What Happens to a Child Who Isn't Loved Properly

Submission 716

Part of a series on Fatherless Behavior. [View Related Entries]

About

What Happens to a Child Who Isn't Loved Properly refers to a series of memes based on an educational video about child neglect. In the edits, the opening line transitions into a video demonstrating the harmful effect of neglect on the child, such as them becoming a Valorant or an Overwatch player as a result of it.

Origin

On February 28th, 2024, YouTube^[1] and TikTok^[2] channel The School of Life posted an animated video on child neglect titled "Why Unloved People Hate Themselves." The video, which opens with a scene of a couple dropping a baby down into a pool of water, gained over 182,000 views on YouTube and over 9.2 million views and 1.4 million likes on TikTok in two months.

What happens to a child who isn't loved properly?

On February 29th, Redditor sinfulbrand posted a scrolldown video of their TikTok feed in which they swipe into a League of Legends clip right after watching the opening part of the video, as if the child started playing League of Legends as a result of parental neglect. The upload (shown below) gained over 440 upvotes in the /r/accidentalcomedy^[3] subreddit in two months (shown below).

Spread

On April 6th, 2024, TikTok^[4] user @v1lteaa posted a Valorant video in which the opening transitions into a video of ranking up in Valorant, implying that skilled Valorant players were neglected as children. The post (shown below) garnered over one million views and 206,000 likes in two weeks.

The post was followed by more similar memes shared in the following days. For example, on April 8th, 2024, TikTok^[5] user @neox1986 posted a World of Warcraft version of the meme that gained over 504,000 views and 34,800 likes in ten days (shown below, left).

On April 9th, 2024, TikTok^[6] user @sekhmetbreath posted an Overwatch 2 version that garnered over 589,000 views and 133,000 likes in nine days (shown below, right).