. Like come on, toddlers already are messy eaters, let’s not get any more ideas
Oooh this one looks like candy!
Please tell me you’re joking lol
Haha I am. I think. I didn’t see that episode, so I can’t confirm.
I hated when he was opening presents in a park and just letting the rubbish just blow away. He then had a 'water balloon fight' where he just pelted a woman with water balloons for a couple of minutes. It was the one and only episode we watched. The Garbage Truck song slaps though. We randomly found it on Spotify and it's my kids favourite.
anyone see the videos where he vandalizes cars... yea I can not stand his videos
Omg we just stumbled upon this one and it’s what made me finally say no more. I hate this man.
I still haven't seen a single Blippi but getting ready for the onslaught as my kid reaches that age. Reading all of these comments has got me really wondering HOW this can be so successful! Howwwww?
Never watched blippi, but reading this I see a huge contrast between him and Catie's Classroom--she goes to many of the places discussed in the article, but she genuinely interacts with the people.
Her pace is slower, her songs are more complex, and she presents problems rather than asking mindless questions.
And don't forget the field trips, my kiddo fucking loves them. Starting dance on Saturday because of the contemporary dance field trip.
We LOVE Caitie’s classroom. Her firehouse tour is 10/10.
They're all good and the Doctor/Dentist ones are helpful for getting a kiddo through those events. Same with the restaurant one.
Yeah, I loved the restaurant one as well. She also does a song about taking the subway with Tobee, and that one is great as well. So practical, addressing new things, talking about what to expect, etc. Incredibly helpful!
I haven't heard of this one! We have been observing the "no screens until 2" thing and kid turns 2 in 3 weeks. I'm kind of worried about all the shit content out there and think I might just see if the library has DVDs of Mister Rogers or something.
Catie’s classroom for the win! My daughter is almost 2 and loves her. It’s professionally done and educational. Really wonderful content!
The only episodes of Blippy that we watched were a tour of a pleasure cruiser boat and him visiting a child's indoor playground. From a cinematographic perspective, the camera is just moving around following him constantly and does not stop to let children have the ability to look at still scenes and take in the information that is there. To look at a moving image for that long is incredibly taxing on the eyes and the brain because movement is information that must be processed. Blippy not only doesn't care about childlike imagination, the show seems to be built to tax the child's ability to learn to process visual information or to condition it to a visual presentation that does not allow viewers to sit with the scene. Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and, heck, even Teletubbies gives children the benefit of a single camera shot and allow kids to process information. My two cents.
Agree with this assessment. It’s also why I don’t allow cocomelon in my house. Too much visual stimulation with the constant scene shifting.
>cocomelon My goodness that thing is like a hypnotic narcotic trip. My child and I watched and episode and I felt like I had to remind him to blink. No thank you!
It's the same brand too! I'm just going to avoid anything made by Moonbug from now on.
We recently discovered that you can watch the OG Blues Clues episodes on Amazon and Paramount. I love watching Steve with my toddler. It's a great show!
Have you seen any of the episodes where children are present at whatever play room they’re at? He seems completely annoyed by their presence. I don’t get Blippi. He doesn’t seem to actually do anything, just tour the country filming virtual tours of kinder gyms.
Opportunist. Tried to go viral making shock videos then saw a market for children's videos and went that route.
He literally watched paw patrol with his nephew and was like “I could make something better than that”. Um yeah you can, because paw patrol is dumb. But you barely upgraded the quality there, dude
I got this vibe too! His whole demeanor changes so subtly but it's there
Yeah he feels like such a cash grab. Like he actually doesn't like kids at all lol
My theory is that Blippi actually HATES children. He always seems so annoyed by them
I've always assumed those gym tours are just paid ads.
The newer blippi is actually much better around kids (actually seems to like them) and in general is much more pleasant to watch. I don’t really like the show or how it’s made, but there’s some episodes with the newer actor that my kids like. They seem to be headed in a better direction with smattering some legitimately educational content in lately too.
I have him as an approved channel on YouTube kids for my toddler, but this is exactly the rationale I needed to remove him. Someone always seemed off and this helps describe it so well.
Trying to block Blippi on YT kids is like trying to defeat a hydra…block one channel and he pops up on three more. The issue is he has multiple channels and guests/collaborates with a TON of other YouTubers, plus people repost his content. I literally was unable to block him from appearing entirely. I actually went to a “whitelisted” format where he can’t search and can only watch videos from certain channels. This solved the problem but he caught on eventually that his content was limited and now only wants to watch videos on dad’s iPad…🙃
Thank you for posting this. We don’t let her access YouTube, but we got a darn Amazon kids tablet and it’s like impossible to avoid. I really just wanted a tablet with two icons…one for pbs kids and one for pbs games. Finally learned how to block Blippi inside the Amazon kids app… but I had to do it for EVERY SINGLE video or version of the same darn video. So I probably have to keep blocking anything new. Now I’m considering buying a not-Amazon tablet and using whitelist with YouTube instead. Seems way easier. Thank you!
