DOD201: Would You Let Your Kid Be a YouTuber?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Tom: To dear old dads, the podcast that's starting its own YouTube channel. I don't know, I didn't write anything. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick, and we are not going to start our own YouTube channel. We're not doing that. So should start

0:00:36 Thomas: Definitely not yet. Starting somebody else's.

0:00:42 Eli: If you'd like us to that's

0:00:43 Thomas: This is us announcing we

0:00:45 Tom: Somebody else's YouTube channel

0:00:45 Thomas: Are now Andrew

0:00:46 Eli: What we should do should start a YouTube channel for our show, and then we just switch it to someone else's, like knitting Twitch, without ever acknowledging it.

0:00:46 Thomas: Tate's YouTube channel. We took it. Oh, I think we should start it as Joe the Joe Rogan experience. And we're that. And then we have a million, million, billion listeners, viewers. And now we're starting a new and then we turn into us.

0:00:59 Eli: Could we go one of the accounts that just does, like, shorts of scenes from, like, Peaky Blinders but with a weird sepia lens and

0:01:13 Thomas: Oh no, that's all just AI. There's no actual people that do that.

0:01:17 Eli: Well we could, but there's a person who activated the AI, yeah.

0:01:17 Tom: Are they getting checks yeah

0:01:20 Thomas: Don't know. I don' t know.

0:01:20 Eli: Exactly

0:01:20 Tom: I all I care about is, are they getting checks

0:01:22 Eli: They must be getting checks or they wouldn't be doing it. Someone somewhere is making money or they wouldn't do it. It sure does, but, gentlemen, you know, the only thing worse than the social internet. Why

0:01:28 Thomas: The internet sucks. It's ruined. Anyway. I wanted to, hold on. I had some chitchat. I have some chitchat. First off, that was me leading into, hey, Patreon bonus, everybody, is out.

0:01:41 Thomas: Wait, is it out? What day is this for? It' S out. The patron bonus is out, it' s us talking

0:01:35 Tom: Oh all right

0:01:44 Eli: Like how you were like, Eli, Eli, shut up. Shut up shut up, that's

0:01:48 Thomas: About Andrew Tate. I have COVID. It, goddamn it, I don't know where I am. I don't know what show this is. I forgot

0:01:56 Eli: Why you didn't get at a show the other day

0:01:57 Thomas: True story last night I

0:01:58 Eli: Yeah

0:02:00 Tom: This Dear Old woking arguments, by the way. So just to help you out was

0:02:01 Eli: What

0:02:01 Thomas: Asked me yeah Phoebe asked me what something in the fridge was and I was like, "I don't know, it looks like ranch probably." And I open it, give it a smell, and, "Is this, this a totally smell-less thing?" I was like, what is this substance that has no smell? That is, that can't be right. How does it have no smell, and then I realized, oh, fuck, I have no sense of smell. I've lost it. I smelled so many things to check. I keep not believing it. I keep being like, that can'T be right, though. I didn'T really lose my sense of smell, but yep, I forgot that COVID did that. I completely forgot. I I didn't even know if that was still a thing. And now I'm

0:02:05 Eli: Was for dinner. Oh

0:02:20 Tom: No oh dude

0:02:39 Thomas: Just like everyone else in my house. So now when the cat shits or pee somewhere, I'm going to be among the last to know instead of the only person in the house who notices.

0:02:41 Tom: That sucks I actually didn't think that was still a thing so

0:02:50 Thomas: I can't wait. I'm actually glad. I don't want my sense of smell back. I get to be like everyone. I, like a Harrison Bergeron. I dunno. It's something, some reference. Am just just like every one else. Now something will be rotten somewhere. And you Me. I won't be the first one to notice and the only one to notice. There could be rotten food in the cars right now. Who's going to clean up? Won't be me. No sense of smell now. So it'll just live there forever. Oh, it's the best. Anyway, no sense of smile or taste. It sucks. Not happy, actually.

0:02:49 Eli: Yeah sometimes

0:03:17 Tom: Your whole family's lost their sense of smell, so you can just, like, rip ass around each other, no problem. Now right, just right

0:03:19 Thomas: No, that's the normal. That's the default, Tom. I was making reference to our discussion the other week about how we're We're the only people who notice anything like cat pee. Crazy. I, great, man?

0:03:28 Tom: Yeah God, how is the COVID treating you? Obviously not. Not well. Huh? Yeah.

0:03:34 Thomas: I, it's adding to my anxiety. Cause I didn't, forgot about that. It is gone, gone. Like I have no taste, no smell. How long does that fucking last? Anyway,

0:03:43 Tom: I don't want to answer that question for you.

0:03:44 Eli: It never goes away

0:03:45 Thomas: It never comes back. Yeah. I do remember this happened last time. So it did come back last time, three years ago or whatever. So I feel like there's that, but this fucking blows. Anyway patreon .com

0:03:45 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:45 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:55 Tom: Well, you can stop the GLP -1s if nothing tastes like anything, right? You just be like, well, I guess it's broccoli today. Everything's just chewing.

0:03:56 Thomas: Yeah. That's True. I night, I had the brain thought of, "I want a little treat," and I was like, "Wait, what? Why? Why would I do that?" Like, now I'm so glad I stopped myself, because what if I had eaten, like, a bunch of calories and been like, "Oh, that was nothing"? That was only

0:04:15 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:04:15 Eli: No, it's nothing just soft nothing. I feel that sometimes. You ever do that thing where you're working so hard you forget to eat and so your dinner is a thing that if someone fed it to a member of your family you would fist fight them until a cop pulled you off their corpse? Do a lot. I was eating a handful of Cheerios at 11:30 at night the other night and I was like, you know, if I did this to my kid they would call cops who would come

0:04:16 Tom: That's what I mean. Ate a chewing. That's what I had. Just chewing. Chewing.

0:04:16 Thomas: Calories.

