It's hard to overstate the importance that Sesame Street played in my life.
My parents had VHS tapes shipped internationally, and my parents got not only an American TV, but an American VCR, in France, in 1979 so I could watch it.
When I was a small child, Sesame Street was one of my favorite shows. I enjoyed the animation and complexity, not only the word lessons but life lessons too.
And it absolutely had an impact on how I saw the world, and probably why NYC feels more like home than anywhere else in the world to me.
I was too old for Sesame Street when Elmo became prominent, but I saw the cultural shift it created. I didn't like Elmo or the direction the show was taking.
I'm glad other people are talking about it, because Sesame Street plays such a huge rule in my childhood.
You should watch the video, but here is my take on why people like me dislike Elmo so much.
Sesame Street was built around the idea of modeling. The setting is a city street with characters representing real life people, queue "These are the people in your neighborhood"
The human characters each have a full life, a job, a personality, even an outside life that includes romantic relationships, hobbies, and being a parent.
Sesame Street showcases a way of being part of the world with a diverse community.
The monsters play an interesting role. They're partially archetypes, and partially their own characters, they're fantastical exaggerations of real life people, but in the world of Sesame Street, they remain grounded.
@serge A very good assessment. I tried showing my kids old Sesame Street, but they immediately found the new, more addictive episodes and gravitated to that. Elmo was introduced as the 3-year-old who didn't understand what was going on, and it was Big Bird who carried the show. But there were also a lot of calm, rational adults, because the goal was to help raise children up to their level. Once Tickle-Me Elmo came out, everything changed, as suddenly Elmo was more famous than Sesame Street.
One aspect of the show they didn't present is that the show made a deliberate decision to shift its focus to younger children- not 3-5 but 2-4 year olds.
That shifted the show's presentation a lot, in conjunction with Elmo.
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