The title of the new documentary Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing is interesting. It could be said to presuppose the existence of a good side to allowing, encouraging or coercing young children and early teens to put their lives online for attention and validation (or deliberately creating content to attract subscribers, brand interest and sponsorship deals). But perhaps, you think, I am being hopelessly old-fashioned. Perhaps this is the way forward. Perhaps it is the way things are these days. Who am I to say how youngsters should connect, spend their time, be raised in 2025?
I understand this impulse to ignore the past. I almost admire it. It is good for us all, as we get older, to fight against the creeping belief that the past was better. It is a canard, a conflation of the happy memories of childhood, of being young, carefree and ignorant. You simply weren’t aware of the problems of the world, the ugly truths it contained: the past was never better, you simply didn’t know enough about it.