0:04:46 Tom: Would

0:04:47 Eli: Hungry.

0:04:47 Tom: You have like a go -to lazy meal that you like make?

0:04:49 Eli: Factor not sponsored by Factor, but yeah, I have like 8 bajillion Factor meals just packed away, our fresh, never frozen, but not in my fucking house, 'cause our freezer is packed with Factor, because 2 minutes is is almost as much time as I get to eat. I don't get to, like, eat it in peace, but if I carry the tray and burn my hand while I do the thing for another member of my family, I have time to eat a Factor meal. Yeah.

0:04:51 Tom: Oh God.

0:05:17 Tom: My default meal will be to do something like make a giant piece of protein. Like I'll just like throw a turkey breast in the oven with nothing but salt. Just throw a turkey breast into the oven and cook it, throw it in the fridge when it's done. And they get like a bag of mixed vegetables, throw it into microwave and a giant hunk of Turkey and be like, yep, that's a dinner food. And the whole thing takes like a minute and it tastes like nothing absolutely just chewing it's

0:05:36 Thomas: That's like a five -star

0:05:37 Eli: No, it's just slop. Yeah. Slop.

0:05:38 Thomas: Meal to me. What That's more effort. See, my effort is I first hunt a wild beast, and then that was so much more effort than I was expecting. Nice.

0:05:40 Tom: Yeah

0:05:50 Eli: So here's the thing: I had a breakfast pattern for the last, like, six or seven years, which I like, and now I have a lunch pattern because I'm eating a Subway sandwich too. Oh boy. If I find a dinner pattern, I'm fucking set, guys. I'm fuckin set. All right, Tom, do the podcast rip into it. Rip.

0:06:09 Tom: Right, so we've got a question. Uh, this question is a listener email from Melissa. "Dads, I've run into a new conundrum. I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm the mom of two boys, ages is five and nine. We live in a townhome community and there are a lot of other families with kids that live here. We have a shared playground for the community and plenty of roads for bikes and scooters and stuff. The kids have formed a good old-fashioned bicycle gang and they're all out playing from after school till bedtime with only a small break for dinner, and I love it. My kids are making friends, the other kids are great, and they aren't spending the day on electronic devices or begging me for tablet time.

Recently we've had quite a few new families move in, and my kids were excited to have new friends to play with. And just today, two brothers that are new told my kids that they have a YouTube account. I assume they were just silly kids trying to look cool, but my husband and I were able to track down their account and it really exists. These kids are like 10, and I don't know why they even have cell phones. As a parent that takes internet safety very seriously, I do not want my kids being recorded and posted to YouTube. These YouTube boys have already posted videos with some of the other neighborhood kids, and I am worried that that they're going to try posting videos with my kids as well.

Nobody follows or watches the content, but the internet is forever. How would you navigate this situation? I don't want to destroy my children's friendships by overreacting, but I also want to keep my children safe. I also don't wanna be that parent that is telling other people how to raise their kids. But I am totally judging how these people are raising their kids! They have cell phones and YouTube channels, and they are tiny children. I would appreciate any insight and advice you could give on how to navigate this situation." Situation. Oh,

0:07:42 Thomas: Wow.

0:07:43 Tom: That's a good, whoa, yeah.

0:07:43 Thomas: I

0:07:40 Eli: The videos Because here's the thing: I know what you're thinking, and you're smart, podcast listener, because you don't want your kid friends to be like, "All right, we're all gonna jump our bikes and I'm gonna film it," and they're like, "My mom, uh, too many articles in the the Atlantic, and so now the computer is going for us," right? And you don't want that, right? It is right? That's how you end up with a Tom. You want a Tom? No, nobody wants a Tom. So you tell your kids they do whatever the fuck they want, and then you report the video. You say, "That's my kid in the video, they're a minor." YouTube will get rid of that shit so fucking fast. They might down the shut kids' whole account, but it's all anonymous, so who fucking cares? They They shouldn't have a YouTube account in the first place.

0:07:59 Tom: It is though just Yeah.

0:08:25 Thomas: Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Eli is right. I think this is actually good advice.

0:08:27 Eli: Yep.

0:08:29 Tom: Is Well done. And Dusted. I don't. We should have picked something else that was good advice.

0:08:31 Thomas: Yeah. I know. I was like all ready to be like, "This is what a tough problem, what an important, we're going to talk it out," this is, I don't but I think this might be the way to go. That's interesting. Wow.

0:08:38 Tom: I know, that's just like we should pick a different email. That's

0:08:43 Eli: The opacity of technology is in your favor as a parent. I a parent group the other day, and this mom was like, hey, my 10 -year -old son, he found out about porn sites from his older cousin, and he's been going on them on the computer. He's not ready to see that kind of stuff. We've had conversations about it, but he's going on him. We don't think he's masturbating, but I think he was just curious. I don't really know what to do. And I was like, block the sites. Block them from your router. She was like. Oh, you can do that? And I said, you sure fucking can, queen. Here you go. Verizon, AT &T, private router. Here's all the settings. She said, that works fucking great. Now, there's no doubt

0:08:44 Thomas: And the dad

0:09:20 Eli: That this woman's husband.

0:09:20 Thomas: Was like Whoa, hold on, there's got to

0:09:22 Eli: This woman's husband, if he ever sees.

0:09:22 Thomas: Be another way. Is

0:09:22 Tom: Something's wrong with our internet. I, it's been down for weeks, and I don't use it for anything else.

0:09:25 Eli: Hey, hon.

0:09:24 Thomas: Censorship. Censorship really the way. I mean, freedom of expression. What, are we China now? Like, we're just not okay.

0:09:33 Eli: You. No, you can just put a password on certain sites, and she was like, "Yep, that did it, nailed it."

0:09:33 Thomas: OK.

0:09:35 Tom: Then you have to know every site the kid's gonna go to, right? Like

0:09:42 Thomas: And I don't want to know that.

