Kids don't watch TV like they used to.
Now, they're watching this.
These YouTube videos are some of the most popular videos in the entire world.
- Can you name any kids' TV shows?
- Hmmmmmm. Uh?
Kids YouTube is huge.
Videos for kids make up some of the most watched channels on the entire platform.
Kids' YouTube is colorful.
It's wacky.
It's fun.
But it's also kind of weird.
Full of hour-long loops of nonsensical songs,
repetitive animations straight out of the Uncanny Valley,
and giant plastic eggs.
Lots and lots of eggs.
It's also a huge business, with a ton of money to be made.
- There's a whole new world of characters, stars, IP.
A whole new era of children's entertainment is here.
Welcome to the wild, weird, and massive world of kids on YouTube.
I'm Molly Rubin. This is Quartz.
This is Ryan.
He's eight, and he has the third-most popular channel on all of YouTube.
- Ryan's channel does between 500 million and a billion views on a monthly basis.
- Wow.
And this is Chris,
the CEO of pocket.watch, which manages Ryan's brand.
Chris is a former Disney executive who is hoping to build the next generation children's media empire.
And it's working.
— Hey it's me, Ryan.
Pocket.watch produces Ryan's new, hugely successful TV show, "Ryan's Mystery Playdate",
which premiered on Nickelodeon in April.
Chris founded Pocket.watch when he noticed the way kids watch stuff was starting to change.
— I would come home to my beautiful large screen television and
I would witness my kids sitting on the floor, firing up their iPhones to watch YouTube videos.
And he says the numbers bear that out
- In 2011, 2% of kids aged 0 to 8 possessed their own mobile device.
By 2017, it was closer to 50%.
Ryan has over 19 million subscribers and over 29 billion views.
And last year, he reportedly made $22 million from his channel.
And he got there by opening toys.
- Ryan is an unboxer.
He opens up plastic eggs, called surprise eggs, to see what's inside.
And usually it's a pretty cheap toy.
Ryan is the most successful kids unboxer,
but there are millions of videos, just like his, all over YouTube.
There are eggs.
Dozens of eggs.
- Hundreds of eggs.
Another hallmark of kids' YouTube is hour-long compilations of nursery rhymes and other songs
repeated over and over and over.
Mother Goose, these are not.
Johny Johny Yes Papa, about a lying little boy who constantly spoons sugar into his mouth?
1.6 billion views.
The smash hit, Baby Shark, has 2.7 billion views.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo.
These videos are remixed and put together in a million different ways
to create an endless stream of content.
There are tons of versions of the same thing,
so there gets to be a sort of uncanny, automated feel to kids' videos on YouTube.
But why is it like this?
One reason is that it reflects what kids love:
Opening toys, singing songs.
- It's just a reflection of what kids love to do, and they love to play.
They love to watch other kids play.
But more than that, this is what content looks like when algorithms control it.
YouTube serves videos to people through recommendation algorithms.
Get your video recommended alongside a hit video, and your video could be a hit.
And that influences the kinds of videos people want to make.
Creators make videos for the algorithm, hoping to find a wide audience.
But kids, in particular, like watching the same thing over and over again.
So when that recommendation system gets applied to what kids like...
That's why there are over 5 million results for "Finger Family" on YouTube.
That's also why titles on popular videos are giant word salads.
It's search engine optimization for preschoolers.
- YouTube really represents that control that kids have over this new entertainment universe.
It definitely is a new universe, and part of what that means
is that the business of making kids' entertainment is no longer exclusively.
in the hands of media companies.
It's something that almost anyone can do.
— For a while, it was majority was surprise eggs.
But a lot of the majority is still toys, toys that the boys like, toys that my niece likes.
Right now, L.O.L.'s are huge, so you'll see that on our channel.
Melissa's family just makes videos together as a hobby.
Her kids were slow to talk, and the videos helped with their development.
But for some independent creators, it's become a full-time job.
- Hi I'm Grace from the channel Grace's World and Grace's Room.
And I currently have 1.6 million subscribers.
Grace writes skits using Barbie dolls and films them against a green screen.
