Barney Can Wait
October 18, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Back in the summer, I noted that Charlie had discovered the wonders of YouTube, when he and I found that a number of the Barney videos he used to watch, ask to see a thousand times over, and get so upset and over-stimulated over that he’d knock his head on the floor when we turned one on—-that many of these could be found posted on YouTube. For the past two months, he’s been typing in “Barney” and “school” or “good day good night” and sitting on his knees to watch the old familiar scenes. It was in mid-September that he discovered “Let’s Play School” and that’s been the main one he watched, as I realized just how deeply I have indeed memorized many a Barney song (”butterfly, butterfly, fly fly away”…..).
There seemed to be an endless pick of Barney videos and especially of older ones that featured simple sets and—in one video—–parents, besides the purple dinosaur. Charlie typed and watched; Jim proclaimed that he was on a nostalgia kick. Unlike when he was younger, Charlie understood about turning off the videos. He wanted to see them, but he could let go when he had to. Sometimes he asked a lot to see the videos, and other times, not so much, if at all. And then, this past week, when he asked to see a particular song, type in whatever combination of “Barney” and other words, nothing came up, aside from endless clips of the “I Love You” song.
I found the URL—saved in Firefox—of one video and got to a page informing me that a video’d been removed from YouTube for copyright reasons. And that’s what I told Charlie whe he asked to see a video.
He was wistful, asked to see the videos again, heard the “I Love You” clips a couple of times. He shut the lid of the computer, got up, and moved on.
I’d been—-the panic of mothers—-worried that we’d be stuck in eternal Barney-mode once again. I suspect Charlie would like to see those certain videos if he could; I see that he had walk away when what he wants is not available, and there’s no especial big fuss.
Friday night Charlie and I took the train into lower Manhattan to meet Jim for dinner. Charlie likes to walk in front of us, and he stops when we call out “stop” and “wait for us” and “red light.” He peered into every storefront, pausing sometimes in front of the ones with cases of sodas. He sometimes looked hopefully at the door and then quickened his step when we told him to keep going.
Always so much to see and do out in the big wide world, and it’s always best when it’s the three of us, especially when Charlie leads the way.
So annoying when YouTube videos dissapear, but then copyright is not to be trifled with.
However there is an addon to Firefox, which you just click and it downloads the video to flv format.
(Which annoyingly needs a special player to play it)
Incedentally I am often in research of remembrances past in the videoscape, in my case the far more ephemeral world of TV much of which escaped recording.
Did eventually catch up with “Engines must not enter the Potato sidings” though, a black and white piece about the last days of steam on British Railways,
Out of interest, and as part of my research of course, do you think there is something in the format of video that makes the aquisition of it more desirable. That is to say would Charlie be so nostalgic about Barney presented in another format, be that a toy, a book, a poster or some other artefact?
You could use a special player for flv format, but you could also convert it to another format.
The Barney videos aren’t on youtube anymore?
God help me when my daughter comes home from her Dad’s on Sunday- we had such a busy week last week that she hadn’t been online at all, and she’s going to lose her mind now that they’ve gone. We probably have 50 Barney videotapes at home and more than a few DVDs, but in her mind right now if it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.
We download videos all the time, and I just didn’t in this case… I can’t believe that after all of these years I haven’t learned to have backups of obsessions in case they disappear. It’s easy to get complacent when things are going well.
I’m glad that Charlie is taking it well- maybe he can talk to Rachel for me next week
That’s exactly how PJ started with Youtube, only he did it by looking for Teletubbies videos. I was looking forward to him walking away from the Teletubbies once and for all, so I was not too crazy that he had found one more source for their videos.
Still, after a while he started experimenting with searching for different things, which is how he ran into the tutorials for making balloon animals and paper airplanes.
He also found tons of Thomas & Friends content, which is great, and a video of the Teletubbies with the sound replaced with Purple Haze, which was amusing the first 100 times he played the video. Part of me is so proud to see him jump all over the place with a beat-up guitar, trying to follow the music (which happens to be my favorite music), while the rest of me braces for the migraine.
Just wanted to say I think it’s wonderful how frequently you and Jim take Charlie out into the big, beautiful world. I had Pete’s parent-teacher conference yesterday and we were discussing a school event we had attended and how great this community has been for us. She mentioned that several of the parents of kids in Pete’s class still have a really hard time taking their kids in public (it’s a K-2 class) because they constantly fear what strangers think of them and their child. Life is so much happier when you don’t get caught up in that loop. Like you, I find that almost everybody who spends any time with my son truly enjoys his company anyway.
Sorry for the tangent — I just love reading about your NYC adventures.
“However there is an addon to Firefox, which you just click and it downloads the video to flv format.”
Real Player and WMP will play them. The new versions anyway.
VLC player can play FLV files as well.
And on Mac, QuickTime can play FLV with a free plugin called Perian.
(Yes, I’m going off on complete tangents now…)
Keepvid.com allows you to download vids in mp4 format, which Quicktime will play without a problem.
(Myself, I once went on a Sesame Street nostalgia search on YouTube…from back when Ernie and Bert went camping and everyone thought Snuffy was Big Bird’s imaginary friend.
)
I should add (whoops) that you have to copy and paste the video’s URL to keepvid.com for it to work, but I’ve used it to find realia for my class’s current events newspaper for months without a hitch.
Myself, I once went on a Sesame Street nostalgia search on YouTube
…try doing a search on the Muppet Show. Waldorf and Statler, the Swedish Chef, and Animal are just as awesome as they ever were.
Autistic youngest is a big Youtube fan. She was almost an addict at times due to her OCD tendencies to want to watch and rewatch certain videos (otherwise “something bad” would happen). Teaching her to be able to walk away from that compulsion wasn’t easy: I understand your fear with Charlie being hooked into a permanent fixation. I’m glad that he enjoyed revisiting Barney but I’m even happier he was able to manage without those videos when push came to shove!
I have the Firefox add-on but didn’t download the Barney videos before they disappeared. Am going to look for Perian……… thanks!
Actually it’s been ok with the videos not available anymore. Charlie likes to see them but they also can be over-stimulating. He’s been going through an old collection of Barney CDs and singing the songs.
@laurentius-rex, I think the memory of the songs (aural memory) is strongest for Charlie. He likes the videos but after a while just wants to see the same clips over and over—-to some degree, photos and pictures of Barney seem to be much preferred.
Sometimes I put on Barney since it airs at 6:30 here and that is around time he is getting ready for bed. My home page is amazon and the other AM they had Barney Christmas Star recommended to me since I had been viewing halloween videos. Matt taps the screen and then I click on and makebigger for him. That seem to be enough for now, although last two videos he did that with I bought.
Nick uses youtbube for cats, big cats, and dinosaur videos. Sometimes he leaves comments that look odd under my id of autismfamily.
No Barney here but Thomas, Elmo’s World and Teletubbies. We have the Thomas videos but he likes the control he has with youtube.