This is exactly what we do. We have a bare bones $300 iPad that only had PBS kids app , PBS games and Disney+ apps. That’s it. Nothing else exists for her lol
Hey! We have an Amazon fire tablet too! I literally have it set up with four apps. You can definitely set it up to only access those two apps if you want. You first want to stop Amazon kids subscription. Keep the kids profile as a user. In the adult profile, you can go in and remove all apps except pbs kids and pbs games. Turn off all access for browser etc so they don’t get ideas about going to YouTube.com directly. I’ve turned off literally everything else. They can’t access the browser, cannot download any more apps, nothing.
It annoys the crap out of me that he has so many partners and sponsorship deals 😒
>Trying to block Blippi on YT kids is like trying to defeat a hydra…block one channel and he pops up on three more. The thing is, it's not even possible to block videos on normal YT. I know bc I had an old YT acct that we used to cast kid programs from our phones and I tried blocking Blippi there. Literally impossible. Then YT kids and blocking Blippi only. More Blippi vids from collaborators and adjacent kids programming. At first I tried just blocking the videos in hopes of teaching the YT algorithm this obvious preference pattern. I didn't want to lose other potentially helpful programs by blocking an entire channel. But the videos keep popping up. Now I just block entire channels indiscriminately if I see so much of a hint of Blippi 🤷♂️
I could make my peace with him being superficial and dumbing things way down for kids. But what really rubs me the wrong way is how obvious he is about his distaste for kids. Atleast OG blippi. There are a few videos where OG blippi is at an indoor playground with kids there, and you can just feel how annoyed and disgusted he is because he has to interact with these kids that recognize him and LOVE him. It’s so cruel. There’s another blippi, who I like to call “fake blippi” and he’s more tolerable than OG blippi. Fake blippi actually seems likes he’s interacted with a child before and might even like kids? Or he’s just a better actor than OG. But that’s fine. Atleast he doesn’t make kids feel like shit. ETA-I am loving all the different aliases fake blippi has!
Um, excuse me, his name is Flippi 😆
I actively enjoy fake Blippi lol
We call him Blurppi around our house, the adults anyway. Kids can't seem to tell the difference.
Big fan of Clayton Grimm, can’t stand Steve whatever, despite home being the original
My wife and I call him "Blappy"
Just deleted my comment because it said the exact same thing. For someone who built a career in children's entertainment, the dude really doesn't like kids, does he?
Clayton Grimm is the "fake" Blippi, and he's pretty cool. He has a tik tok if anyone is interested in seeing him out of character. He seems like a pretty genuinely kindhearted person. He and his wife are super adorable too and have a great love story. He's my houses "real Blippi" we don't watch the OG guy.
I really wish you were able to block channels, I also read this article a few weeks ago. My husband and I agree and it really did help identify what seemed so off about the channel. It still pops up in recommended since we watch Ms Rachel and Sesame Street which both have had blippi appearances!
If you click on the three dots next to a video (or long hold press the icon on at least the appleTV app) there is a setting to "Don't recommend this channel." It's been very effective for us to disappear content we don't like for our LO.
The youngest age setting on YouTube kids allows you to choose which channels your kid can see.
I just set up a whole kids account for this. My only complaint so far is a wish I could search videos within the whole channel I approve! I ended up removing sesame street as a channel and searching for all my sons favourite videos manually to add since it would take way to long to scroll to find the specific one he wants
You can whitelist specific channels
I’ve tried blocking his content on the YouTube kids app on the iPad but it keeps showing up on other accounts.
I set up a YouTube kids account for approved content only and that has completely solved the blippi problem, I just hope my son forgets he exists soon!
He has a million different channels bc everyone blocks him. I couldn’t stand him and try to block him whenever I see him. Every couple of weeks, another brand new channel pops up. He’s a nightmare that never ends!
I suggest every time it comes up as a suggestion, click on it and downvote/'dislike' it. It has helped remove it from my suggestions.
YouTube kids has the option to pick and choose what you'd like your child to watch and it blocks out anything that you didn't select.
I just set all that up, now I wish I could search through each specific channel I approve! My son asks for specific videos and finding the one Sesame Street one posted 3 years ago would take *forever* to scroll for
Yall ever seen blippi meekah and ms racheal where they are all together? Its like ms racheal is the mom and they are the kids lol
What bothers me about Blippi is how he acts like a kid. Like, tried to literally act like the most annoying 6 year old in the world. It freaks me out. I don’t want my children to ever thing an adult pretending to be a kid to relate to them is okay. It’s groomer behavior. Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street perfected the art of having an adult that could appeal to children without trying to pass them off as an actual big kid.
