A Fake Holdup Raises YouTube Concerns for Parents

Four male teens walk into a yogurt shop near Diamond Bar. One of the boys is wearing a turban, beard, robe, and a phony explosive device strapped to his chest that he shows to the cashier before saying "I'll blow the place up, I'm serious."

Another boy holds a fake pistol toward the cashier before being told to leave. The cashier says she is calling the police and they leave.

The whole episode was posted to YouTube in 2009, after it's filming on Halloween night. The video has 826 views in a lifespan of over a year on the Web, but the possibilities for a viewership are much greater and, potentially, damaging for these young men.

A recent viral video of a baby laughing at his father ripping a job rejection letter had 5.5 million views this morning. It has 6.1 million as of 2:30 p.m.

To generations that grew up with YouTube, the thought of inviting 6 million people onto your living room couch to share belly laughs with your toddler doesn't seem so strange. But it was just six years ago that YouTube was founded. Since then, sharing such personal moments with 6 million people has been worked into our daily lives.

YouTube has opened up new access to guitar lessons, cooking tips, language instruction, sports highlights you've missed. But it also opens up another dimension of social media — a visual social medium — that seems more real than others.

Part of of YouTube's appeal is that the user experience can be replicated time and again.

For some moments, this can be a delight — for others, as when a young boy points a fake pistol at a shop owner and threatens to shoot, it sparks the need for parents to become more familiar with the website that has radically changed our ideas about celebrity, entertainment, and media.

In this week's Moms Talk Q&A, we kick off discussion with this question:

As a parent, what can you do to protect your child from the sudden possibilities of fame and infamy in a YouTube world?

Editor's note: Patch did not include a link to the video mentioned in light of offensive language used throughout.