Indie animation for kids...?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Just something I've heard mentioned a few times, and I've been wondering about it...basically, we're entering a golden age of indie animation, and most of it is geared towards young adults-- i.e. a demographic that's been consistently ignored (in the West) for the last decade.

I mean, cartoons have been considered "for kids" for several decades, but at least before we had a wider variety of cartoons for those kids to enjoy. Serialized narratives, action-packed adventures, slice-of-life comedies, slapstick gag humor...all of these things were considered worthwhile investments from studios. Especially when anime started entering global pop culture in the 90's, and several Western cartoons jumped on the hype train by borrowing from its aesthetics, culture, and storytelling style.

But those stylish, high-effort productions are expensive...and as a very wise person somewhere on YouTube once explained, it's more beneficial to studio execs to promote the idea that animation should be ONLY "for kids" by being as simple and low-effort as possible, so they will never be expected to spend that kind of money. I think this explains why, slowly, those "anime-like" cartoons began to die off...and were replaced by a much greater quantity of silly slice-of-life that required less planning and expertise.

Like, nowadays it's considered a "treat" when a cartoon invites someone like James Baxter on to do a single high-quality scene...when before, we had whole teams of animators like him doing entire shows. ^^; And if you need another example of how things have changed, look no further than how Nickelodeon treated Legend of Korra...that fiasco really screams of execs not wanting to invest in that kind of animation anymore, despite the success of its predecessor back when they weren't so cheap.

Anyway, with the push to make animation ONLY for kids came not just a decrease in diversity, but also a decrease in mature subject matter, both in an NSFW sense and in an intellectual/psychological sense....the majority of new indie shows make their mark by pushing back on the censorship imposed by big studios, exploring more provocative themes and visuals. Most of them are considered "adult cartoons" for this reason.

So naturally, if indie production can help cartoons flourish again for this demographic...could it do the same for younger demographics, too...? That's the actual point here (yes, finally).

You might be asking "why bother?" I mean, since traditional studios are still open to the "safer" content typical of kid-oriented shows, you could argue that kids' cartoons don't need to go the indie route. That was definitely my first thought.

But there's a couple of counter arguments there: for one thing, LGBTQIA+ content is still heavily policed in kids' media (hell, even more so)...indie media could provide more spaces for kids to learn about these things. As opposed to, say, Hazbin Hotel. ⚆_⚆
ALSO, there's everything I said above-- execs look at kids' media as nothing more than "key jingling"; a way to get lots of money and ad revenue for very little effort. They don't care about educating children or providing them with interesting stories that they can understand, and will happily serve them nonsensical slop, in the name of making their profit margins as high as possible.

Winx Club (despite being European...heck, that still counts as Western) is a PRIME example of this phenomenon, as the quality of the series has slid further downhill with every subsequent season. Originally, it was a fantasy adventure series that was pretty clearly aimed at teens and tweens, until its showrunners decided to give up on that and chase after the preschool audience for some reason, devolving their complex characters into the meaningless mascots of a permanent status quo.

And now, just a few weeks ago, they released a "reboot" of the series that absolutely reeks of AI, from the character design to the story progression. It's clear that the showrunners just shoved every idea they had through ChatGPT and forced a sweatshop full of underpaid animators to put it on a screen as quickly as possible, without anyone bothering to review the final product to make sure it looks good or makes sense. Why take a personal interest in the legacy of your life's work, when you can just pretend that seeing every strand of Bloom's hair glistening in the sunlight means it's "high quality" now...?

^THIS could be the future of kids' animation if something isn't done. Even if this show bombs, that's not gonna stop some other lazy producer from trying this again; from flooding the market with AI slop simply because it costs so little to produce that it will always break even, and because the 5-year-olds watching don't know they deserve better.

That bothers me. Like, a lot. T_T And as someone with an interest in media for mature audiences and media for kids, if a push for kids' indie ever starts gaining traction I will be right there cheering it on.

