Kids 2023 summer trends: Skibidi Toilet, Love Forever Young series and Lacey’s Flash Games

The Skibidi Toilet cartoon series was the hottest trend. Lacey's Flash Games got the biggest number of search requests in the games category. As for the movies, Chinese dramas We Fall in Love and Love Forever Young were the bestsellers.

On average, 61% of children get their first digital devices between the ages of 8 and 12, sometimes earlier. Kids explore cyberspace, make friends, play games, watch movies, and learn. Kaspersky examined children's online queries to understand what drew their attention this summer. The analysis is based on anonymized data, voluntarily provided by Kaspersky Safe Kids users: search queries and the most popular Android applications requested.

During the summer of 2023, the three most popular apps on Android were YouTube (30%), TikTok (17%) and WhatsApp (15%). Instagram took fourth place (9%). Interestingly, YouTube kids only got 2,5% and does not have significant reach among children.

As for YouTube, the most often searched content among children was channels and vloggers that shoot entertainment, challenges or lifestyle (21%) videos. The 'other' classification got 21%, and usually contains memes and stories that are not included in other categories. Gaming bloggers came in 3rd place with 15% of requests. Additional categories topping the list were categories such as music (13%), movies, cartoons, TV-shows (12%), and games (9%).

Skibidi Toilet was one of the biggest summer trends. This is a cartoon series, hosted on YouTube Shorts, created by Georgian influencer DaFuq!?Boom!. It started with short videos that were an abstract set of frames where the main character takes the form of a head crawling out of the toilet to a mashup of "Dom Dom Yes Yes" by Biser King and "Give it to me" by Timbaland. Now it’s a video series with its own style, plot, characters and fandom. Scibidi Toilet made almost 9% within TOP-1000 YouTube search requests.

As for YouTube vloggers and influencers, this summer’s leaders were Triple Charm, shfa, ViktoriaSarina, Fede Vigevani, Michou, Space Family, Fala Sério, A4,  whose content is mostly lifestyle videos, challenges, unpackage videos and about beauty.

On the topic of gaming content, Lacey's Flash Games received the greatest number of search requests this summer. Like Skibidi Toilet, Lacey’s Games evolved into a web horror based on Lacey – the character, who appears, for example, in the flash game “Lacey’s Wardrobe” (the main intrigue here is the existence of this game in real life). Various content creators have been shooting horror stories based on the game – this has propelled Lacey to the top of this summer’s list of horror characters.

Among key gamer influencers, the most popular ones were IShowSpeed, Aphmau, Paluten, Problems and Furious Jumper.

In the 'movies, cartoons and TV-shows' category, cartoons hold the leading position – with almost 50% of queries. TV-Shows received 26 percent of requests, which is a significantly win over anime that got 16 percent of searches.
MSA (My Story Animated) channel with their Lady Bug, My Little Pony, Peppa Pig and Helluva boss remains the unbeatable leader among the cartoon providers. As for TV-shows, Chinese TV-dramas We Fall In Love (2023) and Love Forever Young (2023) gained all of the kids’ attention.

Music interests still spin around K-pop – almost 19% of search requests relate to South Korean bands and BlackPink is the leader. Barbie madness has caught kids’ attention too – they looked for “Barbie Girl” by AQUA and “Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice.

"We can see how quickly new game worlds are emerging and turn into trends. The interesting thing is that this summer's phenomenon, Barbenheimer, certainly caught children’s attention, but didn’t make it to the biggest summer newsbreak – Skibidi Toilet or Laycey's Flash Games left it far behind. Undoubtedly, kids are aware of the mainstream World trends in movies, books, games, etc., but at the same time they belong to their own worlds – offbeat, weird from an adult point of view, and it’s so interesting to discover and explore them" comments Anna Larkina, web content analysis expert at Kaspersky.

To ensure children have a positive online experience, Kaspersky recommends that, as a parent, you:

• Involve yourself in your children’s online activities from an early age, make it an established norm so you can then mentor them on online safety practices;
• Consider downloading parental control apps and discussing this topic with your child to explain how these apps work and why they’re needed to stay safe online;
• Make conversations about cybersecurity more enjoyable and interesting by discussing the topic with your child through games and other entertaining formats;
• Try paying attention to your own habits. Do you use your smartphone when eating or chatting? See if there are any patterns of your kids mimicking your habits? Do they react in a different way when you put your phone away?
• Ask your child not to agree to any privacy settings on their own and to ask for help from you instead. Adults should get into the habit of reading all privacy agreements.  

About Kaspersky

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