Yup. Pet reactions are fine, pets have no public image or dignity to curate. But I am very uncomfortable with media outlets exploiting videos of other people’s children for their own commercial purposes. Even if the parents consented, even enthusiastically, to the “news” story being aired, there can be unfortunate knock-on effects for the children that they can’t consent to.
Some unfortunate servicemember’s child is going to get emotional on camera about Daddy or Mommy coming home and get runny-nosed or something, and their new playground nickname “Snotbubble” is going to stick to them for years afterwards. Just keep the kids off camera, sez I.
Hate them. I now turn the TV off if the teaser indicates that sort of story is coming up. It’s shameless pandering by these people to get social media hits. I also think it gives these kids unrealistic expectations of life.
One thing I will say I don’t like is the hero-worship of the military that started after 9/11. To this day if my military service comes up, someone will say “thank you for your service” and it just sounds really hollow and perfunctory. That’s not about making me feel good, it’s about making you feel virtuous for doing nothing, or going through the motions, and you should just shut up and print my fishing license.
There was this insufferable few years when military members traveled in uniform and got a standing ovation on the airplane on every flight. I watched them make enough noise to wake a 19-year-old PFC who looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. If it had been me, I’d have felt annoyed not thanked. Enlist or end the dumb war, but don’t bother me with your applause.
So yeah I get the revulsion about hero worship and the place it’s taken in our culture, but I wouldn’t get mad about, say, a trucker coming home to meet his kid. It’s heartwarming. But “trucker” doesn’t signal “been away a really long time”, so it’s got to be a service member. And though as I said, I’m not a fan of the hero worship, service members are people too. It’s harmless.
I’m not especially bothered by that. Military personnel can have a little perk here and there. Especially if they’re traveling on orders.
but that’s not even in the same league as having the passengers give a loud prolonged round of applause to the service member who probably just wants to nap or space out or whatever. Getting thanked all the time by civilians is kind of exhausting, and the applause ceremonies are cringe.
I have season tickets to the local soccer team, and every match they trot out some service members for a round of applause. I don’t know if that’s recruitment marketing to all the kids in the stands or some random appreciation thing, but I do clap.
I wonder how many of these stories got rejected by the editors because the kids’ reactions indicated that they were NOT happy about their (more likely) father coming home.
Now change trucker to someone else who’s been away a really long time, like maybe a felon getting released from prison. Not going to see that, except for someone who was wrongly accused; those are OK.
For a while CNN had a bizzare fascination on their front page where the sub-headline under the main headline was always a news story about somebody posing naked for the first time. Like it would be OVERWEIGHT WOMAN POSES NAKED FOR THE FIRST TIME or ELDERLY WOMAN POSES NAKED FOR THE FIRST TIME and it was always against a main headline that said MASS SHOOTING, 7 KILLED. I remember screenshotting this trend and wound up with 5 different pictures all taken within the same year.
Yes, I’m tired of these – in fact I despise them! Children’s handling of losing a parent to the military, though probably temporarily, is difficult. These stories exploit that difficulty in a forum that will be the most visible presentation of the child, the thing they are most famous for. The surprise element that makes the video most entertaining means the child can’t prepare for it. Shame on everybody involved in making these happen!
