How Kids' Cartoons 'Accidentally' Brainwashed Generations...

The episodic nature of kids' cartoon shows has had inevitable effects on we look at life. They breed both false senses of permanence and of futility due merely to how episodic TV shows must be constructed. Plots never advance. Characters never really mature.

It's no leap to say there is a relation between that and the fact that now generations that watched these shows have notoriously matured little and create lives around non-progress, non-accomplishment and view their lives as repeating constantly their same unsolved psychological issues and personal hold-ups, over and over again.

This applies to the consumption of other media as well, like YouTube and even video games. Everything is small variations on a familiar and unadvancing theme on to eternity. Nihil novi sub sole.

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[chuckliddell]

don't worry Luke, kids nowadays don't watch cartoons. they watch Spiderman breeding Elsa on YouTube kids.

[degayify]

Fred Flintstone and his consequences have been a disaster for the human race

[remixisthis]

Luke’s basically saying he’s a Shonen anime maximalist

[TownspersonB]

1:48 woah, that biome change was insane! It's just like Minecraft!

[timsomers]

When I was young, Avatar: The Last Airbender was always my favorite show. Looking back now, it's probably because of the serial nature of the show. Actual consequences to actual events happen in the show, which properly orients children to understanding cause and effect.

[SantaClaauz]

Luke Smith is a serialized channel. If you haven’t seen the Vim arc you won’t understand the Come-to-Jesus plotline.

[sprucescentedschizoid]

I try to love everybody, but I struggle the most with people who watch 3 hour video essays on cartoon lore

[mrseal]

The genius of Phineas and Ferb (one of the only kid's shows I was allowed to watch growing up) was that it was fully aware of the limitations of an episodic format. The creators would intentionally push the envelope as far as they could in order to provide comedic commentary on the situation. Almost every single episode, the boys' inventions would 'magically' disappear at just the right moment, completely defying the odds in the face of logic. You always knew how the episode was going to end, but the real fun was in seeing how they were going to escape getting busted.

[noahmcgehee]

There were of course some glaring exceptions: Samurai Jack, Transformers, Dragon Ball Z, among others. I think the bigger problem was that so many kids were 'babysat' by the TV instead of parented by their actual parents.

[jamesduston]

This reminds me of a guy in my grade whose parents would not sign off on him watching the movie “Forest Gump” in class. Their rational was that the movie was incredibly dangerous; Gump, as the central gag, was a mere passenger in life. Thing just happened to him. He had no control over events and instead of acting upon the world, the world acted upon him. I think about this more often as I found myself despising all movies. It seems that every new movie has taken this gag-outlook on life while sale and seriously.

[trailblazingfive]

Makes me appreciate my Montana cabin upbringing even more. No TV, no cable, no episodic brainwashing - just tinkering. Stay frosty runescape character!

[fsmoura]

_". . . and so, in episodic media there is no character advancement, nothing changes, and the viewer is thus mimetically induced into this state of existential stasis."_

Can confirm. In this show I watch, a Runescape character keeps walking through the woods, ranting about the internet. That's the schtick. But he never gets out of the woods, reaches town, or anything else. Next show, he's back walking in the woods, ranting. It's weirdly comforting. ( o.o)

[churblefurbles]

Its especially bad in women's shows as they are about relationships. In Gilmore Girls the single mother continuously ruins relationships for the sake of having another season.

[fatcat]

Characters that "don't make any progress" like the ones in Ed, Edd, & Eddy are also ones that typically are rascals who are taught a lesson by the end of the episode. E.g. they win the lottery but are greedy and thus lose the money the made. It can teach kids lessons in morals and moral character, depending on the show.

The fact that the characters don't age doesn't matter because the children watching the show are the ones aging -- i.e. they will grow out of watching the show once they become a tween/teenager. What 15 year old in HS still watches Dexter's Laboratory? At that point they move on to more adult shows.

[y]

Even though you did preface your idea with "this is just one factor of the phenomenon", I still think you're reaching a bit here. I think the biggest reason why -most people have stagnation in their lives is because a) it's easier to just stay in your own comfort zone and b) life in our society is so easy now that developing new skills is not really necessary. The simplest and most boring answer is often the right one. Even if the episodic nature of the aforementioned shows had an effect on people's perception of time, I don't see how that effect could be significant. But I still like your videos, they always give me some food for thought. Greetings from Germany.

[abujessica]

"we're changing biomes here"
very minecrafty from you

[Unc]

All of this is based on the assumption that a child does nothing but watch cartoons from 8 to 18.

[Knotmanstartros]

You really overthought this one.
Producers want to maximize profits and not to lose an established audience.
I remember that when Seth MacFarlane took the risk to kill Brian in Family Guy, the audience reaction was so strong, that they brought him back to show.
While things are certainly better with eastern media (in these regards), most popular Anime/Manga still shares some parallel problems, as major changes in the plot come very sparingly or/and things change only nominally.
That's why "bad" franchise tie-ins are still so profitable, as most people prefer to watch the "same" movie wearing a different skin, rather than a new/different (and perhaps even a better) one.

[MetallicDETHmaiden]

I watched these shows growing up because they were funny but as a kid the lack of payoff always bothered me, I couldn't express why it made me so mad at the time but later I realized it was because of what you discussed.

[OnlyThroughConflictDoWeEvolve]

Incredible. I remember being a young kid probably middle school age thinking this. Getting up, Going to school, coming home, watching random cartoons that for all its wacky randomness seldom was funny enough to chuckle at. I also remember watching Avatar the last air bender cartoon when it aired on tv and being filled with a deep sense of inspiration. The difference being the serial and episodic type of show.