But what do y'all think? While I was sniffing around this topic, I heard that Bluey is apparently an indie kids' show; is that true?? Or is it "indie" in the same way that Hazbin Hotel is considered "indie" despite being funded by Amazon...?
Not that it really matters; I think the most important thing about the "indie" label is the production process, not necessarily the distribution or funding...although that's a discussion for another day. ^^;

[kyupol]

Maybe when the kids learn to animate, there will be lots of indie animation for kids. It's not that far off considering advances in Ai where all you need is a prompt.

I've noticed that most webtoons and animation tend to be geared to the age or demographic group of its creator.

[jwabeasley]

There are a lot of factors at play here. I am a parent and an indie creator, I love animation as a medium and go out of my way to find good animated content for my six children to consume.

Firstly, he studio executives are absolutely happy to let children consume the cheapest drivel they can shovel out. And there are many parents who are happy to shove an ipad in front of their toddler's face and let the algorithm shovel whatever fecal matter it wants into their hungry brains. Those two paired forces mean that there is a large segment of the market that is just not interested in quality entertainment of any kind. They're the salt of the earth: you know, idiots.

Even my in-laws who are themselves highly educated and relatively erudite prefer to show let's plays or other video game related content than actual narrative shows. The only narrative show my 6 y.o. boys actually like is Mac & Ollie. They haven't been interested in any of the many excellent narrative shows I've shown. They don't even like Star Wars except for the Genndy Tartkovsky Clone Wars shorts.

Another issue is that of the parents remaining who both have children and won't show their kids slop, many of them avoid all television completely or are completely un-served by current indie animation trends because they are conservative religious types. Indie animators in general aren't interested in catering to (or even making room for) conservative religious households. Including explicit LGBT characters or themes makes your media automatically 14+ with these kinds of families. Quality media friendly to Christian values is extremely rare. Families of this type, if they watch any television at all, tend to watch old movies and shows.

I'm adjacent to this - my toddlers are more likely to watch Rupert or Little Bear than to keep up with whatever hyperactive nonsense is going on currently. I'm constantly on the lookout for actually good current media to show them, but it is hard to find and exceedingly rare. Quality shows like Puffin Rock, Hilda, or Kid Cosmic have all been great but if I wasn't keyed into animation as a hobby, I'd never have found out about them!

Third, to compete on quality, TV shows today must be excellent where many older shows could be more mediocre and still find excellence. The Loud House is a good example, if it was on TV next to Fairly Odd Parents and My Life as a Teenage Robot back in the '00s it would have been great. But in the current environment, where anyone can watch anything anytime for free (more or less) it just couldn't crack into the general consciousness. It is very hard to be noticeably better, and you really need to crack into that public consciousness. My 10-8 y.o. girls enjoy the 2011 Thundercats, original Winx, MLP FiM, and Avatar TLA - your new show will have to be as good or better than those shows to garner their interest!

So to be successful in that market, you need to be a high quality show with a top notch marketing department, the show company and actors have to be not hostile to conservatives or Christians, and even then it's a gamble and the audience size is smaller than it used to be. Which leaves us with Bluey!

OR as an indie creator, you can make a show just for yourself, focused on your own age group/slightly younger, and find some way to be cheap with visuals. The bar is lower and the potential reward is a lot better there than the mainline children's entertainment these days.

[KevinReijnders]

[DiegoPalacios]

I would argue that a succesful indie animation aiming at kids has massive profit potential in merch.
Kids play with toys and love merch of stuff they enjoy.

That being said, indie content often use youtube to share their content, and with the monetization restrictions the platform do to kids content they are discouraging what could be a potential world phenomenon.

So, unless there is another web platform where you can share and monetize kids content without issues, it will be hard for indies to tap that market.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Maybe when the kids learn to animate, there will be lots of indie animation for kids. It's not that far off considering advances in Ai where all you need is a prompt.

...Okay, considering this whole section of the OP...

"...they released a "reboot" of the series that absolutely reeks of AI, from the character design to the story progression. It's clear that the showrunners just shoved every idea they had through ChatGPT and forced a sweatshop full of underpaid animators to put it on a screen as quickly as possible, without anyone bothering to review the final product to make sure it looks good or makes sense."

