What's the most absolutely wrong "lesson" you've seen taught in media aimed at kids?

Spunt said:
Transformers told us that collecting plastic Transformer toys was cool. 35 years later we have Kevin Gibes.

Thanks a lot, Hasbro.
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Finally, something truly poisoning the youth today.

PaleTay said:
Most puritanical safe life messages. My grandfather was bad for this, he thought Call of Duty would make people serial killers because it went into a kill cam. He also freaked out at games which let you ragdoll bodies like Skyrim.
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The ragdolling freaking him out is amazing.

I haven't seen many cartoons where the message is "violence on tv and games is bad", most of the animators of the world are very aware that it doesn't happen that way. I remember things like Captain Planet which avoid violence at all cost since Ted Turner was insane, but can't think of any other examples from the top of my head. Captain Planet was shit of course, further proving the point.

Skitarii said:
War is bad and peace is good

Nigga I want to destroy cultures and turn kids into orphans
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You know what, I can't blame a man for following his dreams.
 
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The shy socially inept person who is outcast or ostracized from the community is usually the smartest and kindest in the room, bonus points if they're conventionally unattractive

Truth is they're usually not liked for a reason and you shouldn't waste time or sanity helping the glue eaters. It's a nice gesture to be sure, but you gotta watch out for yourself too and understand weirdos are usually labeled as such for a reason.

Don't bully them either though I mean be cool with them, just understand.
 
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"You should pick a career based on what you enjoy"

You should pick a career based on what you are able to do and what pays good.
Use the money from your job to do things you enjoy.
We can't all live our dreams.
The world only needs so many astronauts & ballerinas.
No one dreams about being a janitor or driving a trash truck but those are 2 very important jobs.
The cities would collapse much faster if we ran out of janitors and trash truck drivers than if we didn't have enough astronauts or ballerinas.
 
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I may be dating myself, but fuck it.

The D&D cartoon (among others, but it was one of the few that had the writers spell it out after the fact) was saddled by the moral guardians of its time with the message of "the group is always right, so the one that complains or points out something is a bad idea is wrong". To the writers' credit, they knew right away this wasn't a good message for kids, seeing as peer pressure was a thing as far back as they can remember, so they had the complainer be right most of the time. In light of current-year peer pressure to troon out as just a recent example, I don't think I need to explain why "you must always be in lockstep with the group" isn't a good lesson for kids.
 
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M3xus said:
I may be dating myself, but fuck it.

The D&D cartoon (among others, but it was one of the few that had the writers spell it out after the fact) was saddled by the moral guardians of its time with the message of "the group is always right, so the one that complains or points out something is a bad idea is wrong". To the writers' credit, they knew right away this wasn't a good message for kids, seeing as peer pressure was a thing as far back as they can remember, so they had the complainer be right most of the time. In light of current-year peer pressure to troon out as just a recent example, I don't think I need to explain why "you must always be in lockstep with the group" isn't a good lesson for kids.
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Date yourself all you want. I'd rather read about the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon than read another 1000 pages of people talking about [insert anime fad of the moment].

Ironically Eric was one of the more nuanced and ultimately correct portrayals of the complexity of group dynamic. He wasn't wrong because he complained (despite what moral guardians wanted), in fact when he complained he was usually spot-on. The only time he was wrong was when he (as Spoony would say) wound up splitting the party and cowboying out alone. And that had less to do with being "wrong" and more to do with that his survival was more guaranteed if he were part of a group. Which is probably where tribal morality like this comes from in the first place.
 
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Blasted Heath said:
The retarded message that bullies and villains are actually misunderstood and hurting inside and just need a hug. It's such a boring trope.
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The Simpsons parodied this in the first season, even if it ended with the bully (Nelson) eating cupcakes with everyone else.

The problem is a lot of bullies (not all of them, some of them are just spoiled assholes) do come from broken homes, but that's not something that can be solved by kids themselves. A grade schooler is in a no way a psychologist that can help others work out their inner demons.

Meiwaku said:
Most things that end up on retarded posters in western schools are gay and retarded.
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I remember back in 5th grade a poster that said something like "What is popular isn't always right, what is right isn't always popular". It seemed pretty subversive back in the more conservative first-term Bush W era, but I was probably right in thinking that it was a one-way street.
 
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I've noticed in a lot of Western children's media they kind of will baby or sensor certain things about death and dying. Like... death is not something that is shied away from in Japanese media for kids where it's often sheltered to westerners.

It's something that I personally think is wrong just because I don't think that kids are unable to deal with that concept.
 
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Meiwaku said:
I've noticed in a lot of Western children's media they kind of will baby or sensor certain things about death and dying. Like... death is not something that is shied away from in Japanese media for kids where it's often sheltered to westerners.

It's something that I personally think is wrong just because I don't think that kids are unable to deal with that concept.
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I've never understood that. Most kids are naturally a little morbid and VERY curious, and young enough that they're not going to think too hard about death in books (there are exceptions, of course, and they're usually fine; they'll adjust at their own pace). Sometimes books that involve character deaths can be really good for them, especially if it'll help them understand the death of a relative or pet.

Not that all kids books should be filled with death doom and destruction, but you know what I mean.
 
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Blasted Heath said:
I've never understood that. Most kids are naturally a little morbid and VERY curious, and young enough that they're not going to think too hard about death in books (there are exceptions, of course, and they're usually fine; they'll adjust at their own pace). Sometimes books that involve character deaths can be really good for them, especially if it'll help them understand the death of a relative or pet.

Not that all kids books should be filled with death doom and destruction, but you know what I mean.
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My parents raised me going to funerals (mostly it was people I didn't hardly know if at all, the first actual close relative that died I was about 20) and apparently there were lots of parents in that generation who wouldn't take kids to funerals because they thought it would traumatize them. Granted, my parents also gave me the Talk when I was a little kid in blunt terms about yard chickens and human anatomy textbooks.

I've never been in the position of having to explain death to a small child, but if I were I'd just analogize it to something being broken. What happened to Grandpa? His body broke, like when a kid breaks a toy or a plate is broken. That ought to be easy to understand, the body has been destroyed, it won't "turn on," it is not functional anymore. Where does his soul go? At an older age, nobody knows. For kids, that's a cruel thing to inflict on them, you make up Heaven. I would never lie to a kid about a dog on a farm or anything like that. Rex is on a farm in the clouds, but his body is busted up and is going in the ground, and you're going to participate.

Cannot understand, sympathize, or agree with the desire to raise children in some Buddha-like cage of fake utopia.
 
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I feel like the early 2000's and even today's beanmouth Steven Universe-esque shows have this standard of LOL KIDZ RULE!!! ADULTS ARE OLD-FASHIONED AND DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR [Dreams/sexuality/life goals/friends/etc.] HOW DARE THEY BE PROTECTIVE THEY'RE SOOOO DORKY AND LAME AMIRITE?!
Like, parents are pretty shitty now, given the degree of messed up tykes on twitter and discord, but the standard of pushing kids farther and farther away from valuing family and parental bonds isn't healthy. Especially nowadays when it's an easy means of grooming idiotic minors who feel like their parents don't "get" them.
 
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