0:09:43 Tom: Yeah.

0:09:43 Eli: It's on the, like, family computer. He doesn't have his own computer.

0:09:45 Thomas: What if you don't want to look at that information? If that information is like your dad's journals?

0:09:48 Eli: I think that's you don't want to know what porn your kids look at.

0:09:51 Tom: So just block all the usual suspects, right? Yeah. Okay, and then just hope that but they don't get creative outside your list. 'Cause, like, the, difficulty there would be, like, the kids like, "Oh, that didn't work." And they start getting like weirder and weirter search terms until it's like, you pushed me here.

0:09:54 Eli: Exactly.

0:10:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:04 Eli: They're in the dark web they're like Feet Boys Big Step on Pies dot com was the only thing that I could get through to, so here we go. Flap, flap, flap, flap. I mean because that's genuinely, that's kind of what happened to me, because the first porn I had access to, I'll say this, first porn I Had Access To, very weird, very not conventional, my still jam to this day, I was like, so that's porn you say, and the adults were like, yep, and I was, like, okay, well, yep.

0:10:12 Tom: Just, I kept, I've sexually radicalized my own kids somehow. I feel a little bad about this. Okay. Well, this is bad advice then.

0:10:24 Thomas: OK. Oh no. That's how it happened. Okay.

0:10:40 Eli: Yes, please.

0:10:41 Tom: That's it. All right, well, block the internet. That's what you do. You block the internet from your house.

0:10:41 Thomas: Wow.

0:10:45 Eli: See, again, And this comes back to Eli's sage advice of spying on your kids. Spying on your kid, you just do it a little bit each day and all the rain goes away. You're

0:10:57 Tom: Thomas, no.

0:10:55 Thomas: No, I funniest thing about what you said was, I I don'T think that he's masturbating, but I was like, what does it matter if he's like that part? I found really funny.

0:11:03 Tom: Difference does that make? Didn't care about it. Yeah,

0:11:06 Thomas: Yeah. It was like it's okay if he looks, but doesn't masturbate.

0:11:06 Tom: Right, yeah. What? Don't know. He didn't actually come.

0:11:10 Eli: Well, I think she would have thought I

0:11:11 Tom: He didn'T come, so it's fine. I don'T want him to get all the way there.

0:11:11 Thomas: Yeah, he was just edging. It's Okay. Okay.

0:11:15 Tom: Yeah, it's fIne, yeah, Jesus Christ. What a, all

0:11:18 Eli: All. Well. We. Nailed it. We got.

0:11:19 Thomas: All. Right. Episode.

0:11:20 Eli: It. Everybody. 10.

0:11:20 Tom: Right, this is the shortest.

0:11:20 Thomas: Over. Hey.

0:11:21 Tom: That's actually really good. I didn't even know you could report a video because it contains your minor child. I thought you'd report it.

0:11:25 Eli: Yeah. Every. Here's the thing: there's pretty much only two things that we treat the internet the way it should be treated, and they're non-consensual sexual content and stuff with kids in it. And if you ever wondered, like, how good the internet could be, report something for sexual stuff with kids in it, because it's fucking gone instantly.

0:11:45 Tom: Wait a minute. You had a report. It is having sex stuff, not just, Hey, my kids on it.

0:11:47 Eli: No. You. Just go. Kids. So your kid is your kid, you get to choose what it.

0:11:51 Thomas: Is. Oh. It's.

0:11:52 Eli: Has. So. Because, because of that, because they know, right? And these channels, not to be Tom here. So all these networks know that if you put a child on the internet, someone's going to jerk off to your kid. Right. Just a thing. There are a whole YouTube channels dedicated to young,

0:12:04 Thomas: A lot of their business model. Yeah.

0:12:01 Tom: Yeah. They have meetings about how to maximize That. Yeah.

0:12:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:06 Eli: Right? Yeah. Right? Young Girls doing cartwheels.com or whatever the fuck it is. Right? So they can't ban kids from the platform because sometimes you want pictures that grandma can see, and you don't care that people are jerking off to your kids, or you don't know that people are jerken off to you kids, right? Don't have to wait until your kids fucking getting railed to fucking report it so that you can get your kid off doing cartwheels.com. So you go and it's basically my kid, my property. It's like a my kid my property sitch, and they've got it on everything. They've just got it all, everything I

0:12:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:37 Tom: Let me ask you the corollary question then, because I have, I, a strict opinion on this, but like, do you think that kids should, like, a parents, like, I should ever put their kids on sites like YouTube at all?

0:12:51 Eli: Mean, I have such different values, it's hard to, I am so aware of the dangers of that, that putting your kid on the internet beyond certain social circles to me seems irresponsible, but Also, I'm a pretty crazy person about this. Like, there's no social internet that I feel comfortable using at this point. I wouldn't have a Facebook account if it wasn't how I communicate for work at all. I would have just deleted it entirely if I didn't need it for work, to

0:13:06 Tom: Yeah.

0:13:21 Thomas: I'm To the point where if it weren't for our amazing Facebook groups, then I would delete it. It's so bad. Facebook is so bad, but like, that's the where we have the OA group, the SIO group, the Dear Old Dad's group. It's like the main place to still communicate with cool people

0:13:27 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:13:34 Eli: Hear how wrong we are, um

0:13:35 Thomas: Uh

0:13:38 Tom: Because I feel like differently about, so I would post a picture of one of my kids onto my Facebook because my Facebook settings are locked down as tight as I can lock them down. Right. I'm not friends with anybody that I've not had dinner with. That's my rule for my Facebook. Like if I've never shared a meal with you. We're not friends on Facebook.

0:13:56 Eli: That why you unfriended me

0:13:58 Tom: I don't consider vegan food a meal. So

0:13:59 Eli: Guess True, I didn't eat You weren't I weren't eating the same thing. That's fair. That's

0:14:00 Tom: Yeah, right. Yeah.