- I started making YouTube videos when I was six years-old.
Grace's very first video was a hit.
Now she's 12, and her videos average around 4 million views each.
And those views translate into real money.
- I quit my job. I was a computer programmer.
And I made a decision in last January 2017 to quit the job.
Grace's parents both quit their jobs to help her run her channel full time.
Brands like Hasbro and Universal Studios have approached Grace to promote products.
- So the company Moose Toys, we actually work with them a lot.
They're really good to us.
Increasingly, channels like the ones Grace runs are the establishment of children's entertainment.
It's a unique environment where kids aren't just watching content,
they're also creating it.
- Oh wow! I always wanted one of these.
But it also poses some problems.
- The balance of commercialism versus content is just completely out of whack.
Josh Golin is the director of a children's media advocacy group.
He's led an effort that's filed multiple complaints with the FTC against YouTube
about how kids interact on the platform.
There are lots of laws regulating children's broadcast television and advertising.
- Well, you're not allowed to have any product placement.
That means kids shows can't feature products they've been paid by brands to show.
Broadcast laws also banned host selling.
- For instance, if you're watching Paw Patrol,
you can't have a commercial with the Paw Patrol characters during a commercial break.
Broadcast TV prohibits these types of ads because they manipulate children.
- Their judgment isn't fully formed.
They don't understand that an advertisement is designed
to persuade them to do something or want something.
There are no laws like this for YouTube,
- On the internet, none of these laws apply.
In fact, today there's really only one law regulating kid's content online in the US:
COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act.
And Josh says that YouTube is breaking that law.
- What the law says is that if you are going to collect personal information from a child,.
you need to get parental permission.
Data collection is extremely important to YouTube and all free social media platforms.
And Josh says what that means is that YouTube collects data, lots of data, from kids.
And he also says that isn't an accident.
It's part of their strategy.
- On YouTube is this idea of a volume, of getting kids to watch as many videos as possible,
so you can collect as much data from them as possible,
so you can deliver as many ads for them as possible.
But YouTube and its parent, Google, say they don't deliberately collect any data from kids.
We reached out to YouTube, and in a statement, they point to their terms of service,
which says YouTube isn't intended for kids under 13.
Instead, they say they've invested heavily in a separate kid's app that is meant for children.
The YouTube Kids app doesn't collect user data.
There are ads, but they aren't targeted.
Parents can control what their kids watch and where they watch it,
but many just aren't.
- Do Logan and Quentin watch YouTube through the YouTube Kids app?
- They are watching the regular YouTube app.
Popular kids videos get literally billions of views.
But according to the most recent data, the kids' app has just 11 million weekly active users.
That's compared to 1.9 billion monthly on YouTube.
- It's not just that "Oh, coincidentally children are on YouTube."
I think they're very, very aware that they have children on YouTube,
and they don't want to comply with COPPA because it goes against their business model.
- If the FTC finds Google is violating COPPA,
it could seek a civil penalty per violation,
meaning a fine for every single video on YouTube aimed at kids under 13.
- We did the math, and it's probably like $20 billion or $30 billion that the FTC could fine Google.
If Josh and his allies can succeed in getting YouTube to regulate children's videos,
the world of kids' YouTube will probably look a lot different.
And Josh doesn't think that's so far fetched.
- We're starting to see policymakers say, "Wow maybe letting Silicon Valley run wild
because it was good for the stock market wasn't so good for children.
- I think we have a chance, we have a moment here to make some real changes.
YouTube isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
And for a lot of kids, and parents, YouTube is a really good thing.
- I just see Logan and Quentin blossoming in a way that they don't when they play with other kids.
And it just makes them shine a little brighter.
- I love writing English and writing narratives and stuff, so,
writing the stories is just really fun.
But the explosion of kids content on YouTube raises a ton of questions.
- The balance of power and information is just so lopsided.
Google's algorithm versus an eight year-old, not a fair fight.
Kids love YouTube.
But YouTube wasn't built for them.
Maybe that's OK.
- But have we really thought it through?
I have something in my eye.
It was an eyeball.
It was an eyeball?