Here’s a cool fact: if you spend a little bit clicking aimlessly on YouTube related links, it will take you almost no time at all before you are immersed in an algorithmic cyberhellzone where all conceits of narrative are thrown out the window and computer-generated babies leer and coo at you into eternity. In an instant you will realise that there are actual human children being raised on this stuff, and that the future is quite probably doomed. We’ve reported on the utter strangeness of kids YouTube before, but over the past week or two one of its prime exports has become a bona fide meme: Johny Johny Yes Papa.
The nonsensical nursery rhyme, which is about a father catching his mischievous baby eating sugar, has about a trillion different variations on YouTube; clearly because craven content creators and computer algorithms have worked out that it traffics.
And it traffics, folks. This version – if not the original then definitely the one which put Johny Johny Yes Papa on the map – has an eye-watering 1.1 billion views. Billion.
It follows the same form as basically any one of the thousands of variations: a small baby (named Johny) continues to eat sugar and lie about it, despite the pleas of his father. In this one, baby Johny is capable of skateboarding for reasons which are not explained, and the father is way, way too old to be the parent of a newborn child. Disturbingly old.
It’s likely that this video actually started the whole craze, but it’s simply impossible to know. 1.1 billion views is nothing to sniff at, so you can understand why a horde of content creators tried to harvest some of that Johny Johny magic.
For the sake of posterity, I will write out the lyrics to this incredibly moronic rhyme right now:
Johny, Johny!
Yes, Papa?
Eating sugar?
No, Papa!
Telling lies?
No, Papa!
Open your mouth!
Ha ha ha!
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Something about it obviously taps into the lizard-brain reflex in the world’s infants and children, because they simply cannot get enough of Johny Johny Yes Papa.
Here’s another one, with a comparatively paltry 481 million views.
This one, from a mysterious outlet named ChuChu TV, does what so many other Johny Johny Yes Papa videos simply fail to do: it actually shows Johny straight up eating from a jar of sugar. Points for the lack of subtlety – really gets the message across. The Johny in this video is not a baby; he is a toddler of indeterminate age. To me, Johny is a baby. Sorry if that offends.
The meme you almost definitely saw – maybe through the Jezebel article which asked whether you’d fuck the dad from the animation – comes from the Dubai-based production company BillionSurpriseToys, who specialise in nonsensical, nightmarish children’s content which is almost certainly creating a generation of serial killers.
The original video was taken off every social media platform it was posted on thanks to copyright claims, but never fear: BillionSurpriseToys have a compilation vid which has a number of variations on Johny Johny Yes Papa, including one where baby Johny is accusing his own sentient fridge of eating sugar.
(Yes, I watched most of this. In the background, sure, but it was enough to boil my brain like a hot chook in one of those Coles bags.)
See, children’s entertainment is always pretty dull and repetitive. I watched Paw Patrol recently because a friend’s kid was watching it, and it too relied on simple, repetitive plots.
(To get you up to speed, Paw Patrol is a show set in a hellish world where the local government has abandoned basic services, meaning a series of dogs in hats need to fulfil basic municipal responsibilities like firefighting and driving ambulances.)
The difference here is that they actually have narratives and lessons through which kids can begin to make sense of the world in which they live, which serves basic educational purposes. These nightmarish YouTube videos are so patently idiotic that it feels like it was draining basic knowledge from my brain as I was watching it. In the course of watching like an hour of Johny Johny Yes Papa videos, I forgot how to do arithmetic.
A lot of the demented algorithm-led kids shit on YouTube is genuinely weird and disturbing – like, for example, the now-banned channel Toy Freaks, in which a grown-ass man dressed like a baby and made his kids cry to a captive audience of millions. Johny Johny Yes Papa isn’t really: it’s funny and dumb, which is why it became a meme. But it’s still kinda unwholesome in a weird sort of way. Maybe I sound like one of the luddites that popped up when television was first invented, but this feels like it is scrambling kids’ brains.
Obviously, money drives this. The creators whack ads on these videos which clock hundreds of millions of views, which obviously makes huge cash for them. It’s a super easy way to monetise the fascination kids have with anything that features bright colours.
Anyway, I leave you with this. More Johny Johny Yes Papa. May it fry your brain like eggs in oil like it did mine.