0:14:00 Thomas: Tom had to check his bylaws to make sure he could still technically get you in on that deal. I

0:14:03 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:07 Tom: So went through my whole Facebook thing at one point. I'm like, no, no. I just got rid of everybody in a purge. And so I've got like 120 people on my Facebook. It's very private. I got my privacy. So, I feel comfortable that if I share a picture of my kids there, the only people that are going to see it are people that I do actually know and trust. I, like, YouTube, you have no fucking control. You just, it's out there and It can get

0:14:27 Eli: You can make a video private, which is like only the people with the link have it. Um pretty locked down

0:14:28 Tom: Right. I guess you can do that, so, but why Not Then Just Put that on your private socials, you know?

0:14:34 Eli: Yeah. You're

0:14:37 Thomas: I don't have a point to make other than I just, I want a voice that I'm, I'm not like, whatever this is. I just like, I don't know. I like, maybe I, and it could be that I'm insane, I, by all means please feel free to tell me, but I just, just like, don't seem to have the same concerns about when you're talking about just like posting, posting

0:14:44 Tom: No.

0:14:53 Eli: Okay. People jerk off to your kids. That's OK, I

0:14:55 Thomas: Pictures or videos or whatever of your kids. I'm not talking about like the kids themselves going on and doing whatever I'm like, I just don't know. I wonder how many parents this is. I don't Know if this is, is this everybody? Am I the weird one or

0:15:07 Eli: Think it's an increasing number of parents, but I think it sort of falls into cell phone territory. Like I think that's become a pretty dedicated line between the like my kids have cell phones. My kids don't have cell phone. And I don't necessarily know that there's a right or wrong answer in that. I obviously have my own very serious opinions about it, but like I don't think there's a scientifically correct answer. I think it's that people have said, hey, these are the dangers and risks. It's not worth it and other people have said these are the benefits it is worth it and

0:15:36 Thomas: But that's such a different thing to me. Like I, that's very influential on there. Like that's a, that's like my kid having a cell phone or or not is a huge difference in their lives. My posting a picture or not, and maybe it obviously depends on the age of your kids. My kids don't even know I do that or not. It has no effect on them whatsoever. So I just don't have the same, like, yeah,

0:15:37 Tom: Yeah.

0:15:56 Eli: A lot of people connect, uh, with their family and with their community by sharing pictures of their kids. Like we, we share with our family a lot. So we have a family thread, which is how we share pictures and videos of Max these days.

0:16:01 Thomas: No, I know. I'm saying, so that's good. Like I'm seeing that there's no, like when you linked my mindset and concerns to like the cell phone one. And I'm just saying for me, those are two very different things. I do have huge concerns about cell

0:16:08 Eli: Yeah.

0:16:09 Tom: Yeah.

0:16:18 Eli: Definitely different yeah No, I was, I was just saying that it's

0:16:20 Thomas: Phones. I don't have the qualms about posting pictures of my kids.

0:16:20 Eli: Right.

0:16:22 Tom: I I think Eli's saying it's probably the same subset of people. It's probably the same cohort of people.

0:16:27 Eli: And that it is about the concerns outweighing them. I was sort of talking about it as the kind of decision where concerns outweigh benefits, not equating them in any way. You're

0:16:36 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. No, I, and I just want to like, I'm just, clarifying, like, cause I'm trying to figure out, do I need to care about this? Like, am I supposed to like. Do I need to be worried about,

0:16:36 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, I guess like, yeah, thought on it is like, because what, like I agree with you, like my kids aren't going to get like say I post a picture of Amon on my on my media. And let's say I had a wide open social media with thousands of people that I was connected to. Me, the question is like, why am I doing that? Like, I'm the one doing it. Like, what do I want from sharing that with this group of strangers? I can't come up with an answer that satisfies the possibility that somebody will do something to that photo that I don't like, right?

0:16:45 Eli: A pretty famous person I'd do it. Yeah.

0:17:15 Tom: Like there's no benefit to me that outweighs the point five percent risk that sharing sharing a photo of my kid with a stranger might create. I'm 100 percent like, yeah, there's I don't do I think there's a high likelihood that something is going to go wrong. No. Do I think this is non-zero chance? Yeah. Do I get anything meaningful from sharing my photos of my kids with complete strangers? I don't. The, so risk benefit for me is just very straightforward, forward. It's like, there's no benefit that's meaningful. There's a non-zero risk. There's nothing on the other side of the scale in my view, but that's just how I see it. Like I just, your mileage is

0:17:14 Eli: And eventually

0:17:49 Tom: Allowed to vary.

0:17:49 Eli: Your kids will make their own decisions about that, right? They'll You know, it's in the same way that, like, I am aware that there are people out there who might do not cash money things with pictures of my wife, right? Because she posts a lot of, of herself on the internet, right?

0:17:52 Tom: Right.

0:18:04 Thomas: Just never think about this. Does that something you guys think about?

0:18:07 Eli: Yeah we

0:18:08 Tom: It'S something that I think is very real. Like, you know, like there' there s more and more,

0:18:11 Eli: Have mutual friends with people whose wives have been, like, horribly sexually abused online. Like, we've hung out and had dinner with those people

0:18:18 Thomas: That that's a different thing. We're not, that's not, but that's what you're talking about. You're saying someone's going to do something to a photo, but like it's not you're not posting nudes. So it's like if someone's gonna do something to a Photo that's not sexual in nature, then they could do that with any photo. So, it's why I'm just not going to worry about, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not gonna, that's, that's, if you had to worry about that, that, that's just takes up so much mental space, I don't know how. Oh

0:18:19 Eli: Right yeah well Yeah, and I think it depends on the level of public figure you are and the amount of vitriol you draw. Um, comfortable people feel attacking you, right? Right. So like that's something that I have noticed is that online spaces where people talk about our shows, people much more comfortable talking about me because I have been vulnerable in ways that I think a lot of people have not been who are part of our sort of universe.

