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"Five Nights at Freddy's" is a horror game that came out years ago, The player has to work security in a Chuck E. Cheese type pizza place where, broadly, the animatronic band comes to life at night and stalks you. And apparently, somehow its biggest fan base is... the same kids as Chuck E. Cheese's target audience, maybe slightly older.
And now there's a whole genre of survival horror games for kids where the premise is that something they're actually into at that age is sinister and dangerous: "Baldi's Basics" is educational software that tries to kill you, "Bendy and the Ink Machine" is an old-timey cartoon that tries to kill you, "Poppy Playtime" is a toy factory that tries to kill you -- if you've seen a blue plushie with a super-creepy smile for sale at mall kiosks, that's Poppy.
Is this anything new, or i
So, is this just the modern version of when my brother and his friends got super into R-rated horror movies when they were 10? These games are usually rated "T for Teen" because they use jump scares instead of blood.
Or, is everything so fake that even young kids are starting to get suspicious of anything that's too friendly?
Or, are they just unironically drawn to the cute characters on a surface level and asking "why don't they build a Freddie Fazbear's in real life?"
Or, is it all three? because about five years after Cabbage Patch Kids took the country by storm, all the kids my age were passing around Garbage Pail Kids stickers, and they even made a movie about them.
And now there's a whole genre of survival horror games for kids where the premise is that something they're actually into at that age is sinister and dangerous: "Baldi's Basics" is educational software that tries to kill you, "Bendy and the Ink Machine" is an old-timey cartoon that tries to kill you, "Poppy Playtime" is a toy factory that tries to kill you -- if you've seen a blue plushie with a super-creepy smile for sale at mall kiosks, that's Poppy.
Is this anything new, or i
So, is this just the modern version of when my brother and his friends got super into R-rated horror movies when they were 10? These games are usually rated "T for Teen" because they use jump scares instead of blood.
Or, is everything so fake that even young kids are starting to get suspicious of anything that's too friendly?
Or, are they just unironically drawn to the cute characters on a surface level and asking "why don't they build a Freddie Fazbear's in real life?"
Or, is it all three? because about five years after Cabbage Patch Kids took the country by storm, all the kids my age were passing around Garbage Pail Kids stickers, and they even made a movie about them.