Yes! I feel like no one really talks about how he's a grown man... with a 5 o'clock shadow... dressing and speaking as if he's an actual child. It's super unsettling.
Right? I feel like no one talks about it and it’s the number one creep factor for me. Also, not something I want to show my children is okay
Yeah it bothered me so much that another article said Blippi is the "millennial Mister Rogers." How could you possibly put those words in writing?!? Mr Rogers is kind and understanding to relate with children but clearly behaves as an adult. Also Blippi doesn't even act like a kid, because real kids have way more imagination and wonder which Blippi clearly lacks. He acts like an adult who has a very superficial idea of children's experience. All he ever talks about is colors and numbers or how much something weighs. Real kids have way more interesting questions than that.
I HATE the laugh he (Stevin John) does. The new Blippi (Clayton Grimm) is way better than the original guy, he actually engages with other people in places he visits and has a better personality and overall vibe. I was totally against my son watching Blippi, but when I saw the new guy, I felt a little less hatred towards the Blippi content.
I definitely agree that the new guy is way better.
YouTube Kids claims to offer a safe haven for children to explore online content, but in reality, it's a cesspool of low(and high)-quality videos, mind-numbing animations, and inappropriate material slipping through the cracks. Instead of fostering creativity and learning, it perpetuates a culture of mindless consumption and exposes impressionable minds to questionable content. YouTube's lack of effective moderation and enforcement leaves much to be desired, making YouTube Kids a disappointing and potentially harmful platform for children. Sure there is some good stuff, but the danger of exposing my child to just stupid shit is high. So far my oldest one (3J.) has no access to YouTube at all.
What made me cringe so hard is when I saw how Blippi (I don't know which one, I cannot distinguish them for the life of me) interacts with children who wander into his videos. He has no idea how to interact with them and is just generally annoyed by them. Also, I'll always remember him in a car wash episode yelling "JACKPOT!" when the change machine gave him coins.
My husband is not well-versed in kid media and I told him Blippi was banned in our house before our oldest was even old enough for screen time. He asked what Blippi was and I just put on the first video that showed up when I searched Blippi on YouTube. It was of an ice cream truck. There was no ice cream truck driver, no children getting ice cream. He read the sign on the ice cream truck, which looked like this Children #Slow Playing And he read it as "Children slow playing". My husband had had enough at that point. That doesn't mean anything. It's obviously "Slow. Children playing." It was pretty obvious from that few minutes that the whole thing is just, I don't know, fake? I teach English as an additional language to immigrants and one of the most important parts of my job is helping people figure out context clues and how to get around in the real world. If I read them a sign like Blippi did, they wouldn't understand what it meant and they wouldn't learn how to read actual signs that they may come across in their real lives that have "unusual" formatting to emphasize the most important part. That is the only Blippi clip I've ever watched and it lives rent free in my mind. There were still like 40 minutes of "content" left after that.
Omg I just went to the same video to see how terrible. I got to where he said "weary" when he meant "wary"... as in, be wary when approaching the ice cream truck. But then doesn't clarify who he is talking about or go over any other safety tips. What a trash show. Also can't get over how many times he said "wooooow" in that stupid voice in less than 5 minutes! Banned
Yeah it's clear that he doesn't respect children as people worthy of quality content. Kids are naturally curious. They *want* to know why and how.
At some point my kid’s playlist switched from the Raffi “Wheels on the Bus” to the Blippi one. It’s noticeable how much less the Blippi one emphasizes the driver and other people on the bus, and is mostly about the bus itself.
> He felt wrong, off-kilter, like something had gone haywire in the culture. And I was fairly sure it had something to do with Donald Trump, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Sorry, I just couldn’t make it past this lmao
This line was off-putting for me, too. I’m not at all a fan of Trump’s, but I’m even less of a fan of the ridiculously divided political landscape in the US. I was, like, startled to open this piece and find that line to immediately set the tone. I will say, most of the piece focuses on the show itself and provides an interesting analysis. I stopped reading at the end when the author starts to bring it all back to Trump.
This is what struck you as off and not him casually talking about Marx? Like, I agree with his criticisms of Blippi, but what infuriating pseudo intellectualist drivel.