Universe, and, uh, so people will, uh, things they wouldn't say about the other hosts, they will make suggestions about getting rid of me, or, you know, that this isn't okay, or that I need to do this, that, or the other day, right? There is an openness there, right? And so I think it also depends on your mileage and sort of who you are as a public figure. I think you are because of the space that you inhabit, right? This, this space, this reason space, this logic space, um, think there are a lot less people coming you emotionally, if that makes sense. Does that make sense, or is that me just sort of projecting my own experience?

0:19:39 Thomas: Maybe. But I also, I also don't know that that's the difference. Like, there was a time when definitely people were like obviously coming after me.

0:19:43 Eli: Yeah course.

0:19:46 Tom: Yeah,

0:19:47 Eli: I mean, that, that's part of my thoughts. Yeah.

0:19:47 Tom: Yeah.

0:19:47 Thomas: But yeah, it feel a bit like when you talk about like your wife or something, doesn't that feel a little bit like you're so worried about a thing you're like have to cover your wife? Like it just feels too much like that to me.

0:19:58 Eli: So that, that was the point that I was going to make is, like, I am aware that that's a risk, but my wife is an adult who's made those decisions, right? And we've had those conversations, right? Know, like the, I forget when the first time we got like an actual not threat but like someone who was obviously reveling in the distress of my wife. I remember that very clearly. The first times someone that I spoke about how sad Anna was about the election and they were like, "Hey, I just want you, you know, I'm like really happy your wife is sad right now." Um Yeah, and I And I really internalized one for the first time that, like, there's no question I would kill that person given the opportunity, right?

Like, if you find that guy dead, I did it. But the other thing I realized is, like, okay, me and Anna need to sit down and understand that she is in the line of fire here, right? The bad times, um, were a few people who decided to, like, try to come after Anna during the bad times, um, so that was an interesting experience, especially given that we couldn't speak so much, um, and Thomas, I know you had, uh, sort of similar situation there, uh, so yeah, I mean, you know, it's a, it's an ongoing discussion, and it's also like, you know, it's just the nature of livelihood, right? So like reaction any I have to attacks on my family, mistreatment of my family, uh, mistreatament of me, attacks on me, they can be lied about in other spaces, they can be taken out of context, they could be screenshotted, right?

Uh, so that, that is something that I have to sort of constant, I have to pretend every conversation I ever have with someone is being re-reported in the worst light. I try not to have one-on-one conversations. I almost never have conversations in private or closed spaces, right? And like, I think not everyone who's a public figure or a person on the internet should worry about that. You think a lot of that comes from a place of over caution based on a, a really really really bad experience? Um, yeah, I think everyone gets to make a choice about whether or not they care about those things, you know, and I don't think it makes, if, if you go and have a private conversation with the listener at a convention because you feel comfortable doing that, I don't think you're irresponsible.

I don't think you're being unsafe. I don't think you're putting yourself in a position be attacked or treated badly. I just know that I don't do it and I, so that's sort of how I feel about posting pictures of my kids is I know that they have experienced that people don't have good boundaries with me and my loved ones, uh, have an idea of who they are to me and who they are to my character on the podcast specifically and how roasty we can be and how pranky we can be. And I have lots of listeners who, lots, just not one or two. I have lots of visitors who are not good at respecting those boundaries. So

0:20:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:20:25 Tom: Jesus Jesus Christ. That's cool.

0:22:39 Eli: I have to make safety choices around that.

0:22:40 Thomas: For sure. Yeah.

0:22:43 Tom: Add to that. A crazy person, and I fully recognize that, but it

0:22:47 Eli: You are, Tom. That's great.

0:22:48 Tom: Just an objectively true thing that many of these social media algorithms are built in a way that encourage men to find content featuring children. There's been more than five exposés around this kind of stuff. So knowing that, I'm just like, me is just like, again, like the, the cost is so easy or so, or so zero for me, just like, okay, well, I just won't put my kids on the social internet, and then that goes away for, that evaporates entirely as both a concern, and honestly, I don't want to feed a model, I don't wanna be even one millionth of one percent responsible for feeding a business model that in, in any way produces value by steering men towards content feeding, featuring children.

0:23:36 Eli: Right.

0:23:37 Tom: My children will never be content that people can find online unless we are friends that have had dinner. Right. And that's it. Like, and that's, that's a right.

0:23:45 Eli: They're an adult who's making their own decision about, yeah, exactly.

0:23:47 Tom: And then they're not my kids. Like at that point, they're Not kid. I mean, they're my kids, but they're NOT kids. Right? So

0:23:50 Thomas: Huge news, yeah.

0:23:51 Eli: Thomas divorces officially from his children. He can't see them like an ex -girlfriend starting at age 18. Yeah.

0:23:52 Thomas: Oh. Oh. That's so sad. What?

0:23:59 Eli: That's when he stops molesting them.

0:24:00 Thomas: I don't I don't even

0:24:02 Tom: So I guess like, yeah.

0:24:04 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:24:07 Eli: I like it when I say something so horrible even Tom pauses for the edit. It's not just,

0:24:13 Thomas: Yeah. Wait for the edit. Wait for the audit. Yeah.

0:24:14 Eli: Okay. Someone should cut that joke, please. I don't know who. I'm not sure which show it's on, but I hope whoever it is, they cut that one.

0:24:26 Tom: Someone edits these things, right? I don't listen to them. Someone edits them now. Yeah.

0:24:29 Eli: Lydia cut will keep it.

0:24:30 Tom: No.

0:24:31 Thomas: Did I talk about Future Arlo on the show? Let's talk about the Future Arlo shit.

0:24:35 Tom: What?

0:24:35 Thomas: Oh. Wait.

