Being Courteous is Contagious! Mama Rant!

Like any mom, my hours to myself are very limited - sometimes I'll get a few hours at night to myself, and sometimes I will get a few minutes to myself. When I do finally get some "me time," I use it to edit my YouTube videos and catch up on housecleaning and work. 

My time, my money, my creativity, my hard work, and my sanity are all put into my videos on my channel, so when I see multiple channels lifting my videos and uploading it to their own channels, it really makes me upset. I am disgusted with these channels and have done countless things to call them out on their unacceptable behavior. I guess pointing the naughty finger at them isn't enough, so I have to write about it. I need to just say it out loud: it's wrong, it's stealing, and I am absolutely disgusted that there are some people, yes people, who think it's okay to steal someone's work!

I am very careful about creating my own original content. A lot of people create the same style of content, or piggyback off of popular channels - I have noticed this with the channels that I do allow my son to watch. I think it is admirable in a way, but I feel like I am stealing, which is exactly why I do not use Pinterest to get my ideas for any arts and crafts projects that I do. If I can't create and do it on my own, then I shouldn't be creating. Too many ideas - too many of other people's ideas- will muddle my creativity. Sure, there are millions of channels on YouTube, and I am sure hundreds of thousands of toy channels featuring the same exact content, it's to be expected, we all enjoy the same stuff (toys!), and all want to get down on the level of our kids because this is the age that we live in now-technology sadly will trump going outside to play. 

Going off-topic for a moment... I literally have to force my son to go outside and play now. It's scary. I remember begging my mother if I could go outside and play, meet a school friend, or just to ride on my bike around the block. The only times I was ever inside were to watch Saturday Morning Cartoons, eat, and read. I love to read, and I visited my library each week to lose myself for a couple of hours. I am trying to instill this love for books and imaginative play every day into my son, but I am losing the battle. I am losing because of our YouTube channel, and I am losing because we live in a society of devices, and internet content.

Back to my point... since we do live in this society of swiping, clicking, and liking - we need to protect our kids and protect ourselves. There are internet predators out there - just waiting, lurking, and ready to pounce to take your next video, your next idea, your hard work, your time away from relaxing and watching TV. It's a joke. And just like I started our YouTube channel to rediscover my passion for short filmmaking, toy collecting, and to get down at the level of my child - it is now also my mission to stop these video predators. They must be stopped. I don't care if their channel makes zero dollars - they shouldn't have my things on their channel. It's just common courtesy...something we all need to learn, teach, and practice. Courtesy is contagious.