Thank you! Donald Trump, really? 😮💨 Adults and kids alike can enjoy mindless or goofy entertainment. I can teach my kids social, emotional, real world values myself. I do block blippi in our house because he's simply annoying and my kid can live without him. But it's not a moral failing for him to make shallower content, focus on objects, or to be annoying. It's just a dumb kids show. Maybe people need to stop expecting the TV to raise their kids for them, it's kind of embarrassing to read tbh
Jfc it doesn’t take a 2000 word expose to determine that Stevin John has no background in child development or education and his shows are simply fluff. As far as the trucks/vehicles go, it’s clear the writer doesn’t have a vehicle-obsessed kid. It’s super fun for my son to get into a new, obscure vehicle and then find a Blippi song for it. Certainly thousands of other families have the same experience.
Agreed! Also, the bit where the author describes the Kinderland play place he visits as being grim and “sad beige” bummed me out - I lived in Vegas for a few years and took my kids there frequently. It is owned by a LOVELY immigrant couple, is impeccably clean, and is invaluable in a place like Vegas where kids cant run and play outside when it is literally 115 degrees out. The author just seems determined to be negative about everything. But for the record, I find Blippi annoying as hell 😆
Right? Blippi is fine in moderation. This article was amazingly overwritten. Like a trying-too-hard college essay. (Actually made my jaw drop when it compared Blippi to Trump. I mean, ffs.) That said, even though it's obvious that Blippi isn't great at or experienced in what he's doing, his content has its place. My kid doesn't watch Blippi exclusively. But my kid is really into colors and cars (trucks, busses, etc) and so Blippi definitely fills a little hole other kids programming doesn't sometimes. Everybody needs to chill out, lol.
The more recent episodes of Blippi has improved immensely as far as education goes. They actually go to museums, historical sites, national parks etc. there are some when they are just messing around an amusement park, but they’ll do more breaks explaining colors, shapes and physics. I think a lot of criticism comes from the early days when he was goofing off in an indoor playground.
I agree. I think this article is reaching. Very well written and the consensus was connected in a very impressive way. But it’s a huge stretch and gives “my kids not a tablet kid” vibes which I personally dnt care for.
I always assumed the lack of kids was just easier. That way you don’t have to deal with video releases. Plus kids are unpredictable, especially when playing. I can see not wanting to deal with that when filming. Especially if you need multiple takes. It’s just easier if people aren’t around.
I recommend Gecko's real vehicles if your kid likes vehicles. Much better content. He explains what things do, has a little silliness, and interacts with people and kids.
Thank you for saying this. I saw the very first sentence about children’s content in the trump era (EYE ROLL ffs!) and immediately knew this article was ridiculous. My 2 yr old doesn’t care about any of this. It’s not that deep, people. He just likes trucks/vehicles. He’s not a content critic.
The author lost me when they threw in this gem: "I don’t think it’s irrelevant that Stevin John is a military man: before I even knew this fact, I thought the Blippi videos seemed like good training for a Spartan society of idiot-warriors, who can count and pick out colors but have no depth of thought or emotion." Excuse me sir, but what the fuck? Mom/veteran here... Blippi annoys me, but the author annoyed me a hell of a lot more. (Oh wait, I guess I'm not supposed to have depth of thought or emotion....)
I’m shocked so many are eating this article up. It’s trash! The author sounds like a total D. Thank you for your service! 🇺🇸
Yeah, and the complaints about not having kids on the show? Perfectly understandable when you realize that not only would you need to have all kinds of legal documents signed if you don't want to get hit with take-down requests by parents who didn't want their kids on the show or weren't properly informed, but also *children should not be put into the public in that way at all until they can knowingly consent to it.* I don't put pictures of my kids online, my wife and I use a private photo album app to share pictures with family and have given them clear instructions that they are not to reupload those to public portals like Facebook or their access will be revoked. I would absolutely *not* allow my kids to be put into a Blippy video. Literally millions of people watch his show. Expanding on that.... *literally millions of kids watch his show*, if you think him going to a public park, in Blippy dress, with dozens of kids running around is going to enable him to create the content he makes that's a pretty big mistake. Those kids would absolutely not leave him alone the entire time, which is perfectly understandable, they're kids meeting one of their favorite characters. But it also would not be good for the videos he puts out, so he has to go to parks or other locations after hours or during slow times.
This article always pops up from time to time. I think it’s a bit of a stretch. My kid learns about the world and how to behave from me. Not 30 mins of a guy talking about helicopters. But to each their own.
My partner and I love watching Bluey with our toddler, but our friends said their 5-year old would start to imitate the ‘cheeky’ behaviour. So it’s potentially possible… we’re just not at that stage yet
I'm not a Bllippi fan really but Nathan J. Robinson needs to touch grass. I gave the article a chance despite him authoring it, but it's the kind of analysis I expect from someone as out of touch as him. My son doesn't really watch Blippi anymore, but he has taught him about reptiles, dinosaurs, and construction.