...Don't you think that response is a little tone-deaf?? I'm saying that indie animation could rescue quality children's shows from the jaws of thoughtless AI generation, and your reply is that children should be directly given that thoughtless AI so they can generate their own shows...? That's not fixing the problem, it's simply allowing the consumer to become part of it.

I've noticed that most webtoons and animation tend to be geared to the age or demographic group of its creator.

^The problem with that line of thinking is that 5-year-olds aren't going to create their own media.

Or rather, the idea of "quality" media isn't something they can grasp, despite being something important for their development and the main point of creating media for their demographic. They can certainly use their own imaginations and make up loose concepts, and share those with each other...but they're going to do that anyway; that's simply how kids are. And I truly think that they have more fun doing that when they have quality media in their lives to show them new ideas and spark their imaginations, rather than just feeding their incredibly limited life experiences into themselves.

Have you ever seen a child try to write a story? How many of those stories would you consider "quality" entertainment suitable to give to other children? (or heck, just entertainment...when I was a kid, the stuff my peers came up with bored the hell out of me. It's why I started writing in the first place...)

And furthermore, what do you think those stories will end up looking like without the influence of actual structured stories to base them on? Without the ideas of protagonists or antagonists, or conflict, or any of the narrative devices that adults know how to use to keep kids engaged, but kids don't know how to use because they are literally kids?? It'll just be a giant ouroboros of progressively more random concepts.

In conclusion, I feel like saying "kids can just make their own media" is tantamount to saying "kids' media shouldn't exist". I mean, follow the logic; what's the functional difference?

Indie animators in general aren't interested in catering to (or even making room for) conservative religious households.

...Maybe this is a hot take, but I think that's justified. ^^;
Like I've been saying, the main point of kids' media is to help them develop, to teach them to interpret reality. LGBT people are real, and kids will encounter them...and be raised by them...and love them, and BE them. ¯(ツ)/¯ So it makes sense for them to be present in kids' media, even if certain people don't want to accept that.

Like...if they don't want to accept that the earth revolves around the sun, should that be excised from kids' media as well?? The reason indie animators aren't catering to that mindset is because it's not a sensible one. You can expect it from studio execs steeped in tradition and afraid to lose money by rocking the boat, but you shouldn't expect it from private individuals who just want to create.

That being said, I think people over-estimate how heavy these "themes" are in most media. Like, just take GLITCH Productions-- if I'm not mistaken, there are no particularly prominent discussions of sexuality or gender in any of their current shows. Like...these characters don't even have explicit romantic partners or love interests (except for one male character's dead wife...so). ._. There's nothing to be offended by unless you're actively looking for it.
And again, that's normal. Most youth-oriented stories (YA and below) are way more focused on their fantastical worlds and narratives than "LGBT", even when those themes ARE present.

...Which is why these requests to "cater" and "make room for" tend to feel like dogwhistles, where the actual meaning is "yeah, maybe you haven't included the content that offends me, but that's not enough-- what I really want is for you to openly denounce and reject the content that offends me, so I can feel validated".

But, y'know, let me know if I'm wrong. =/ I feel like you're more familiar with this viewpoint than I am.

So to be successful in that market, you need to be a high quality show with a top notch marketing department, the show company and actors have to be not hostile to conservatives or Christians, and even then it's a gamble and the audience size is smaller than it used to be. Which leaves us with Bluey!

...I see what you're saying there, kinda. Especially when it comes to media for younger kids which is usually gatekept by the adults in their lives (tbh, I feel like that's kind of 50/50...lots of very young kids are just let loose on various streaming services. ^^; But whatevs, let's go with it).

Although, in that case, I think the strategy there is to simply market to adults, advertising quality indie programming for their children, allowing them to support animation with the whole family. And believe it or not, there's a market there, dismissive conservative parents notwithstanding.

