> Almost no-one has questioned whether these videos are indeed harmful to children.

Then feel free to question it. Since this refers to a large body of videos, make sure you did your homework. Just some random things from the top of the pile if you will (but it's a big pile and frankly, even just the amount of very messed up things on the surface doesn't exactly make me want to measure out this particular ocean in full detail, I am scared less of watch lists than just poisoning my own brain or making myself sad for no reason or rather, with no constructive outcome -- but at least I'm not gonna be the guy/gal you chose to be, who hears a sea gull sample on the radio to tell us off for being fascinated by marine life)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/7cacnp/my_little_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/78mz7f/forced_sla...

Though I agree with you in that this hardly is some magical line beyond which stuff becomes harmful, but it's a very high concentration of it. We let marketing instill "brand loyalty" in kids, now they use cartoon figures and brands babies are likely to know to groom them for other purposes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/7c5kar/another_re...

We live in a world where people physically throwing out poisoned bait for dogs is a thing. So apart from ad revenue or considerations about pedophile cults, even "just" producing this stuff en masse for the "fun" of destroying minds is a real possibility. You can roll your eyes at that, but when it's this big and obviously laced with known themes of abuse and methods of grooming, that says nothing about the issue and all about your superficial knowledge of it. Why would the reaction to something you can't even be bothered to actually look at "alarm" you either way?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/7c114l/sick_fvcks...

No, I didn't watch most of these videos either. The titles are enough. "bad babies playing doctor toys put an enema song nursery rhymes for children". Thanks. And actual real human beings dress up and play weird [<-- that's an euphemism, it means what they actually do show in the videos, not what people read into it, or other things that have been previously called "weird" in other contexts] things, often in mansion like houses with flashy cars in the driveway.

This is a specific phenomenon. We don't really fully know what's going on and who does it why or bandwagons what. Which we aren't exactly to blame for, having asked for none of it, but at least making a better job at taking it seriously than you. Whatever it may remind you of, it's only what it actually is. Look at the actual specific stuff or don't. But nevermind parents, just as a human being I would tread lightly here before informing myself better.

> that sensationalizes these videos to the point where I was afraid the video would destroy my brain a-la Snow Crash.

The video? As in singular? How do you make the connection from you watching one full video (since most are above 10 minutes I doubt even that) as an adult to the harm that might be done to children ranging from 0 to infant who might watch hours and weeks of them being "sensationalized"?

How many hours of these videos across how many individual clips and accounts have you seen? Would you let your kids watch these things unsupervised, if yes, for how long per week at most? These three questions should be the entrance requirement to take part in this discussion, because if you belittle this without even having actually looked it, well, don't put that on yourself. Because it reads like people who belittle or rationalize atrocities that happen under their watch and with their implicit support. "Detrimental to children" in light of these videos, and their sheer amount, is like calling mass murder "not very nice".