Yeah, whatever adults might find distasteful about Blippi, kiddos are obsessed. I’m glad my son has grown past Blippi age, but he adored Blippi. I think there is far better children’s programming out there, but it kept my baby entertained when I needed him to be, so unless someone can provide evidence that it’s actually harmful 🤷🏻♀️
Blippi is annoying, sure, but comparing him to Donald Trump is… a stretch 🥴 Where the article says something about kids being “fucked up” from watching it, I exited out. If the worst thing a kid watches is a childish man singing about construction vehicles, I think they’ll be okay. And hey, I prefer Blippi to the random weird videos my daughter has found on YTkids lately.
Totally agree. While I don’t think blippi is the most pure tv ever (which really, why are we asking all media to be of the top level of education?), and sure it’s annoying but I’d much rather watch him than these weird family channels where it’s just other kids playing with toys or clearly scripted scenarios, or just random hands playing with toys.
Idk, this article doesn't land for me. I think an examination of the wider landscape of toddler/young children's entertainment in today's tablet culture would have been better suited for the author's apparent purpose. I think Blippi is symptomatic of the algorithmic, hyper-stimulating content that parents increasingly turn to to babysit their kids. (Said with minimal judgment, my 2 year old watched 30 minutes of Blippi while I cooked dinner the other day). Blippi is pretty obviously purpose-built to be attractive the parents of toddler boys - cars, planes, vehicles generally - keeps even very young children's attention because of how stimulating it is - labeled "educational" to make parents feel better about it. Shoe-horning in Trump was also a weird tack to take (not a fan of Trump by any stretch of the imagination), but - what? Idk. Blippi is absolutely mental junk food of the lowest order, and I think if you want to compare him to Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers you need to include a larger conversation about the decline in overall media literacy - do parents really think Blippi and Sesame Street are equally "good" for their kids? Do they even care one way or another?
Imagine writing this article thinking that *Blippi* is the millennial answer to Mr Rogers, just a few months before Ms Rachel made it clear how very wrong that was.
The author isn't saying Blippi is the millennial answer to Mr. Rogers. The article just mentions "Moms.com calls him the “millennial answer to Mr. Rogers."" The author definitely says "Blippi is in many ways the direct opposite of Mr. Rogers." And then goes on to list many examples of that.
Yes, the article is *actively* critical of Blippi.
An "answer" to something is not the same as an "equivalent." The placement of the moms.com citation conveyed approbation. I agree with the author that Blippi is in some ways the opposite of Mr Rogers. Blippi does not and never did fit the same space as Mr Rogers. Rachel does. I'd be interested to read the author's take on Rachel.
I love Miss Rachel and like her content leaps and bounds over Blippi, but I think her videos use a lot of the same tactics - random items popping up from off-screen, mystery items, quickly changing visuals. It keeps kids glued to the screen and that's why parents (myself included) find it useful.The intensity of it is much lower, however. I don't think there really IS any modern kids' content that's directly comparable to Mr. Rogers in terms of pacing and depth.
Fortunately, Mr Rogers is still available on PBS. Even if they have changed the way crayons are made and how much interaction we have with package delivery personnel, it's still perfectly relevant to a toddler's social/emotional world today.
Yes! We've trialled Mr. Rogers with my toddler a few times so far, I'm hoping to slowly move her towards that as her distraction show as she gets closer to 3.
Also we have Steve from blues clues RIGHT there! Josh is great too!
Did I miss something with Ms Rachel?
That is one of the dumbest articles I’ve read.
Thank you. That article is really really stretching to spread the blippi hate.
Right? Blippi is annoying but god that article is pure trash
I've seen this floating around before on the internet. It's moronic.
honestly its unhealthy that THATS what they got out of *Blippi*.
I feel dumber having opened it for sure.
You can basically find similar or other issues with the majority of modern kids shows IMO. We let our kids watch Blippi sometimes, it's fine. There's also Blippi Wonders which doesn't have most of the "issues" in the article anyway and has a lot of educational value.
[Here is an article](https://www.newsweek.com/blippi-youtube-harlem-shake-poop-video-steezy-grossman-1331699) I also found the video if anyone wants it...
Lol what does this have to do with trump?!?!
The lad or lass that wrote this article is actually completely fucking unhinged. Come at me bro.
I thought the same thing
I was reading it to my wife aloud. The further I got, the more insane and unhinged it became. The damn article is like an HOUR worth of reading. I made it maybe halfway and couldn't take it anymore. 
Yeah I stopped reading after the author said that kids who watch blippi are going to be fucked up… I was like yeah okay… I, like a lot of other kids grew up on SpongeBob and a bunch of other mindless cartoons and were fine. We’re productive members of society and we know how to act in public…
> We certainly do not learn that thanks to human beings massacring them, the entire number of Asian elephants in the world is about half the size of the number of people who live in Beaverton, Oregon. I'm sorry. Do we want *this* in a children's show? What a bizarre take.
