Parenting in a Viral World

     Wanting children rise to the top in sports is not a new phenomenon among parents. Whether for the love of the game, the notoriety that comes with success or the $$$ to be made in the big leagues, it seems there have always been parents who hope their kids will rise to superstar status. While this is not necessarily a new trend, the rapid growth of social media and other technologies has been a gamechanger. Content sharing sites like YouTube have given the parents a platform to promote their kids’ talents to coaches and recruiters everywhere.

     Is this a good development? Just as with every other technology or development, YouTube child-marketing cannot be considered either entirely good or entirely bad. There are always pros and cons. Some see social media as a great asset to parents and highly recommend using it to distribute videos to potential coaches and recruiters and push their kids into the spotlight. Others urge caution in using media in promoting children and even offer suggestions for doing so correctly and training children on how to respond to media opportunities.

     When I originally thought about this topic for the blog, a few notable examples came to my mind. I thought I’d search to get some information about some of the major child athlete “Youtube sensations.” As I started to search, however, I quickly became overwhelmed with the unbelievably huge collection of child athlete videos out there. A Google search of “youtube child athletes” turned up pages of videos of young “phenoms.” Therefore, in this post, I thought I would pick a handful of examples I have seen from the endless pool of possible stories of child athlete videos going viral. I would like you to notice that these are not high school juniors and seniors being marketed to college recruiters, they are much much younger stars.

Trick Shot Titus

     The first example that came to my memory, and probably one of the more famous is Trick Shot Titus. The young toddler’s trick basketball shots first went viral in a video his parents posted of him making various shots from around the house and yard. His popularity has grown incredibly. His YouTube fame has provided him all kinds of media exposure, including meetings with Shaq, Kobe Bryant, Jimmy Kimmel, Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek and other celebrities. That is pretty impressive for a little guy in diapers.

Sam Gordon

     This story comes from just up the road in Herriman, Utah. After an outstanding season of you football, a highlight video of nine year old Sam Gordon went viral. The video shows young Sam scoring touchdown after touchdown, running right past or right through the boys trying to catch her. Her popularity got her into the news and even an appearance on SportsCenter.

Kai Davis

     This young man’s highlight video was posted on the “DavisGroup4” YouTube channel rips through defenders and has All-Star swagger. All at age eight. It is interesting to read through the comments below the video and see the comments of praised mixed in with harsh criticism. It makes me wonder what getting all those negative messages from strangers all over the place does to the mind of an eight year old. I wonder how much of that negativity is at least partly a reaction to the confidence of the parents who titled the video “Check out the FUTURE: 8-Year-Old Basketball Phenom!!!

Jordan McCabe

     If the title of Kai’s video wasn’t bold enough, how about the title given to this clip of 12 year old Jordan McCabe. “The best 12 old basketball player in the WORLD.” While this kid, like the others is very talented, I do wonder what this kind of recognition (and titles like “best basketball player in the world”) would do to my self-concept.

      We could continue with phenom after phenom. The impact of YouTube child marketing is an area that should probably be further investigated. What happens when parent-child relationships take on the added elements of agent-athlete or marketer-product relationships? How do such expectations affect a boy or girls through childhood and through adulthood? What are the implications for other child-athletes who play on the teams of these YouTube all-stars? How does achieving YouTube all-star status affect sibling and other family relationships? There are all kinds of questions yet to be answered as we try to understand the impacts of social media on communication.