ALAIN BOUSQUET
To the sound of a cheerful melody, adorable animals hum the name of their favorite colora baby counting pencils in a box and a family sings in chorus on a bus whose wheels turn, turn, turn… On YouTube, these nursery rhymes illustrated in video are well known to parents and very young children.
“Since smartphones and tablets were massively adopted between 2007 and 2010, the way in which children consume these cartoons has been transformed, summarizes David-Julien Rahmil, journalist and author of the essay Children’s Internet (Divergences, 160 pages, 15 euros). No more need to monopolize the family computer, master the keyboard and Windows interface, or even choose a DVD. The offer is free, extensive and easily accessible to those under 2 years old, who are already able to scroll with their fingertips. Result: YouTube nursery rhymes often act as a virtual nanny, and millions of babies watch colorful and hypnotic videos in a loop on mobile screens. »
Korean-American television producer Jay Jeon is the originator of this video category. In 2006, he was inspired by English nursery rhymes intended to teach children the alphabet, the “ABCs”, to create short cartoons for his baby. Published on YouTube, these videos amassed several million views in less than two years, pushing Jay Jeon to develop his own studio. A few years later, his channel, ABCkidTV, attracted the attention of the British production house Moonbug. In 2018, ABCkidTV was purchased and renamed Cocomelon.
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In less than ten years, Cocomelon has developed several series available in 25 languages, gained 180 million subscribers and accumulated more than 190 billion views. Among the chain’s boxes, Bath Songshowing two toddlers in their bath, and viewed nearly 6.8 billion times. Also accessible on Netflix since 2020, Cocomelon is the third most watched channel on YouTube. A success that is emulated, like the South Korean Pinkfong, to whom we owe the heady Baby Shark, listened to more than 15 billion times, and from the American LooLoo Kids, the originator of the nursery rhyme Johny Johny Yes Papawhich exceeds 7 billion views. The recipe is always the same: soothing melodies, tangy colors. “For young children, these videos are like crack”the British writer James Bridle already affirmed in 2018, during a TED conference.
