What is weird and unusual in children's Christmas toys this year? I found out quite quickly. What is weird and unusual is 'unboxing videos'.
Kids’ unboxing videos are YouTube series in which children, or in some cases just disembodied hands, take toys out of their packaging and play with them as uplifting music plays in the background. One particularly popular video shows a small boy unwrapping and then assembling a child-size electric car, using plastic tools that would surely fall apart in less practiced hands. He then drives the car down the sidewalk through an eerily empty neighborhood to a playground that is also completely empty, where he plays by himself, presumably because all the other neighborhood children are busy watching YouTube. The video has 267 million views.
Kids will watch unboxing videos over and over—or open surprise toys over and over—because they pick up new details every time, Barr said, figuring out how unwrapping works. Some of the most popular unboxing videos on YouTube are of surprise toys, including a 12-minute video with 321 million views in which a boy tears open a giant golden egg to find a load of Spider-Man-themed candy and toys, including a few smaller eggs that he also unwraps. The video, which is loaded with commercials, ends with him screaming in excitement as his final egg includes a little Spider-Man.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have this ability as adults? Well some do. There is a very popular site called unboxtherapy. The host unboxes technical gadgets. So for children and adults, unboxing is something to add to the Christmas holiday activities.
Our picture today is Sweet Autumn Clematis in the garden.
