Learning Day: App Control Your Stupid Child (Patreon)

People are always talking about how hard parenting is, and I find that confusing. Parenting is easy as long as you think of it as being permanently at war with someone much smaller and dumber than you. Luckily, corporations are on the side of parents. Recent innovations in technology have created tons of great ways that you can psychologically manipulate children into behaving.

I remember when I was a kid and during the whole month of December, all I heard was how if I wasn't good, I'd be on the naughty list, and Santa wouldn't come. It was a check I knew my Mom would never cash, but I might have paid attention if I'd heard that shit straight from Santa himself. Well, good news, everyone, punitive Santa videos are now available on Cameo.

Yep, as long as your kid isn't smart enough to ask why Santa has a mild southern accent, and you have twenty-nine bucks to spare, good news! All of your parenting problems are solved. Kid won't put on his shoes? SANTA. Kid doesn't want to eat their broccoli? Tell that to Santa, sir. Santa is the arbiter of all problems in this home. Santa is your only parent now.

You might be thinking, "Surely people don't use this technology to bludgeon their children with Santa's disapproval," but I know for a fact that's not true because he advertises "attitude adjustments" as one of his provided services. He even shares an example video he sent to two poor children named Eden and Mario, whose aunt was not happy with them for their behavior in a restaurant. She took the matter straight to Santa.

Santa tells Eden and Mario specifically what they did wrong at the restaurant (didn't settle down after being told several times), calls them ungrateful, and tells them he supposes they don't want any Christmas presents this year and not to be surprised if their aunt Tera doesn't take them out again any time soon! DAMN Santa. Harsh.

Cameo isn't the only one collecting big punitive Santa money. There are several other apps and websites that provide personalized calls from Santa. I like to imagine some kid is asking everyone else at recess if Santa is constantly calling them to complain about their behavior?

"I like getting the toys, and everything but all of the threats make it kind of not worth it, you know? Wait, is Santa not constantly up your ass about brushing your teeth? He's calling me every night. Yeah, every night, and there's no guarantee at all that I'm getting a PS5 out of it because he's constantly pissed at me!"

If you want to cheap out on making your child think an immortal being made of joy and wishes is angry with them, you can also use this boilerplate YouTube video that informs kids they are on the naughty list and need to try harder. It seems a little kinder than having Santa specifically read off your individual child's flaws from his long list of children he doesn't like.

If Santa isn't pulling the desired result from your kid, there are lots of other fictional characters who will manipulate your child! Pull-Ups has made a series of fake video calls from Disney characters to help get your kid "excited about potty training." However, in practice, you can use them to manipulate your children into doing almost anything to please Lightning McQueen because Pull Ups has banned all mention of any words related to the grim reality of potty training from the video.

That means all the Disney characters are allowed to do is vaguely refer to "starting a big adventure," which makes it sound like every trip to the bathroom is Lord Of The Rings. They also encourage kids to "stick to the plan," as if they're in a heist movie that's just started to go wrong. The strange coded language of these intro to toilet training videos made me weirdly thankful for the classic Everyone Poops. The tone of Pulls-Ups messages is more, "everyone does the shameful thing in the water closet, stick to the plan, and no one will get hurt!"

You can choose from four different fake calls on the Pulls-Ups website. The character options are Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Woody, and Bo Peep from Toy Story together because apparently, they weren't a big enough draw on their own, and Lightning McQueen. At first, I thought it was a strange choice to have two of the three available calls done by characters that don't have a butthole, but fear not, I googled it, and somehow there are bathrooms shown in Cars 2 so... there's a butthole somewhere I guess? But can you imagine what a nightmare the Toy Story Universe would be if all Toys were secretly pissing and shitting all over kid's bedrooms?

I know a kid young enough to be potty training isn't going to consider these things, but it feels like a weird choice when there's a wide world of Disney Characters who are human and could easily wish children a wondrous bathroom odyssey. It feels like Disney doesn't want you to know that their princesses all have to use the bathroom just like the rest of us. Apparently, everyone poops (except Disney princesses-- they gestate waste until it forms a yearly-passed pony egg).

Sesame Street has also innovated into the child manipulation market with two apps called Elmo Calls and Cookie calls, where you get to Facetime with actual Sesame Street characters. I spoke to the real cookie monster! He really wanted me to take a nap for some reason? I was like, sure, Cookie Monster, I'd love a nap. What a chill guy!

There are a lot of videos that come preinstalled with the Cookie Calls app, which costs $1.99, but additional call packs are 99 cents apiece. Unfortunately, Cookie Monster won't lay into your kids the way Santa Clause does. His thing is more Tom Sawyering them into doing what you want them to do by doing it himself and pretending like it's the funniest thing ever. Which, I guess, is fine if you want your kids to grow up thinking Cookie Monster is a total nerd.

Kids love these apps, which I know because I've now been introduced to my new favorite part of the internet, children reviewing apps. The reviews for Elmo Calls are amazing. I love every permutation of them. I love it when the tiny people get confused and straight-up review Elmo as a concept...

I really love it when they get mad at Elmo for terrorizing their children...

I love the fabulous seven-year-old who snuck in to let us know she's too cool for this Elmo stuff...

Elmo, what a loser. Can you even imagine actually liking this app? Anyway, five stars because I don't understand numbers or ratings yet, but I've got a firm grasp on the fact that Elmo's a fucking idiot.

I especially love this extremely old-souled nine-year-old who babysits younger kids and has some concerns about the parental controls being too easy to access. This is a child young enough to spend their allowance on fake conversations with Elmo but old enough to alert the manufacturer of  the app about their safety concerns? I feel terrible for whoever has to convince this kid to brush their teeth, even with Elmo's help.

I'm torn between thinking I would have turned out better if technology had advanced far enough that my parents could have catfished me like this when I was kid, and worrying about the generation of children whose parents deepfaked an ongoing relationship with Elmo. Will they be able to believe in anything once they find out Elmo isn't real? It's tough to say what the long-term effects of this parenting hack will be, but on the other hand, who cares as long as you defeat the child in psychological battle. Man, Conan the Barbarian really did change me.

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