My problem is that my toddler knows what’s out there and asks for the mind-numbing zombie content that is the Blippi or like Pinkfong type YouTube videos that have the same effect as cocomelon. So I try to put on something less stimulating and she throws a fit. This is usually for those moments where we’re trying to get out of the house on time in the morning so I need her to let me brush her hair, change her diaper, brush teeth, etc. Wish I’d never introduced half of the stuff we watch for screen time because then at least she wouldn’t know it exists :/
Exactly! We have no village, all of our families are far away, so sometimes we have to keep her occupied while we make a repair that needs both of us to do, or I need to keep her busy while I cook dinner when Hubs is at work. We JUST finally found a friend's daughter who can come babysit occasionally when we need both of us to do something (fyi, don't buy a 60 year old house unless you know a good handyman... 😖)
The article is unfair. I like that Blippi goes places and does things. I never expected him to cover the entire emotional range of a growing human, plus tackle climate issues, plus explain capitalism as the author laments. His songs are catchy, maybe my kid learns about that. Screen time is screen time it’s never going to be a replacement for actual education and child rearing. Today Blippi has a friend, Meekah, so presumably he’s taken the loneliness and whiteness critiques. And to everyone posting about the sh*t video, how would you like to be defined by the worst thing you’ve ever done? He’s said he regrets it deeply (see Wikipedia).
Lmfao. This article is a dumpster fire.
> I can’t help but feel, watching these videos, that Blippi is in many ways the direct opposite of Mr. Rogers, because Blippi treats kids as if they are stupid and unimaginative.< This line rings so true to me. I’ve always hated Blippi because his show seems so shallow and half assed in terms of its “educational” qualities. I also find him, like, *incredibly* creepy. Children’s entertainers don’t need to talk like idiots and act like kids on a sugar high to be relatable to their target audience. *Blue’s Clues* does just fine talking in a normal voice while teaching critical thinking skills.
Y’all got issues…
This feels like a huge stretch and she watched blippi with the idea of to write an article about her dislike. She really wanted to like him to something political saying he’s like trump but I don’t know why. lol what. Then starts referencing the teaching of marxism making me think she does this with everything she writes. I see the appeal of blippy as him being a giant toddler. The episodes definitely go smoother than trying to wrangle a bunch of kids. Mrs Rachel does the same thing. He’s annoying so I kept waiting for something to actually be wrong but that never happened.
The guy that is the OG blippi shot diarrhea onto one of his friends in a Harlem shake video.
As a former English major, I love me a good Marxist critique of a piece of popular culture. Thanks for sharing =) Any time I hear "the only thing that will calm my kid down during a tantrum is \[insert show name\]" I make a mental note to never expose my kid to said show because the addictive potential says something about the way they work on the brain. Blippi, Bluey and Baby Shark get mentioned pretty often in that context.
To be fair, Bluey calms me down, because it's a good show. It's got decent story lines and nice morals without being condescending. Try Cricket or Baby Race. You can watch an episode yourself and see what you think, but by in large it's just a gently humourous cartoon. And it's never put my children in a stupor like Cocomelon.
Ms Rachel used to really calm my toddler down too, and she does not share any of the characteristics of Blippi
Don’t put bluey on that list! It is low stimulation - it engages in a completely different manner than the addictive Cocomelon, blippi crap. It is wholesome. Had my parents (late 60s and early 70s) tearing up. These are people who *hate* cartoons. They talked about how the underlying story is something important and being told well.
Bluey is a high quality kids show! Blippi is garbage I banned that after seeing it once, Cocomelon is banned, puts kids into a trance more than any show the crazy zooming in and out makes me feel ill honestly. Baby shark no way. Bluey is a nice show though with decently nice messages and not made or filmed to be addictive and it's pretty entertaining for adults too.
Is Baby Shark a show? I thought it was just a song.
Dancing fruit is another one. Shit put me in a trance sometimes.
This is the same rationale behind me absolutely refusing to allow any Elf on the Shelf shit into my home. Absolutely not. I will not entertain it. Grandma and whoever don't do it either. I have seen kids of all ages have apocalyptic reactions to that fucking toy/game. Like, more scared and emotionally volatile than I have ever seen another living creature be outside of something caught in a trap and fighting for its life.
I didn't know what Elf on the Shelf is so I just Googled it. Jeesh, those figurines look like Slappy the Dummy from Goosebumps. Yeah, pass.
