PARENTAL ADVISORY: Explicit Content

Parents Unfairly Condemn Artists for Explicit Music

Graphic+by+Chloe+Choi

Graphic by Chloe Choi

Recently, many parents have been complaining about the large amount of “explicit” content that celebrities are releasing.

They believe that it’s inappropriate for their children to be looking up to these influencers.

However, when has it ever been a celebrity’s job to look out for other people’s children?

Parents should not complain and pressure celebrities online to change their platform for a child. It is the parents’ own responsibility to keep their children away from certain content online.

Celebrities don’t intend mature songs or music videos to be directed towards a very young audience.

Many celebrities are actually becoming very successful through the marketing of mature content.

For example, Cardi B has been on the rise for many years, and has become widely popularized through her explicit song “WAP.” This song has spread around every social media platform.

This involves TikTok which happens to include a lot of younger users.

TikTok specifically has a requirement for users to be 13 years or older.

If an adult doesn’t want their child to be exposed to the languages and music videos, then they should use their authority to restrict their devices.

For this purpose, platforms such as YouTube have actually applied these “parental restrictions.”

Lil Nas X has been highlighted in the media recently because of all the backlash he has received from his song “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” and from his shoe line that both involved references to the “Devil.”

In the religiously diverse country of America, many audiences don’t mind the “Devil” references; however, they don’t sit well with conservative parents.

Nonetheless, the excuses about “protecting their kids” these parents use to condemn artists’ music videos and marketing choices are invalid because the explicit content was never intended for young kids to see.

If these parents properly use their authority and put more effort into monitoring and restricting the content their kids had access to, there would not be a problem.

Parents shouldn’t be so overwhelmed by celebrities’ decisions in their own careers.

To put it simply, if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.