Mental Cobwebs

Local news sources are buzzing about the case of Evan Emory and his "disturbing" YouTube video. The 21-year old musician asked a teacher if he could play in front of her classroom of first graders and record it for his portfolio. He then replaced the audio with another one of his songs, which included sexual situations, and put it up on YouTube.

Now, I'm not completely defending the guy, because it was pretty stupid of him to go about it that way, but the way it's being handled makes me a thousand times more sick than the video itself. Honestly, I've seen the joke a thousand times from professional comedians. To open his set on his Bigger and Blackerer DVD, David Cross had a child come out on stage dressed as him and start to tell jokes, only to go off on someone taping in the audience and let out a stream of f-bombs then storm off stage. I'm fairly certain that I there were skits of Dave Chappelle and Sarah Silverman saying inappropriate things in front of little kids on their respective shows. The only difference is that those people likely had parents sign contracts before they hit record.

Did ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead get arrested when they edited children into their song and then cussed at them? Of course not.



If my child was in his video, I would be upset. Only, all I would demand is that he took the video down, if that. Some people have a lot of problems with their little kids appearing on video, though I've never been 100% sure why. Is some sicko honestly going to track down your kid because he saw them on a video? Calm down a little.

You might be asking yourself why this whole thing bothers me so much. They're saying that he could get 20 years in prison. At the arraignment there was talk of him not being allowed to be in the vicinity of children without supervision. Seriously people, he looks like a frat douchebag, but let's not ruin his entire life over a joke.

BUT WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN! I'm honestly sick of this shit. Just like neutering recess of everything fun, and slapping "Adults Only" warnings on Sesame Street, we're blowing everything out of proportion. I'm scared to be raising a child in this day and age. Not because of the things that can hurt her, but because of our constant obsession with keeping kids away from things that could hurt them.

It's stupid to be so scared of bumps and bruises that we remove things that they use to have fun, but it's even more insane that we've now graduated to pretend threats. YOUR CHILD WASN'T EXPOSED TO VULGAR LANGUAGE, IT WAS EDITED! Congratulations on successfully protecting your child from something that wouldn't have negatively affected them at all, though. Just remember, Evan is 21 years old. He's still a child, really. 21-year olds do stupid things sometimes, I'm sure you did as well. What happens when your kid is twenty something and somebody deems something stupid they did as "disturbing" and chooses to ruin their lives? Will you think back to how you crusaded against Evan and see the irony, or will that fly right over your head? I'm guessing the latter.