The whole reason I became aware of this discussion is because of hearing stories about parents bringing their disturbingly young children to convention panels for Vivziepop's shows...which, if you haven't heard, are very sexually explicit and full of profanity, proving there are many people out there who STILL can't figure out that 'colorful animated characters' =/= 'for kids'. ^^;

But to me and many others, these incidents also implied a desire for animation fans to get their children involved with this growing indie phenomenon...yet, having very few options to do so safely. And a desire without a solution is an open market. I think if you add parents who love indie animation and want to be able to share it with their kids, to adults who love kids' animation in general (if the intense fandoms behind Bluey and MLP are any indication)...I think there's a highly profitable niche there. Maybe not enough to build a multibillion dollar media conglomerate...but (see title of thread) that's not really the point. ^^

[jwabeasley]

Like I've been saying, the main point of kids' media is to help them develop, to teach them to interpret reality. LGBT people are real, and kids will encounter them...and be raised by them...and love them, and BE them.

I'm not here to argue their preferences, only stating that for the demographic of people who both are having children and care a lot about what media their children watch, the inclusion of explicitly LGBT characters or themes is a deal-breaker. Just imagine that you're opening a vegan restaurant in a neighborhood that's predominantly keto - it won't be successful. This is a core reason why Disney in particular and Hollywood in general have lost huge portions of the family market over the past decade.

Like, just take GLITCH Productions

Yes, both TADC and KoG (as of E1)'s approaches so far would be acceptable to that demographic. I am a fan of both. Neither show is for kids, though!

(tbh, I feel like that's kind of 50/50...lots of very young kids are just let loose on various streaming services. ^^;

That's what I'm saying. Of all potential families with kids who consume any kind of media, you have to take out the shovelware set to get to the crowd of parents who care - those people are absolutely gatekeeping the media their children consume. Those people are usually conservative/religious (Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, or Evangelical). That is the crowd that has to be willing to actively pursue your content.

these incidents also implied a desire for animation fans to get their children involved with this growing indie phenomenon...yet, having very few options to do so safely.

Hey, I'm in this picture! Yeah, if somebody makes quality content like TADC or KoG that I CAN show my kids, I'll be all over that! I'll buy all the associated comics and get the relevant plushies. I'll get DVD versions, go to local conventions, make fanart. I have done these things for MLP and Hilda. That market absolutely exists.

[jwabeasley]

I should note that this is also the market for K-Pop Demon Hunters. The space is absolutely there and wide-open.

[KevinReijnders]

Imo, the fact that LGBTQ characters can even be considered a deal-breaker is precisely the reason we need more of them, not less.

I don't really care about your politics or your religion, discrimination based on sex, gender, race or sexuality is just wrong regardless and not at all similar to dietary preferences.

On top of that, I do not agree that children's media needa to cater to the restrictive views of the religious right in order to be succesful. It's not just the conservatives that have children afterall. Besides, children's media has had a long history of being over policed by this demographic. It would be a breath of fresh air if it weren't beholden to them for a change.

[jwabeasley]

Granted, but good luck with running a bacon food cart parked outside a mosque, is all I'm trying to say.

It's not just the conservatives that have children afterall.

In August this year, demographic studies by the University of Virginia showed that weekly religious service attendees ("religious conservatives") have, and have had for the past 10 years, roughly double the fertility rate of their secular counterparts. Further, if you're looking for parents who care about what their kids watch enough to avoid slop content, I expect the proportion rises significantly, although I have only anecdotal data to back that up. If you exclude those people, the potential market for a project is much smaller.

It's not the 1960s - in the current media landscape, people have to actively choose to seek out and turn on particular content, and this is extra true for indie.

It would be a breath of fresh air if it weren't beholden to them for a change.

They haven't been a major force in entertainment decision-making since like 2005. And in ~2015, all major studios decided to actively antagonize that sector. That we've seen frequent and sustained flops in the family film market ever since is not a coincidence.

I'm not trying to argue the morality about whether alternative identities should be included in media. I think everyone here is in agreement on "should." I'm only discussing demographic reality and potential media markets.

[VibrantFox]

I think it's a bandaid solution to a wider issue. Even indie has it's own flaws so the real solution (as with many issues in the world) is systemic change from the ceos and beyond.

