Why Dumb Down Is Bad

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The decline in quality cartoons is an issue that is being noticed by more and more people. As a kid you’re parents would just switch on the tv and leave you to be distracted. Nowadays that hasn’t changed, but cartoon creators strive to involve the whole family in enjoying cartoons. This makes cartoons gradually turn from a kid demographic to one that anyone can watch. Sadly many cartoons still dumb down to appeal to “stupid kids”. This is working and causing dumbed down shows to be shown more frequently compared to more mature shows. The term dumb down is used in the cartoon community when a show thinks viewers are stupid and give them jokes that a four year old could understand. This sounds like it could be ok, but it makes older audience members feel like this is a kid’s show. One example of this that I see is a lot of people are reusing the same idea over and over again. There is a common idea that gets put into almost all cartoons nowadays, the main characters find a new pal that is almost the same as another character, the other character tries to prove that something is wrong with the new one, but they don’t listen. That exact idea has been prevalent in all sorts of media, it is a common idea that “dumb” children could easily understand. …show more content…

This problem has slowly been going away, but many characters are still made just to make some extra cash. The most popular example of this trope is Transformers, the cartoon and movies were based on a toy line to increase popularity in the line. Signs of a character being only for merchandise can be linked to the characters purpose, if a character only makes one or two appearances in the show and has a random catchphrase, he or she is probably made for merchandise. This tactic is used to make kids want a certain toy that has a funny character involved with

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