Kai’s obsessions the past few months have been plushies and videos; specifically making videos with his plushies and then posting them onto YouTube.
While most kids start to get into plushies when they are toddlers, Kai never showed much interest in them until this year. But like with most things he takes an interest in, his interest quickly became an obsession. Mostly with the money he’s been earning for his allowance (for doing assorted simple chores), he’s assembled a fairly vast collection of plushies.
For a much longer time, he’s enjoyed watching various silly videos on YouTube. But recently he’s started to make his own videos that have been partially inspired by the videos he watches.
He asked that his own videos be posted on YouTube. I think he has aspirations of being a YouTube star with a million views. I’m not even sure I like the idea of him making these videos let alone having them viewed by millions of strangers.
With a bit of trepidation, my wife and I have been his cameramen and helped him make the videos. I can rationalize it as a modern form of imaginative play of sorts. But I insisted that the videos be loaded as Restricted, not Public (which means that only the people that have been provided the URL or link can view the video).
I won’t be sharing most of the videos, but he created one specifically for the Fourth of July that is not too long and will give you a small taste of what he’s been up to. (You may want to skip ahead to the 4:30 mark for the exciting part).
By the way, we do not permit him to drink caffeinated soft drinks (and rarely any soda of any kind), but after we were done filming and when I went to get the hose to clean up, he took several big swigs from the leftover Diet Coke. That night, he woke us up a few times complaining that he could not sleep. No more Diet Coke for this guy!
Hope you have a very happy Fourth of July!
Actually, Kai's narration was smooth, and especially at the end, he had made eye contact with his audience and everything seemed natural. He uses his imagination in a very logical manner. He is no different from me when I was his age. The only difference is that I had used Hot Wheels, Johnny Lightning, and Matchbox cars :)
ReplyDeleteActually, Kai had done much better with his narration than I could have done at his age. I didn't like to talk much.
Ha, I was much like you at that age, playing with Hot Wheels and not liking to talk much. Kai has no such shyness. :) You're right that he seems very comfortable in front of the camera!
DeleteYuji:
ReplyDeleteI love the way he does specials for days of the year which mean something to him.
You can see his growth and development, as Shiroi observed above.
And I like the way that Doofy is stored in a bag. Can't have these stuffies develop lint and dust!
Restricted makes good sense.
And "people who have been provided the link" might well spread it by word of mouth.
Adelaide, I think you would appreciate just how much planning he does for these videos. These are not spur-of-the-moment creations. He plans out his script from days ahead of time. In this case, he knew we would be away for this weekend so he made sure to make the video last weekend so that it could be posted before we left.
DeleteRegarding Doofy being stored in the bag... he normally doesn't seem to mind if his plushies get a bit dirty, but I think he knew there was risk of Doofy being covered with exploding Diet Coke so he took extra precaution this time! :)
Thanks for commenting!
haha...well, I enjoyed that a lot. I had never heard of Plushies before, so now I know! My favorite part was
ReplyDelete"Meanwhile..." :)
Thanks, Betsy, glad you enjoyed it! There were a few things like the "meanwhile" that cracked me up!
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