For Jet Bent-Lee, he doesn’t have to imagine it. It’s what he does with his father, Susur Lee, every time they upload a video to Iron Chef Dad.

You just might recognize the name, Susur Lee. He was one of the judges on MasterChef Asia. He also appeared as a contestant in the second season of Top Chef: Masters. And he was one of the Iron Chefs on Iron Chef Canada.

And on Iron Chef Dad, he’s teaming up with his son and face some of the biggest challenges of his culinary life: In some videos, Susur must take TV dinners or military-style MREs (“Meal, Ready-to-Eat”) and turn them into a gourmet dish. In others, Susur ranks fast food on a tier list and reacts to food-centric short videos.

And, sometimes, Susur will simply show us how to make some tasty treats.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Susur and Jet have good chemistry on camera, and it’s evident that father and son love each other deeply. They enjoy discussing food, with Susur often providing guidance to Jet on why certain methods or ingredients are used over others.

Additionally, though Susur is a professional chef and doesn’t have much experience with lower-brow culinary offerings such as fast food, he often provides compliments on what he thinks each chain did right. Similarly, Susur will explain what he likes about another culture’s cuisine, and even if he doesn’t personally like something, he’ll accept the validity of someone enjoying it.

CONTENT CONCERNS

The f-word is partially censored. Other swears, including the s-word, “d–n,” “b–ch” and “h—” are often heard in their entirety. God’s name is used in vain occasionally. In one reaction video to Masterchef, Gordon Ramsay references masturbation.

CHANNEL SUMMARY

It’s fun to watch Jet and Susur bond over food and for Jet to learn some culinary skills at the same time. Perhaps Iron Chef Dad will encourage more families to get together to make food—regardless of how well it turns out. But that’s only if viewers can digest the occasional swearing present on the channel.

The post Iron Chef Dad appeared first on Plugged In.

That’s why they do a new thing every day.

On Monday, they’re opening a hotel for aliens. On Tuesday, they’re opening a restaurant with only banana-themed food items. On Wednesday, they’re hosting a game show. What’ll they do the next day? Well, not even they know.

The only real constant? That whatever they do, their nosy neighbor, Nancy, will try to get involved with (and often, put a stop to) their plans.

POSITIVE CONTENT

You could think of Adventure Ventures as something more akin to a scripted skit show than your typical YouTube channel. Each video stands alone from previous videos on the channel, meaning that viewers can jump into whichever video interests them most. That means that each video introduces and resolves its plot within its typically 10-minute runtime.

Despite Nancy’s frequent selfish and rude antics, Parker, Chase and Michaela often try to keep the peace and include Nancy in their fun—and on worse days, they work to save her from situations into which she puts herself. And when the three make mistakes of their own, they try to right them.

Each video begins with a silly premise that will likely be fun for a child.

CONTENT CONCERNS

While generally clean, some humor can be a bit crude.

Viewers will endure some toilet humor, such as a broken toilet that sprays on a couple people and some jokes about flatulence. A man is given a wedgie. A man says he’s married to a sock puppet named “Butch” who he refers to as a “he” (though he also calls the puppet his wife).

Violence is usually slapstick, though some moments are a bit more intense. A woman is held underwater to prevent her from discovering an alien’s identity, and they later have to resuscitate her. Someone is stabbed in the hand with a fork. A man is kicked in the crotch. And some people are smacked upside the head with a baseball bat to knock them out. (It should be noted, however, that even these more intense moments leave the victims typically no worse for wear.)

We heard God’s name used in an exasperated way twice.

CHANNEL SUMMARY

Adventure Ventures was created with the purpose of providing content that would be enjoyable for kids to watch and clean enough that parents didn’t need to worry about what they were watching.

To that end, the channel generally succeeds. As of posting, the channel’s 13 videos contain much less problematic content than your average YouTube channel. And what’s more, much of the content that is on Adventure Ventures is the kind that is more tolerable. That being said, families may want to note a couple slapstick moments that get a bit violent, such as a recurring gag where characters are knocked out with a baseball bat.

So while not perfect, Adventure Ventures may be a venture worth considering.

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Since 2012, Rob’s been leading his wife, Teryn, and their children, Jack, Hadley, Austin and Olivia, in learning how to draw all sorts of things. They’ve gone through countless markers and sheets of paper—after all, the channel’s uploaded nearly 2,500 videos since its inception!

And if you’ve got a pencil and paper at home, you can follow along, too! In each video, Rob will lead one member of his family in a step-by-step process to create whatever they plan on drawing, explaining helpful tips to achieve the desired result.