0:24:36 Tom: Do you mean, yeah.

0:24:37 Thomas: Did I, it's the streamer that Arlo loves that I love too. That's great. Oh.

0:24:41 Eli: You've mentioned it in our threads. You've not talked about it on the show

0:24:43 Thomas: Shit. I don't think This is a good, this is good one to talk about on, then, um, Arlo, we watch, uh, videos on video games together. I don't let him do it without me. Um, we was, when he first wasn't able to play Breath of the Wild, he was like, I mean, he was playing it, but he wasn't any good at it, and, and I was like, well, you know, maybe you could watch a little video to help, help you or something. And so I found something and I stumbled across this Breath of the Wild, well, mainly Breath of the Wild, but also other Zeldas and stuff, this guy who's streams it and puts it on YouTube as well, like the edited versions, and he's delightful and he is Future Arlo. Like, right away, I just absolutely love this guy because, like, he's just so similar to Arlo, and it was really interesting to see, like, oh, this is like a grown-up version of Michael, like in a way, I was was getting, I, you know, it was a little weird.

I understand. But like his speech patterns are very similar. The way he talks about like what he likes is very similar and he, and the things he likes are very similar And there's all these, like, it just, it became this moment where I was like, man, I like watching this guy and he looks like Arlo. And so we watch them together and I'm always like, Hey, let's watch future Arlo and it's our little joke.

And he's a fantastic, the best thing about this guy is, um, his content is like totally kid appropriate, uh, it's fantastic, like it's, it's so, it feels like such a rare thing on online on YouTube

0:25:59 Thomas: And on whatever, like I can just put on any, it's Croton is his name on, uh, YouTube and Twitch, uh, I can put on

0:26:01 Tom: Yeah.

0:25:59 Eli: Of course yeah, I about to say, "Drop those fucking links, baby."

0:26:08 Thomas: Yeah I love him. I, any, any, and I can pull it on and it's like totally, he's just happy and excited about playing Breath of the Wild and whatever, you know, it's just so, it's so pure and fun and great and I love it. And now here's the thing, now all Arlo wants to be is a game streamer, and I've told him, like, hey, I've streamed some games in my time, you know, like I have a, I have a fucking Twitch channel still, like, and I was like, maybe somehow, I'm trying to figure out, what do you guys think, how, if and when, if ever, how should I handle that? Because it's all he wants wants to do, he, he loves it so much. He talks about how, like, in his games he's like, I'm gonna stream this, you know, so I tell him, okay, you gotta, um, like, are you gonna try to be like a speed runner? Are you going to try to, like, you know, do, uh, do jokes or do, yeah.

0:26:08 Eli: Yeah.

0:26:41 Eli: Let him do it need

0:26:45 Tom: No.

0:26:53 Eli: A branding strategy. Yeah.

0:26:54 Thomas: I was like, what are you, what's going to be your way that your channel, you know, just to talk with him about into joke because he likes talking about it. You know?

0:26:55 Eli: Three seven years. But look, you start him now, by the time he's 17 he's got a following, he's ready to monetize, we'll have him as a guest on gam, we'll do a video game episode he can go do an appearance on cock this. We'll do the whole family Shut up, Tom. Wait, when you're sick, we

0:27:00 Thomas: Oh.

0:27:12 Tom: No. No.

0:27:08 Thomas: My god, so he'll even be like, in, he'll like in these video games, so like, here, oh, here's a thing I'm gonna do for my stream, there's a really funny way that you can get this thing in Zelda. I'm like, damn dude, that's awesome. Um, should I do, yeah.

0:27:27 Eli: A listener who's got, like, a 13, 14-year-old who wanted to be a streamer. Uh, they couldn't afford a microphone for him, and he was like, "Hey man, like, what's a good mic?" So we want to save up, and I gave him one of my old mics. Man, this kid, I've never ever seen a happier child than this fucking "Hey, here's this mic I happen to have," fucking thing. It was the best. Anyways, he said the n-word that night on his stream. It was pretty sad.

0:27:42 Thomas: That's Awesome. But

0:27:50 Tom: Never. Like, a lot of reasons, I would never let my kids be a creator until they became an adult. Like, if they want to be a creative creator, I think if my kids wanted to do a stream, I would let them do it privately and let friends and family watch it, to get good at it, to practice at it. To enjoy

0:28:05 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:28:05 Eli: Let's all sit around and watch your brother play Mario jump.

0:28:07 Tom: Doing it. But yeah, there's... I think being a creator, you know, I'm just thinking to what Eli just said, right? Like, being a Creator opens you up to a lot of vitriol, a lot of exposure. It produces pressure. Like, best case scenario, the kid becomes successful at being a Creater. Now he's a young kid with the pressure of production, the pressure of like

0:28:35 Thomas: Isn't this gonna be true about anything our kids take up? I mean, like Like,

0:28:38 Eli: No.

0:28:36 Tom: No. No.

0:28:39 Eli: No.

0:28:39 Tom: What? No, 100 %. not

0:28:40 Eli: One will ever email your accountant's son that he wants to kill all the snakes in the world.

0:28:40 Tom: No. Yeah. Well, like, but I think kids should not have jobs. Kids should not have serious jobs. Like, I don't think kids are equipped. Like, a 16-year-old that wants to work at fucking Burger King or Chipotle or whatever, yeah, who cares? Like, no one is... No one's gonna make a burrito and then somebody sends you a fucking, you know, dick pick, or somebody sends you an email about how you should kill yourself.

0:28:48 Thomas: I

0:29:06 Eli: Using the Chipotle app wrong. I told you that, and you're also not reading my emails to the Chipotle.

0:29:12 Thomas: To make it clear. No part of this when my kid is still a kid would be them handling like fan interaction of anything, you know, like that's not going to be,

0:29:18 Eli: Oh, you can't stop that, Thomas. Can't stop it.

