Cindy Marie Jenkins watches YouTube so you don't have to

On the Mr. Beastification of online videos, the joys of nerding out with your kids, and why it's hard to keep track of all the streamers out there

I’ve bumped into writer and editor Cindy Marie Jenkins in a number of online spaces for writers and parents, but when I heard about her most recent project, Outthink Media, I knew I wanted to talk to her. With the tagline “I watch YouTube so you don’t have to,” Outthink Media offers timely and thoughtful insights into the media that captivate our kids, from their favorite streamer to the latest movie. 

Tell me a little bit about Outthink Media — what it is, and who it’s for. 

Outthink Media is a resource for families to learn how to evaluate and curate media for their kids. It’s going to focus a lot on YouTube, and also putting stories into context so that you understand both societal and historical context of different stories so you can make your own conclusions about if you want to watch them. 

Image Credit: Heidi Vale Photography

How did you get started with this project?
It really started when I was asked my opinion on Mr. Beast, and I realized that my opinion is quite complicated. As I was talking to friends of mine, I was revealing more about what I knew about YouTube and how it works, and I realized I have been studying YouTube since before Google bought it, and I really enjoy it and watch a lot of it.  

It’s really both about the channels, and about the people behind them, but also how it’s making their childhoods different. You know, we watch way more behind-the-scenes before we ever see the movies than I ever did. I remember getting DVDs and eating up all the special features; now they get special features before they even know what the movie is. 

Right, it’s so strange to think about how much more context surrounding pieces of media before we even experience that media than I think there was for that prior generation. 

And how influencer marketing is different. We’ve talked to our children about advertising ever since they could point and say they wanted something, and learning how to explain that people are getting paid to talk about something, and every single product they’re mentioning or linking, that’s how they make money. That’s often at least a quarter of someone’s income or even 60%. So you have to understand that's why you want to play that game, and how to tell the difference between advertising copy and someone just reviewing something. They have to be good about that for legal reasons, but creators are getting really good at integrating advertising, so it’s helpful to know. 

Over the summer, when Prime energy drink came crashing onto the scene and parents were like, What is this and why do my kids want it? Because it’s Logan Paul and KSI, and they are huge influencers in the YouTube scene, but more than that, they flooded YouTube shorts. They gave Prime to probably every single YouTuber their management company ever saw, so every YouTuber had Prime energy drink. And the same thing happened with the Grimace shake. All they really need to do is get them in the hands of these creators who can make cool content from it.

Over the summer, when Prime energy drink came crashing onto the scene, parents were like, What is this and why do my kids want it?

And kids are even playing YouTube games on the playground. The reason we ever even looked at “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is because our kids felt like they needed to know the rules to the game and wanted to know the characters. But it became really interesting lore. I was reminded of when I was first introduced to mythology, around my kids’ age, and I ate it all up. So obviously they’re going to eat all this up. 

Kids are always going to be vulnerable to influences, and they’re always going to want to know about the things that other kids know about. But there’s something different about the speed of YouTube and the way that it can kind of feel like a black box. Whatever my child is looking at in their bedroom is totally unknown to me. 

Right, how are you able to look at these channels in a short amount of time, when you’re peeking in to make sure they’re OK in their room? There was one time my husband peeked in and they were supposed to be watching one of their favorite YouTubers, and he heard the theme song and he said, “This is a rip-off channel.” He could just tell from the theme song that it was different. So he was tuned in to that, but that’s only from watching it so much. I feel like there’s a lot of those tricks that I can help parents understand. 

There’s also the social aspect of it. What do you do if you have certain rules, and your kid goes over to someone else’s house where they might have different rules? I want to help parents navigate that and understand what questions to ask and how to frame it. There are some really good parental controls, but kids know so much about the internet that they get around it. 

But there’s also so many great aspects of YouTube that I want parents to know about. If your kid is fascinated about maps, there’s an entire channel on that. If you’re interested in model building, there’s North of the Border. But the waves of trends change constantly. It’s this dynamic that you have to keep figuring out, not just to keep up with what your kids are saying, but to know how it’s affecting their brains and how to talk to them about how it’s affecting their brains. 

One thing I have to remember to do is to invite my kid to share what she’s watching with me. To show her that I’m interested in it and that her interests aren’t something that she has to keep secret or feel ashamed of. 

I love having ongoing conversations about what they’re watching. I watch so many things that I normally wouldn’t. I’ll cuddle up with them and watch this completely nerdy channel about Nerf guns and which ones are better. It’s not one of my interests, but I love how into it they are, and there’s always things to talk about. 

When we were watching “Lego Masters,” we talked to them a lot about editing and how we would try to figure out who would be eliminated. I would be like, We just got their sob story and saw pictures of their family, so I’m guessing they’ll either be eliminated, or they’ll be chosen. We were watching “Jurassic Park” and asked me if I knew who died, and I was like, Well, honestly, I can tell that those five people are going to die soon because we don’t know their names. 

How many kids are in your household, and what are their approximate ages? 

We have two, one is newly 7, and one is 9 years old. And Outthink is really focused on that 6-10 age range, it’s right before middle school, so I’m putting out all the threads now so that they know I’ll listen without judgment. 

When you’re working, where are your kids? 

I’ve worked from home since before I had kids, and I had a lot of really great guidelines and ways of managing my time when they were little. We went to one indoor playground so much that they actually created a little office corner for me there where I could see everything. But as they’ve gotten older, it’s a little easier, because they can entertain themselves, but then it’s harder for all the reasons we’ve just been talking about. So we’ve come up with some pretty good parameters. Once in a while, when they’re home, I have ‘don’t interrupt me unless someone’s bleeding’ meetings, but otherwise I bring my laptop downstairs. 

Tell me something wonderful about your kid(s):  

Honestly, right now, one of the most wonderful things that we’ve experienced is with parent-teacher conferences. It’s not even about their grades, it’s just about the fact that their teacher said they make their jobs easy. And we’re in Florida, so helping teachers is a huge bonus. We do everything for our teachers; they are going through so much, and they are so wonderful. Just hearing from them that our kids help make teaching something that’s still a joy for their teachers — that matters to us a lot. 

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Thanks to Cindy for speaking with me! You can find Outthink Media at outthinkmedia.com, and you can learn a little bit more about Cindy at CindyMarieJenkins.com. Cindy would love to hear from you about the kinds of topics you’d like her to review, so please be in touch with her!