Unboxers: Your Child’s 12 Favorite YouTube Friends

Hieeeeee, and welcome to the terrible world of the internet, where your child’s friends are all 30 years old and live on YouTube!

Wait, was that too alarmist?  If it makes you feel better, at least three of your child’s YouTube friends are other children.

But, your child’s adult friends are weirding me out just a skosh, like the twins who unbox toys and role play with dolls and the disembodied hands that open Kinder Surprise Eggs.

Maybe those disembodied hands are attached to a beautiful soul, one who loves to film herself opening chocolate eggs and molding Play-Doh on the internet—I don’t know—but I do know you need to keep your eye on the YouTube.

Presenting: Your Child’s 12 Favorite Internet Friends (in no particular order, but I guarantee you the disembodied hands are the favorite):

1. Disney Collector (FunToyzCollector) 

Your child loves the hands, nail art, thumb rings, and childlike foreign accent. It is OK if you also enjoy the hypnotic sounds of plastic eggs opening, Play-Doh container lids being popped, and plastic packaging being rustled (is what I tell myself).

Most popular video (in the lead with 257,895,806 views and counting):

2. FluffyJetProductions

Your child loves Play-Doh Surprise Eggs more than she loves you. I report this fact not to hurt your feelings but to encourage you to be realistic about your importance in her life. I believe Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs reads from least to most critical: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, Self-Actualization, Play-Doh Surprise Eggs.

Most popular video:

3. AllToyCollector

Your child loves ALL the videos. He learns a lot of new stories and ideas for role playing with dolls and action figures, which is a bonus in my book, because we all know your child’s re-enactment of the same Frozen scene is getting stale. The Shopkins unboxing video is a big hit, the enormous Surprise Egg unpacking is a bigger hit, and eight bazillion videos of the Frozen characters doing things like giving birth to twins, watching their twins play in a toilet, shopping at Claire’s, and eating at Dairy Queen will never be enough.

Most popular video:

4. DisneyCarToys (twin sister to AllToyCollector—I am not even kidding, you guys)

Your child loves watching Spiderman and a grown woman he’s never met talk about toys, pop balloons, and role play Barbie going to jail.

Most popular video:

5. The Happy Family Show

Your child loves the Sherwood doll family. The whole family has entirely way too much hair, is created by three siblings ranging in ages from 8 to 19, AND they do blooper reels.

One time they bound and gagged a babysitter!

Inappropriate, you say? I call it edgy!
Inappropriate, you say? I call it edgy!

Most popular video:

6. Stampy Cat (Stampylonghead/Stampylongnose)

Your child is obsessed with Minecraft. Your child loves Stampy and wants to get into his Love Garden (but even your child will tell you that Stampy won’t let you into his Garden if you ask; it has to happen organically).

Most popular video:

7. FerdinandMagellan08

Your child loves this man’s animated, informative review of his Hot Wheels and Matchbox car collection. Your child also enjoys documentation of his toilet tank repair, snow shoveling, and cat sleeping.

Most popular video:

8. EMDSD14R

Your child loves this man’s videos of both real and model trains, real cars, Hot Wheels and matchbox cars, and various kinds of aircraft. Your child especially loves the detailed, 13-minute review of his Hot Wheels and matchbox collection, but I recommend you use it to buy 13 minutes of kid-free shower time.

Most popular video:

9. EvanTubeHD 

Your child wants to be EvanHD. Just a warning. I wouldn’t worry to much—unless your six-year-old starts asking for microdermabrasion and eyebrow threading to “present better” on screen.

Most popular video:

10. Charli and Ashlee (CharlisCraftyKitchen)

Your child loves the theme song and is saving money for a plane ticket to Australia so she can make cookie pops and waffle cone party hats with the girls who “talk like The Wiggles.” She is also the one stealing change from your purse to fund her trip, BTW.

Most popular video:

11. RosiesWorld

Your child loves Rosie and her wigs, dresses, tea sets, and all the puppets used in sidekick Declan’s Animal Kingdom interviews. Your child no longer requests to watch back-to-back-to-back episodes of Paw Patrol (congratulations!), but she does want you to film her trying on clothes and interviewing hand puppets for three straight hours (my most sincere apologies).

Most popular video:

12. TheEngineeringFamily 

Your child loves every single thing The Engineering Family creates and reviews, and don’t worry—the dad is an actual engineer and the mom is a teacher. As far as I know, they don’t feature any toys in a toilet or babysitters bound and gagged on a couch (insert emoticon with big eyes and worried face). I will warn you, however, that Play-Doh takes a major role in many of the videos, and you know how that goes: monkey see, monkey want, monkey throw itself on the kitchen floor until you give it the Doh. Watch at the peril of your own carpet.

Most popular video:

If you’d like to go down the never-ending rabbit hole of the “unboxing” phenomenon (even adults are into it with tech gadgets and luxury items) and other popular YouTube attractions, here are some good articles that discuss the psychology behind the desire to watch unboxing videos and profiles of some of the most popular accounts that children love:

These Grown-ups are Making a Living Playing with Toys Online, and Internet Kids Love It!

The Bizarre, Lucrative World of ‘Unboxing’ Videos

A Mother’s Journey Through the Unnerving Universe of ‘Unboxing’ Videos

Toddlers Mesmerized by Surreal World of Unboxing Videos

The Weirdly Sexual Psychology Behind Product Unboxing Videos on YouTube

Ready to be Hypnotized by ‘Toddler Crack’?

See Stampylonghead, Minecraft’s Hero to Children, Introduce You to His World

For FluffyJet Productions, Unboxing Toys is Now Big Business on YouTube

The Most-Watched You Tuber Made $4.9 Million in 2014 for Unwrapping Toys

8-Year-Old YouTube Star Charli of Charlis Crafty Kitchen Earns $127,000 a Month

The Most Popular Kid You’ve Never Heard Of

Four of the Top Five YouTube Channels are for Kids (and the Fifth is Taylor Swift)

Ashley
Ashley is a back-up dancer for circa 1989 Janet Jackson in her dreams and a mother of two preschoolers in her waking life. An Alamo City native, she spent her college and post-college years in TN, CA and AZ (all lovely states completely incompetent in the fine art of breakfast tacos). After crying everyday in radio sales, working next to a sheep pen at a rural telecom, being totally confused in agriculture, and completely giving up and drawing cartoons of co-workers at an online university, she finally found her calling in grant writing for a non profit arts organization. And then her husband (who, no joke, watches college football for a living) was like, “Hey! We can move to San Antonio to be closer to your family if you want to!” And then Ashley was like, “Hey! That’s good timing because remember all that drinking I was doing last week because I thought I had really bad PMS and wanted to power through it? Well, that PMS is a baby!” So they moved to S.A. and Ashley found a job with a rural non profit, but when she tried to go back to work after the baby, living on no sleep with a newborn and a traveling husband unable to share in the workload, she quickly learned she was about five seconds away from a mental breakdown. Cut to today where she is a full time mom, loving the freedom to run all over the city each day with her kids, despite a 98% decrease in her ability to pee alone/do less than 19 loads of laundry each week. She chronicles her most embarrassing childhood moments and photos at This is Me at 13-ish (http://meat13.tumblr.com), in hopes that she never forgets that as difficult as it is to be a parent, it is just as much of a struggle to be a kid.