0:29:20 Tom: Yeah. That's

0:29:21 Thomas: They're not, no. Yes, I can. They're not. He's not gonna have a, he's not Gonna have an email coming from you. That's pretty rich. He's like, he is not going To have the email access to the thing.

0:29:28 Eli: Because you don't have the fucking will. You don't know You don't have the stones. You don't have the stones to be in that Twitch chat.

0:29:33 Tom: Yeah.

0:29:33 Thomas: He's six. He doesn't even understand how any of this works. Like I would, the best he could do is I could put a camera on him and he could play video game. That's it. You can't handle that's

0:29:34 Eli: Oh,

0:29:42 Tom: The time he's 13 or 14, right? Like, I still think it's the same reason, like, I, you know, I completely oppose kids working in the television and film industry. I don't think it's good for them. I think we prioritize the production of content we want over the health and safety of the people that are involved in it. And I can't get behind that. Like, I just don't think that it is a good and healthy space for people to be in. Do I think it's every single time unhealthy? No. But do I think it has a high likely? It's like a lot of things. Like it's a risk benefit thing. I think the benefit is low. Ithink the risks are way too high. And there's a zero percent chance I would would let a kid, you know, cause again, like let's say they're successful and let's say the only pressure they're under is, Oh God, I got to produce another piece of content. Cause it's Wednesday. I don't want my kid thinking like that at 10, 11, 12 years old.

0:30:31 Eli: Did you see the

0:30:30 Thomas: Not how like when do you think that's I'm not doing that oh

0:30:31 Eli: Kidfluencers Netflix documentary?

0:30:33 Tom: No, I know. But I'm saying if they're successfully, they're going to be successful. That's why I'm seeing like best case scenario. They're successful. It creates and produces pressures.

0:30:33 Thomas: God oh

0:30:36 Eli: You see it?

0:30:42 Tom: Yeah, did.

0:30:42 Eli: You say the Kidluencers documentary on Netflix?

0:30:44 Thomas: My God, I need to watch that. Okay. I gotta watch that. I will. Yeah.

0:30:44 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:45 Eli: My God, Thomas! You have to watch it. You have to watch it and you also have to make Lydia watch it.

0:30:51 Thomas: Oh yeah, she, I don't make her do anything. She probably already watched it. Oh.

0:30:53 Eli: The best thing about that documentary is that I say I would destroy every electronic device in my house so much earlier than these pasty-faced parents. They're just like, so the fifth time a pedophile came to my house with a chocolate cake, I was like, we ain't got no room in the fridge for that. It's fucking nuts that, oh, of course.

0:31:08 Thomas: My God. Okay.

0:31:09 Tom: Yeah, man. Is nuts. And the thing is, the parents get hooked on that money, though. That's part of it too, like all of a sudden, like, they're paying their fucking mortgage on this money.

0:31:18 Thomas: It's horrible. God. Okay.

0:31:17 Eli: Yeah. Yeah, and let's come up with Arlo's streamer name because I started to make one up, but I need our help after. Needs to be like a cool sort of fantasy, like Arnazaroth or something, you know?

0:31:24 Thomas: Okay. Hmm. What

0:31:29 Tom: What is That, that's, that sounds, you just, you're just now, you're, you're just making sounds at it.

0:31:34 Eli: Argo Bargo.

0:31:34 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:37 Thomas: I got the Tom take. Eli, can I get your take on how I should handle Arlo streaming when, if ever, how and why and how and who and what?

0:31:46 Eli: Think you should set him up with a fake stream and you should be like, all right, buddy, you're online and I'll read you the comments and then you should just be like cool, man. Loving this. Great jump. And you should just lie to him. You should lie to And then when he's done, he'll be like, can I see the comments? And you'll be, like, I'm sorry, buddy. They go away when the stream is over.

0:31:58 Tom: Yeah.

0:32:05 Eli: Go to heaven.

0:32:04 Thomas: Is true that I could easily have him just make could have him start just doing stream videos offline. Yeah, that's a good point. I should do that.

0:32:10 Eli: Yeah, just into the void.

0:32:12 Thomas: I will.

0:32:10 Tom: Because like that that's the thing

0:32:12 Thomas: I want to add in.

0:32:12 Tom: Thomas, it's like what does he get out of it? Hold on, hang on a second, so like like, not not a, not, hold on, let me finish. It's a non-rhetorical question. If he is not interacting with comments or fans, then what is he getting out of the public of it, right?

0:32:13 Thomas: No, no. Well, what does he get out of it? Yeah.

0:32:25 Thomas: Yeah. No. It wouldn't have to be public. Yeah. No, you're right.

0:32:27 Tom: So then it's just streaming at home, and then that's fine.

0:32:30 Eli: Yeah. Me and Tom will tune in.

0:32:30 Tom: Yeah

0:32:32 Thomas: I will say, OK, to it that he's, guess you I still never officially got that diagnosis, but like probably an autistic kid.

0:32:38 Eli: Hey, would you like it from me?

0:32:39 Thomas: Yeah, he's, yeah,

0:32:39 Eli: As someone who's been around your kid for zero minutes, would you like him from me personally?

0:32:40 Tom: Right.

0:32:41 Thomas: He said he's on the spectrum and this is the thing that he loves and is his special interest and he really, really loves it. And it's and it's yeah, I don't think it has to be a public thing. But I do think that eventually I wouldn't see it as a bad thing if he could do it like for friends or something. I don't know. I'm not like, I don'T, I also don't really see it as a, like Oh, that's true. Once the switch two comes out, it's all built in.

0:33:05 Eli: To baby C he just pushes the C buttons his buddies will jump on and they'll be like good, jump Arlo

0:33:10 Thomas: Oh shit. Well, there you go. Now everybody's a streamer. We're fucked.

0:33:13 Eli: Yeah.