Rob’s most important tip? To practice—and have fun while doing it.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Art for Kids Hub offers engaging and easy-to-understand commentary that kids will have little trouble following. This makes sense, as because Rob is guiding his own children in each video, his approach is suited for younger audiences. Parents likewise won’t need to worry about swear words.

With thousands of videos (and a new one uploaded almost daily), children will be able to find instruction on how to draw things that personally interest them.

The videos on the channel as a whole span a wide range in drawing difficulty, which makes them accessible to a variety skill levels, More advanced designs are typically tackled by Rob with his older children, while easier drawings are paired with Rob’s younger kids.

Additionally, Rob and Teryn’s love for their children is evident in each video.

CONTENT CONCERNS

We did not see anything of concern in the videos we watched.

CHANNEL SUMMARY

Art for Kids Hub could be a great teaching resource to inspire your child in his or her artistry. Whether your child wants to learn how to draw a character from a movie, their favorite animal or more, it may be worth considering checking out Art for Kids Hub.

The post Art for Kids Hub appeared first on Plugged In.

But perhaps Luke Nichols and his family will change your mind.

Luke, who runs Outdoor Boys, loves going out the explore the world, and he loves taking his children—Tommy, Nate and Jacob—with him. He teaches his young sons (and us unsavvy viewers) all there is to know about the outdoors, from catching, cleaning and cooking animals to all aspects of camping. And they’ll often travel throughout the country and the world to see and experience new places. They’ve even driven from Key West, Florida, all the way to Deadhorse, Alaska.

Okay, maybe outdoorsy stuff still isn’t your thing. But perhaps you might still enjoy experiencing it secondhand through your screen.

Positive Content

Luke loves showing off the many interesting locations he travels to around the country, and his sons seem to enjoy exploring the outdoors with him, too. Through Luke’s experiences, viewers will learn a bit about exploring the outdoors.

It’s very apparent how much love Luke and his wife, Rebecca, have for their children. When traveling, they frequently ask the boys if they’re OK, and they console them when they get upset. And if one of his kids gets sick during a trip, Luke cancels planned events and activities rather than pushing through it for views. Additionally, Luke teaches the boys how to do certain outdoor tasks. In one video, Luke says that the YouTube channel and the outdoor activities are secondary to his “faith and family.”

Content Concerns

It should be noted that Luke is a devout Mormon, though we didn’t see any theological conversations within his videos apart from mentioning taking his family to church. In one explainer video, he mentions being a missionary in Japan for two years.

Luke’s hunting trips include “catching, cleaning and cooking” various animals, from frogs and fish to alligators. As such, parents should make sure they’re OK with their children viewing such animals being killed and skinned. Occasionally, Luke shoots a firearm.

We never heard swearing from Luke. Others featured in videos have sworn—though all swears are censored. One joke for a video partially exposes Luke’s rear. In another video, Tommy crashes his bike, and when Luke checks the injury on his rear, he jokes that Tommy has a “big crack” in his behind. The two make “clickbait” together by smearing fake blood on Tommy’s head.

Channel Summary

For those who don’t mind the dirt and grime of the wilderness, Outdoor Boys may be a nice watch for your family. And for those who don’t think their child is ready to watch an animal be hunted, killed and cleaned, the channel features plenty of other videos which feature travel or other child-friendly activities (such as Nerf gun fights). Though there’s a couple potential hiccups for viewers to consider, the channel is generally quite clean and fun to watch.

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“In an effort to keep people from picking on me, I decided to create the world’s largest Nerf gun.”

“What is the scientifically proven best way to skip a rock?”

With intros like that, it’s hard not to be interested in engineering.

As a mechanical engineer, Mark Rober sure loves it. He worked for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for nine years where he worked on the Curiosity Rover. He worked at Apple for another five doing Product Design.

“This idea that we can understand and predict the world around us using math and equations is what first made me fall in love with science when I took high school physics,” Mark says.

With that in mind, Mark posts one video every month to help others learn and (hopefully) fall in love with engineering, too. In some videos, he creates robots that perform entertaining tasks, such as a moving dartboard that always gets you a bullseye, a rocket-powered golf club and a liquid sand hot tub. In others, he tests strategies to find out the best outcome for unique events, such as the best way to maximize winning at the board game Guess Who, break out of any escape room or cheer the loudest at a sports event.

But he doesn’t just show the results of his tests; he also explains the science and engineering behind how his experiments work, giving the viewer not only what the answer is, but why and how it works.

