Have you ever thought to yourself “Gee, I really wish I could see what this toy looks like. Unpacked. Put together. And played with… BEFORE I buy it”? No, you haven’t? Okay, good, then I’m not alone. Because normal people either look at the box and see ‘oh, that’s how they look assembled’, or buy them and put them together themselves. Why do I ask? Oh, I don’t know, maybe because the trend of MEGA-POPULAR unboxing videos on YouTube is driving me insane.

But. Nick, you say, you don’t have to watch them. No, no I do not. But you know who loves them? A certain four-year old child of mine. Honestly. I have no idea how she discovered them. Somehow she went from watching Peppa Pig episodes on YouTube to watching some floating pair of hands with intricately-painted nails assembling Peppa Pig toys.

Oh, so you know about the floating pair of hands behind the Disney Collector channel? You know the one, that was the highest grossing channel on YouTube last year. Somehow, every video of these folks unboxing, assembling, and playing with toys garners millions of views. Probably from kids on an iPad clicking next after every single video they watch. I guess, then, I’m part of the problem. I can’t fault them for what they do, though. More power to them for finding something that works and making money. I wish I could do that. This is the channel where the most popular videos seem to live.

Aside from the fact that these videos suck the kids in–because, what kid doesn’t wanna see cool toys being played with–it shows the kids even more toys they’re gonna want for themselves. Granted, it’s up to us as parents to control what our kids watch on our devices. But, still I don’t understand how this trend came to be. Who thought up the idea? It just seems like such an odd thing to decide to do.

Is it just me? Is it just Sophia that finds these videos so amazing that she wants to watch them all the time? When she asks me if she can watch Peppa Pig, I know damn well that she wants to watch those floating hands put together the LEGO hospital again. Not an actual episode of Peppa Pig. What’s next? Watching someone walk into the store, pick up the box, and then pay for it? I guess we’ll call those videos “Pay-to-Play”. Make it stop, you guys. MAKE.IT.STOP.