Advertising Their Cuties on the Internet

The other night I was procrastinating from doing my homework, which is a frequent pasttime of mine. And when doing this, one can usually find me lying on the floor of my bedroom, my eyes glued to a video on YouTube. Am I watching educational videos that are helping me with my schoolwork? Wish I could say that was true, but unfortunately no. On my "Frequently Watched" video lists on the website, you will find my page is loaded withcountless videos of different young children, showing their cuteness to the World of the Internet. Should parents be videotaping their children and putting these cute and adorable videos online? And what is their purpose for doing this? This is what I set out to discover.

Take the following video for example. This is a little girl, posing in her little diapers and a tanktop, standing in front of a mock stage setup. She has a disproportionate acoustic guitar in her hands and a mini microphone stand in front of her. She sings "Hey Jude," the reknowned classic by the Beatles.



It's adorable. But what were those parents thinking? This poor child is what they are using to get Internet fame. There are countless stories of people achieving fame through their accounts and numerous videos on YouTube. For example, violinist Alex DePue found his YouTube fame.

Maybe I am making faulty assumptions, but I can't help to think that the parents of all the cute little kids on TV are making these kids rehearse so th eInternet world will comment on how indescribably adorable their cuties are!

I just feel some sympathy for these kids, because who knows what they will say to their parents when they grow up and find themselves half-naked singing out-of-tune Beatles hits on the Inter net.

Hidden Temples: No Longer a Myth?

I was logging into my email on aol.com the other night when I stumbled upon a fascinating article on the AOL main site. It was about a Mexican archaeologist named Guillermo de Anda and his latest incredible discovery. He found a series of dangerous underground caves that he believes were created by the Mayans to symbolize the "pathway to hell." 

This immediately interested me in the few first sentences as I read on to find more incredible detail about De Anda's discovery. They even compared his findings to the fictional caves the Harrison Ford's character Indiana Jones found in his adventure movies. They said that the caves contained "tottering ancient temple platforms, slippery staircases and tortuous paths that skirted underground lakes littered with Mayan pottery and ancient skulls." So not only was this discovery of a about six caves and underground roads an example of Mayan religious beliefs and sacrificial rituals, but it also showed their creativity and advancements in technology and sculpture. 

Check out some more pictures of the ominous and dangerous caves, as well as the explorer, and read more in the AOL article, and in the CNN article I found about the same recent discovery!