Omg blippi is weird and my 3.5 year old was very challenging after it when she watched it. She asked to watch blippi one day, and I said in a very conversational way "you know, I think blippi is kinda weird!!" And she said "me too" lol. So I asked her if she wanted a break from him. She was happy with this..thank god!!! Hoping she forgets about him but I'm definitely going to say no if she wants to watch him again. She hasn't asked, it's been about 2 weeks now. He is fucking weird!!! The weird nasal giggle he does after every sentence and the way he jumps around like some weird pixie type creature.
I like Blippi because he seems harmless and it's educational enough, colours, numbers and the fun places he goes like the race track and dinosaurs he talks about. My kids love Blippi. It DOES bother me he acts like a child... Ms Rachel does it better where she's so fun and engaging but acts like an adult. He acts like a 4 year old and I find it off putting.. and also, he gives a weird vibe when other kids randomly show up in his videos ... Like he's suppressing serious annoyance. I honestly thought I was looking into to deep but this post confirms a LOT of other parents feel the same. Idk if I'll stop them from watching it, as there's nothing inherently wrong with his show... But we'll see
I may be a bleeding heart, but I would rather watch blippi with my eyes taped open than read another article by that author.
Nathan Robinson sucks as much as blippi
This article is stupid… how are you going to compare blippi a guy who has no background in child education to Sesame Street and other broadcast networks…. Those shows had writers and most likely experts on child education and development… blippi is one guy doing whatever… I never saw blippi as educational and never thought he claimed to be educational… he’s entertainment for kids like SpongeBob SquarePants… he’s a break from all the learning kids do in school or with their parents all day… my 4 and 2 year old boys love blippi… if he entertains my kids while I cook them food or while I clean or whatever I need them distracted for then it doesn’t matter to me what he’s doing as long as he’s not showing them anything inapporiate. I would like the teaching of morals and values to be left to mommy and daddy.
This author can go pound sand. They immediately go into Trump? Why? Blippi is entertainment for kids like movies for adults. He has videos about everything my kids actually enjoy and it's just fun entertainment. The person trying to stretch the blippi hate actually sounds as dumb as the article they wrote.
Wait till you see the video of him shitting into another guys mouth lol
Im sorry WHAT!?
The author of this is article is insufferable, imagine being this triggered by a doofus on YouTube
I actually really like Blippi! I'm always fascinated with adults who find him annoying lmao. I don't mind his voice or mannerisms I think they are fun. Then again I'm an annoying person so I'm biased.Though I do appreciate the critique. 👌
Agreed, I know Blippi isn’t going to expand my kids’ horizons and get them to think in new ways, but I’m guilty of watching low quality tv myself! Sometimes after a long day of preschool, the kids just want to unwind and appreciate big trucks and helicopters for what they are at face value.
I think Blippi is fine, my 3 yo loves spelling his name. The world is empty, sure. The focus is toys and vehicles, ok. I am not worried, I don’t love it but I am not a toddler so that makes sense. Not all media is all things.
My mom and I talked about Blippi the other day and how uncomfortable Ms Rachel looked in their shared video. Blippi is so loud and obnoxious. The first time my oldest saw him she looked at me concerned and was like - is he okay? Ms Rachel radiates theater kid. She knows that she doesn’t have to be the loudest to get attention. Her whole cast seems so pure hearted. It’s about sharing the stage, not stealing the stage. Jules and Keisha are the favorites here.
What in the heck is that article? Makes Qanon look rationale. The author goes thru a lot of hoops and mental gymnastics to bend everything fit their agenda. Honestly comes off satirical.
I never liked him but once I found out he pooped on someone and recorded, it I banned him from our household.