POSITIVE CONTENT

It isn’t hard to see why Mark’s videos often get more views than he has subscribers. They’re interesting, and they genuinely make learning about science and engineering fun. In the same way that Mythbusters went 18 seasons by studying interesting myths with the scientific method, Mark Rober’s videos are so popular largely due to the intriguing nature of his experiments. Who doesn’t want to know whether sharks actually like the smell of blood, which city’s citizens are most and least likely to return a dropped wallet and which arcade machines and carnival games are impossible scams?

Mark’s content helps teach engineering tricks and the science behind any topic he makes a video on, making it not only fun but also a learning experience–and it’s likely that any kids watching would be more than willing to stay for the teaching portions of the video due to the interesting nature of the videos themselves. In fact, many of his videos feature him showing the children of friends and family his experiments.

Mark also uses much of the content he produces to help alleviate and bring awareness to many issues. For instance, one of his videos explains how to detect malaria in water with 68 cents, and another video explains how a Procter & Gamble packet of powder can make dirty water safe to drink. He’s also partnered with MrBeast, a previously reviewed YouTuber, in order to help raise money to plant trees and remove trash from the ocean.

And while Mark’s experiments are sometimes a bit larger than life, such as the “World’s Largest Devil’s Toothpaste Explosion” and “Car vs. World’s Strongest Trampoline,” he always prioritizes safety in every experiment he does.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Mark’s most popular video is where he created what he calls a “Glitter Bomb,” of which he uploads a new and better-designed one at the end of each year. These videos focus on a fake package that Mark leaves on the porch. When people steal the package and open it, it shoots out glitter and fart spray, and it records the whole encounter. Some parents may find these videos uncomfortable (sometimes for reasons we outline below), and in one instance, the package is shot.

Mark has conducted experiments using blood and urine. For instance, in a video to determine whether sharks are attracted to the smell of blood, Mark uses blood, urine, fish oil and seawater to see which the sharks flocked to most. In another video, Mark teaches us how to measure how much urine is in your pool.

His earliest videos show a few pranks and Halloween ideas, including a couple of videos that show how to take a video on your phone to make unique moving costume ideas. A couple of these are a bit gruesome or creepy, such as a beating heart or a moving eyeball.

Additionally, though Mark Rober himself doesn’t swear in the videos, some substitute words used in his videos may make parents feel a bit uncomfortable. For instance, the words “butt-ton,” “shiz” and “freaking” have all appeared on the channel, and an Australian assistant in one video uses the word “p-ssed off” and “d–mit.”

In the glitter bomb videos, the thieves will often use inappropriate language. While Mark censors the language, some thieves rely quite heavily on swear words for the vast majority of their vocabulary, and instances where God’s name is inappropriately used are not censored (Like wises, uses of the word “d—”).

SUMMARY

Mark’s content is interesting and fun, and it is a great learning experience for both parents and children alike. He even teaches an online engineering class for children who want to learn how to make cool ideas of their own. In addition, the more recent his videos, the more kid-friendly they tend to be.

However, some videos do contain some swear words, and while the majority are bleeped out, a couple are still allowed, and parents on the lookout for those may want to consider watching the video through first before they decide whether or not the video in question is appropriate for their child.

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That’s big. In one of her latest videos, for example, the superstar Ukrainian 7-year-old known simply as Diana unpacks her new custom roller skates. And a custom-made Diana doll that looks just like her and … has fun skating around her house.

Which, I might add, has marble floors.

That’s because little Diana’s main channel (one of 13 shared by herself and her brother, Roma) has a staggering 84.5 million subscribers. Add all those channels together and they total 208 million subscribers. That’s roughly the size of Nigeria, the seventh biggest nation on Earth. Similar to kid-based channels such as Like Nastya and Vlad and Niki, Diana’s videos feature a mix of unboxings, light educational lessons, original songs and general silliness of the kid kind.

The post Kids Diana Show appeared first on Plugged In.

Austin and Catherine began their YouTube channel as boyfriend and girlfriend back in 2016. Their videos started as pranks, but over time the couple began varying their content. Now, Austin and Catherine are married with three children. They focus on vlogging their everyday lives. And they’ve ammassed millions of follwers with content ranging from vlogs and challenges to personalized apps and merchandise. 

Onscreen, they’re portrayed as real, vulnerable and funny, the sort of couple many think of as picture perfect. That said, the family has had to deal with a lot of controversy. Allegations of sexual assault, misconduct and innapropriate behavior have been leveled against Austin. The couple is also embroiled in a legal battle in which they’re suing someone for extortion. More obvious for anyone watching the channel are problems with some of the content, too, including profanity and mature subjects.

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