0:33:14 Tom: I I I

0:33:14 Eli: That literally Nintendo solved this problem. They were sitting around and the Japanese version of Tom was like, you're gonna eat your fluids, and they were like All right, guys, what if when you push the C button your friends were watching you play video games and they were like, sold, is that okay? See, Japanese Tom.

0:33:22 Tom: Love that I love That's the thing is like a friends and family only stream. I would fully support a stream that is non -public a friends and family lockdown stream, I would support. Like I said, let let him get good at it, let him practice it, decide if he actually likes it, give him some interactions that are gonna be entirely positive, no pressure, no ability to create money out of it so you take out the incentive structure there so that it's just maximally healthy. And then when he becomes an adult, if that's something he wants to do, he's got years of a skillset that he can port into a public space. I would fully support. So I'm not like, don't turn the camera on. I'm saying like limit who's allowed to view it though. Like

0:33:30 Eli: Yep. That's what it does and Thomas, let me throw this out there. Here's an offer: as a friend, as a brother, be his first troll. You tell me when to show up and I'll feel like um lame, and then he could defeat me. You know how the guy, hey guys, ever watch that YouTube video? I know, Tom, I lost you. Uh, of the the guy who is a Rocket League, like, champion. And he just finds people who are being shitty in like rocket league general games. One of the things that those people do is they're like one V one me. I'm so much better than you. So then he won V ones them and he just destroys them. Cause he's a champion at rocket league.

0:34:13 Tom: Do not take him up on this offer.

0:34:29 Thomas: What is this?

0:34:43 Eli: It's great.

0:34:38 Thomas: Yeah. That's funny. I got to watch this. I love rugby because it's a game I play all all the time

0:34:44 Eli: Yeah. It's awesome. There's also a lady who is, um, Counter-Strike world champion and she speaks and they're are like, because it's a super poisonous environment and she's like, okay, it's me versus everyone else on the team, and then she just fucking slams them and it rules so hard, I can drink it from a milkshake.

0:34:46 Thomas: Oh, nice. Oh, yeah, oh, that sounds great. Oh, my god. That's so good, yeah. That

0:35:05 Eli: It's delicious. It's all, nah.

0:35:06 Tom: Yeah.

0:35:06 Thomas: Does sound incredible. So the only thing, the only question I had though is, like, I was thinking, oh, I could, um, him on with my game stream. So I'm never gonna have him manage his own thing, he's six, he can't do any of that, but my thought was, can he come on my stream, play a game with me, or is that too far for this, Tom rules?

0:35:23 Eli: It's too many weirdos who could watch it. I mean, then what's the point? Is he getting the benefit I

0:35:24 Tom: I wouldn't I wouldn 'y yeah.

0:35:26 Thomas: He, he could be not on camera, right? Because he's playing the game. No, he's paying the game, he just, he wants to play the game and yeah, like, he's planning the game.

0:35:33 Eli: Think that's okay. He's

0:35:35 Tom: I don't see that yeah, I actually don't, I don 'y have a problem with that.

0:35:35 Thomas: Talking like, what does that matter?

0:35:35 Eli: Not on camera just a kid's a kid poor Zelda playing. He is

0:35:38 Tom: Yeah, yeah, right.

0:35:38 Thomas: Well, that'd be fun. I I think another reason, honestly, I want to do it is because he is so funny, and it's also just like more filmed memories with the kids for me, like if I, like, if I want to get his little insights on video games, and I also think legitimately this is just like his favorite thing, and I do think for now, absolutely, there's no, it doesn't need to be online or any of that stuff, but I do think there will come an age where if he's still into this, it's going to be more interesting question where he's going to really want to do it, and maybe we'll have to, you know, follow up later, later on.

0:35:50 Eli: Very funny. It's true.

0:36:11 Eli: Don't think I got to talk about this when we were talking about the babysitting, but during Remselmania, which was me trying to calm Remy down, Remselvania, which is me tryingto calm Rmy down, Arlo, who of course is being angelic the entire time, was making different characters in Wii Golf.

0:36:27 Thomas: Yeah, it's so funny, yeah.

0:36:29 Eli: So he would just, he, oh, so politely every seven minutes be like, um, can I show you this guy? His name is Mooper, his brother's name is Pooper, and his eyebrows are where his butt is. And I'd be like, that's a fucking great bit, dude. And he'd be like, I know it is. I'm gonna take him through the exact seven paces I took the last 12 me's through, and, uh, then I'll be creating a new one. The the most insistent he was all night, like, the closest he came to childlike behavior is he was like, look how fat he is. And I was like, like, I had Remy in a good headlock and he was starting to pass out. So I didn't look for a second. He was like, and I was like, sorry. And he was like, look how fat he is. And I was, like, he's very fat. Thank you.

0:36:29 Tom: That's fucking great.

0:36:54 Thomas: That's exactly what he's doing.

0:37:14 Eli: Then Remy reflipped me. He, like banged me against the wall and flipped me over his shoulder. And we had to start all over again. Quite an elbow on that kid. All right, gentlemen. Before we go. I was sitting in the bar the other day. And this old guy next to me starts saying, "Biff, pow, bam." And so I ignore him. And he says, bif. Pow, bam." I ignore him. Finally he goes, "Biff, pow, bam," and the bartender goes, "Hey, man, get out of here. We don't have any of that in here." He walks out of the bar and I go, "Hey, man, what was that?" He goes, "You didn't hear those? Those were fighting words." All

0:37:14 Thomas: I, I stupid

0:37:20 Tom: Oh, my god, I kind of love that one, actually.

0:37:56 Thomas: Oh,

0:38:02 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:38:45 Tom: Ate a chewing. That's

0:38:46 Eli: Feet boys big step on pies dot com was

0:38:50 Thomas: Fuck, I have no sense of smell.

0:38:53 Eli: Name is Mooper, his brother's name is Pooper, and his eyebrows are where his butt is and