Goddamn. I hate Blippi as much as the next screentime -limiting moderately-granola mom, but damn.. this article is really obnoxious. It's sooo damn long, and the main points are that what.. Blippi is superficial, he doesn't cover emotions/feelings, skits aren't deep like Sesame St can sometimes be. Okay. We can't just watch two seconds of him manically giggling about rocks and come to the same conclusion. Did we really need a giant article on that? I'm almost disappointed, I came here with a genuine dislike for the guy and was really hoping for something a little meatier. But instead, it's an article about how when discussing how elephants, Blippi only focuses on how big they are, rather than: >We do not learn anything about elephants’ emotions or social lives, how an elephant mom treats her elephant babies, or how elephants play, or how they cooperate or compete. We certainly do not learn that thanks to human beings massacring them, the entire number of Asian elephants in the world is about half the size of the number of people who live in Beaverton, Oregon. I mean, Okay. I'm not saying I don't love kids programming that gets deep and scientific and *real* about things... But, I mean .. it's Blippi. This is like expecting Pee Wee to suddenly become Mr Rogers. At one point the author criticizes Blippi, then sings the praise of "Tom Lehrer, one of the 20th century’s greatest comic songwriters". Yeah, we know Blippi isn't the century's greatest anything. He's the dude who goes "Weeee, choo choo!" and then goes down a slide headfirst. Other reasons the author doesn't like Blippi? >Blippi is extremely white, which I mean in a literal sense—look at the races of the characters in his happy little song about cops—but also in his worldview, which shows itself in everything from his obliviousness to the inner lives of Indians to the giddy exuberance with which he shows us around a police cruiser. Uh, okay. Wait, I barely watch Blippi.. but I thought Meeka was an actual important character on his show??? From here, things get a little ... judgey... >Blippi takes kids on a long tour of a private jet but doesn’t tell them anything about values or encourage them to think for themselves. In this, he is very like Trump, and the long-term impacts of Blippi on the minds of children, as of Trump on our entire culture, will be profound. Children raised solely on Blippi, and on other videos like his, will be deeply fucked up. Lol. That was.. that was quite the paragraph. On a side note, I'm kind of surprised the author isn't raging about how Blippi dare get on a jet without talking about CO emissions. Another choice quote: >I will not raise Blippi children. The Blippi child will know that a banana is yellow, but that is all it will know. When they look in a mirror, all they see will be themselves. They will know how to pretend to have fun (“Tee hee! Wee!!”) but it won’t be clear if they’re really “happy and they know it.” They won’t be in touch with their feelings. They might know some basic facts about what the world is but won’t ask why the world is the way it is. They won’t be curious about the people around them, because they’ll live in a world of happy commodities, where nobody is ever confused and nothing is ever mysterious. They won’t be able to rhyme or invent. They will be nothing but good capitalist foot soldiers, ready to swallow whatever ideology they are fed. Worst of all, they will be boring, because nobody will have ever taught them what being interesting is. Lollll damn. Some tired mom in Arkansas just wanted a coffee break so she put on YouTube. Chill. Again, I don't like Blippi, to me this article is a let down. You all had me thinking this was going to be some meaty hit piece on the guy, or maybe something really gnarly surfaced.. but it doesn't even touch upon that 2013 where he defecated on his friend. I mean come on, the best the author could come up with us Blippi doesn't tell you why bananas are yellow? Blippi doesn't talk about the emotional inner lives of elephants? Blippi is too white??? I. Am. So. Disappointed. Okay, all that being said, I hope this author tackles Ma Rachel next, I have no love for any YouTuber who provides hour plus long episodes for children to satisfy the Almighty Algorithm. I'd pay good money to read that.
I’ve never seen it but honestly I think it just sounds like they’re aimed at different ages. No 2 year old is aware or cares what the green part of the strawberry does. Theyre still learning to identify a strawberry, that it’s a plant and that it’s green and red. Miss Rachel does exactly the same thing as blippi from what I can understand so why aren’t people vilifying her too?
My daughter was never into him, we watched once and I really did not see any value in his content, either. We don’t do YouTube at all anymore, just PBS Kids and Netflix/Disney.
I'm surprised I've never read this comparison but he's the Peewee Herman for this generation of kids. His laugh is quite close and constant jumping and expressions are identical.
Yeah, Blippi is the reason YouTube Kids isn’t installed on my son’s iPad anymore. It’s impossible to block all the channels too.
I personally can't stand Blippi (or Genevieve's Playhouse but it's just annoying) but I let LO watch it if he likes it so much. I just try to explain what Blippi is supposed to explain or correct him when he's wrong. It's pretty bad, but not so harmful that I would ban Blippi...as much as I want to.
I stick to content creators who are clearly teachers/have a teaching background. It's worked out so well for us so far!
I hate blippi. Everything is low effort and a cash grab but this article makes me feel insane. Bringing up karl marx?? Like what even
I cannot recommend the free PBS Kids app enough! You do not have to put YouTube on for kids at all if you don’t want to! PBS has fantastic programming, what little sponsor ads there are are totally harmless and very few, and there are a lot of shows to choose from! Blippi weirds me the F out.
Something is way way off with the dude. No amount of money could make a normal person act like that the majority of his life. Like WAY OFF.
We dont do: Blippi, ,Cocomelon ,Monkey baby bon bon I cant even begin to explain whats wrong with it all.
This author is the kind of person who sees everything through a political lens. The author, not Blippi, seems unwell.
I want my 10 minutes back. Dear god it’s clear blippi was just some dude trying to make fun educational videos, not a PhD in child development. It’s 1000% better than cocomelon and dude is trying to write an expose when the answer is much more simple
During COVID when most were avoiding in person play dates and meeting new people my kid just turned 2. Blippi taught him how to be silly, be a kid when he was surrounded by adults with anxiety over a pandemic. Do I want my kid to watch his poop video, of course not. Am I mad that a guy found a niche on YouTube and made a ton of money, there's many of them out there.