As for the masses that's trying to change personal views which unless you've got a charismatic figurehead to lead the charge is gonna be a much harder battle to win and a longer one.

Coz we're already seeing the censorship battle going on with lawmakers and payment processors, there's the whole thing with PBS and the potential PragerU replacement and just general audiences responding and reacting to different things. So sure indie gives the people who care enough better options but it doesn't get at the root issues.

Plus AI slop isn't going anywhere until people either see reason and why and how it's a bad thing or the consequences become so impossible to ignore that people finally go "oh hey this is bad" which we're at least kind of getting a start as folks are seeing increase in pollution and rising internet and electricity prices but beyond that they're just gonna keep on trucking

[ButterflyEmpress]

There is technically indie animation for kids, but it's that weird questionable stuff that ends up on YouTube Kids. My niece and nephew are early elementary aged with iPads. Whenever they visit I try to steer them into watching something else, but they'll just go back to it later. Can't bring it up to my sister 'cause she's too glued to her iPhone to care -_-.

You'd think that the Elsa-gate incident would spark some push for quality kid-friendly content, but people got tired of caring. It's free and keeps the kids quiet so parents can finally get a break.

But I'm not even sure how an indie kids show could get funding. Childless adults who love animation most likely have the disposable income to drop on shows that appeal to them, but parents not so much. Raising kids is expensive so I don't think they'll be so willing to spend money on a show that may or may not become reality. Good luck trying to monetize a kids video on YouTube without anyway to ask for funding. And you'll have to compete for the kids attention with the millions of garbage that's pumped out.

I think the only way right now is to pitch to a network, unfortunately

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Good luck trying to monetize a kids video on YouTube without anyway to ask for funding. And you'll have to compete for the kids attention with the millions of garbage that's pumped out.

OH...
...I totally forgot...kids' media usually isn't eligible for monetization...yeah, that's a hurdle. ^^;
Of course, you could get around that by privately hosting and setting up your own ad space on your own site, but most indie shows don't do that these days...although I kinda feel like they should, especially considering the online censorship battle we're currently in. :T I guess it's a choice between ease of access and creative control...

I think it's a bandaid solution to a wider issue. Even indie has it's own flaws so the real solution (as with many issues in the world) is systemic change from the ceos and beyond.

I agree with that. That's why I don't necessarily think of kids' indie as a 'solution', but instead a sort of promotional tool; at the very least something to point to in the ongoing argument for good media.

Like, KPop Demon Hunters is not indie, but it's similar to what I'm talking about. There are a lot of defeatist, jaded, and outright bigoted arguments about "what audiences want" that were heavily peddled before the film came out, but don't work anymore after its unprecedented success (i.e. "people are sick and tired of female leads", "no one cares about representation", "no one cares about original IP", "everyone hates musicals"...it's been very interesting to watch the grifters and doomers change their scripts in the last few months ^^)

Notably, before KPDH, The Amazing Digital Circus was the "animation sensation" that started changing the conversation in that way (albeit to a lesser extent), competing with big studio projects for the top viewership spots on Netflix, despite being the "opposite" of everything we were told should be successful. That's one of the main reasons people jumped to support it-- because it was novel and fresh and showed people what we COULD have if not for the industry in its current state holding us back.

I think that is indie's true power, now that it's strong enough to challenge the mainstream-- it doesn't have to win; just the challenge alone is enough to make a difference.

They haven't been a major force in entertainment decision-making since like 2005. And in ~2015, all major studios decided to actively antagonize that sector. That we've seen frequent and sustained flops in the family film market ever since is not a coincidence.

I'm sorry, but do you have data for this??? Because everything that's been going on with mainstream media recently (including the ongoing wave of censorship that people have already brought up) suggests the exact opposite.

