As a parent, I am well aware that I can not shelter my children from everything. However, I would prefer it if my two-year-old stayed away from a few bad influences, like Jason Segel. Now, I have nothing against Jason Segel, or I should say I didn’t. I had no reason too. In fact, I enjoyed his work. In its proper place, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor's antics can be quite charming.
But YouTube had to go and ruin everything. You see, like her father, my daughter has a knack for musical theater. At her young age, she already knows most of the words to most of the songs from Annie, Little Shop of Horrors, Bye Bye Birdie, and, of course, Shrek the Musical.
However, “Lets make a sex tape,” are some words she should not know. Yet YouTube seems determined to teach her, and they have to use the guy from the Muppets movie to do so. An unskippable ad for Jason Segel's new R rated movie, Sex Tape, appears before the most G-rated of YouTube selections.
Speaking of inappropriate ads...Apparently, YouTube thinks that all musical theater fans are gay. This stereotype, found alive and well when watching musicals on YouTube, doesn’t offend me. I am not only use to it after a lifetime in the theater, but I fully support the LGBT community. However, instead of ads about equity, or pride, we get ads about AIDS, because you know, all gays like musical theater and have AIDS….right?
A “Good Morning” greeting from my two-year-old musical theater nerd prompted a visit to YouTube on the ole Xbox One this morning to check out the famed number. However, instead of a showstopping song about staying up until 1:00 a.m, we got an unskippable ad for Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz’s Sex Tape. My good morning had just be ruined, and the guy from the Muppets was to blame.
YouTube had just rained on my parade, and I don’t mean the happy, cheery, tap dancing kind of rain. Not only is this R-rated ad out of place for such a G-rated video, but it's especially surprising considering my only subscriptions are to DisneyInfinityFans and Super Simple Songs, which are both super kid friendly pages.
Now, let me remove my tongue from cheek long enough to tell you that I don’t really hate Jason Segel, and I fully intend to explore any ad blocking features that the YouTube app on the Xbox One allows. I just wish it didn’t have to be that way. Instead of making me want to see Sex Tape, the ad has had the opposite effect, and I wouldn’t watch now if it was free.
YouTube ads shouldn’t be as crass as YouTube comments, or they should at least be smarter about what audience they target. After all they tend to be aware that musical theater has a large gay following (that apparently all have AIDS), so why don’t they grasp that Singing in the Rain fans aren’t the target demo for Sex Tape?
Just to show that I hold no hard feelings towards Jason Segel, here is a YouTube video of Jason Segel singing musical theatre.
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