There are SO many examples of media being kneecapped by execs explicitly trying to cater to conservatives in just the last few years...most famously, Steven Universe being canned because the lesbian wedding episode was just a bridge too far in a show already filled with queer subtext, and The Owl House being slaughtered in its prime for daring to have a bi/lesbian couple as MCs (or as Disney put it, it "didn't fit [their] brand"). And now we're getting Hexed, which feels eerily like Owl House """done right""" with a male MC and no love interest...but I'm still holding out hope that Disney isn't that shameless.

There's also Elio, which did not flop because it "antagonized" conservatives, but because it excised its original queer themes so vehemently that it drove away its own director, leaving the rest of the creative team to pick up the pieces with a generic story that didn't particularly appeal to anyone.

There's also the Lilo and Stitch remake, which notably found HUGE success despite carving out so much of its cultural authenticity and progressive themes. It's a complicated discussion, and there's a million videos on YouTube that can explain it better than I can, but generally it feels like a grave insult to native Hawaiian viewers and fans of the original animated film...and yet, it made a killing at the box office. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Even the conservative critics who claim it's bad simply because Nani rejects 'family values' haven't been able to explain its success.

In conclusion:
1) If you want me to believe that the market for 'family media' is primarily dominated by conservative tastes (that are being neglected, apparently, despite all of ^^this) I need some concrete proof of that. Like, there's correlation and there's causation...the Snow White remake did flop, but it wasn't because the actress who played her had melanin in her skin. For example.
2) As some other people have implied, I think the MAIN driving force behind the success of 'family media' is ease of access and how well it can keep children occupied. That feels like a much more consistent metric than any ideology the parents might have...loud people on the internet aren't representative of reality, and what I see IRL is an obvious convenience-based economy.

[NickRowler]

If you want to know why there isn't indie animated shows for kids, just walk into the toy aisle. There are far less toys based off of animated shows targeted at kids unless you are talking about toys targetted at super young kids and toddlers (like Bluey and Paw Patrol). Even the toys that are based off of shows tend to be older properties like TMNT, Pokemon, and the Powerpuff Girls.

I would think most indie studios would rather target an older demogaphic (teens and adults) or a much younger one (like with Cocomelon).

That being said, kids now a days are watching anime and stuff from Glitch even if they are much younger than the target audience.

[VibrantFox]

If you want to know why there isn't indie animated shows for kids, just walk into the toy aisle. There are far less toys based off of animated shows targeted at kids unless you are talking about toys targetted at super young kids and toddlers (like Bluey and Paw Patrol). Even the toys that are based off of shows tend to be older properties like TMNT, Pokemon, and the Powerpuff Girls.

This honestly makes me think of the toy store I usually walk past on the way to work and most of it's shelves are popular game ip's or stuff like sanrio, sonny angels and labubu. But the game stuff in particular isn't even exclusively kid targeted coz they've got poppy playtime characters which i thought was more a 13+ thing

---

that's like i'm never fond of bothering with polarizing topics like the whole libs vs conservatives thing but i think it may be something of a schrodinger's cat depending on where you're at online and off alongside personal opinion/perspective

coz there really is no denying that there's been massive movements of censorship especially recently when it comes to whats on tv and online content, the c_ s_ situation with payment processors being the first to come to mind but there's also been huge pushes to replace progressive media with more conservative content like the proposed pragerU replacement for pbs which revealed that god awful short about colombus attempting to downplay the horrors of slavery.

but what i think is being referenced is less the mass scale censorship but more individual households where parents will take away, block or censor in their own homes of content deemed "too progressive" or "too mature" because it has queer characters or whatever else. so they'll turn to or only give their kids access to media that suits those conservative views. and honestly thats something ive seen and experienced firsthand where instead of cartoon network, disney, or nickelodeon i and other kids were pushed towards shows like veggietales, 3 2 1 penguins, adventures from the book of virtues, or davey and goliath for example. which i'll note weren't bad shows but they were the perceived cleaner alternatives to 'secular' media

i think if anything it goes hand in hand with the censorship coz i imagine the mindset is to push people to making "clean" content by making it incredibly difficult to do otherwise. obviously it's a losing battle in the long run coz even older instances of such movements failed but as we've seen it doesnt stop them from continuing to try either.