The XX Factor: What women really think.

After "David After Dentist"

Like Sam, I too found "David After Dentist" more charming than creepy when I first saw it: David immediately got filed in the mental category "Awesome Little Kids I'd Like to Hang Out With," alongside Amelie Jr., the Korean "Hey Jude" baby, and Gio Escalante. I worry less that this video is cruel in the here and now and more about what David will think about it when he's a teenager or when he's applying for jobs. Will David be embarrassed? Proud? Will he be like a former child star, who can't walk down the street without someone leaning out of a car window to yell, "DUUUDE, IS THIS GOING TO BE FOREVER?"

What's really scary, though, is the speed at which this video has been remixed and re-posted—there's already a Dr. Katz-style animated version and a Christian Bale mashup. Maybe I'm being primitive about it (they're stealing David's soul when they copy his picture!), but that sort of gives me the heebie-jeebies. Something like "David" is different from, say, a clip of your kid on TV's America's Funniest Home Videos. Web stuff can move around the world so easily, getting copied and reproduced—not to mention archived indefinitely—that it's unnerving. I can make myself forget about this when I'm sharing information about myself. (I'm working on my "25 Random Things About Me" list, so I've been thinking a lot about the nature of my personal privacy threshhold.) But is it ethical when it's your kid? Now that my friends are trickling into their child-bearing years, I see infants all over Facebook. I'm not sure if this is due to the simple fact that since we live a lot of our lives online, it's natural that our kids are coming along, or whether it has something to say about the extent to which we view those kids as extensions of (accessories to?) ourselves. I'm sure that, when I reproduce, I will be putting lots of totally hilarious clips and pictures online. The question is: Will I be mother enough to hesitate before I hit "post"?

Bring on the Kidsploitation!

Oh, Hanna, I beg to differ! I found young David's trip through the post-dental bends to be an awesome example of the Internet-enabled, 21^st-century, DIY version of "Kids Say the Darndest Things." The video isn't, in my opinion, amusing because it's "Ho-ho! Look at the kid acting high!" It's because what David, with the aid of some drugs, is saying to his father's camera is so profound, so eternal, so deeeep. "Is this real life?" "Why is this happening to me?" "Is this gonna be forever?" These are the very questions I ask myself, day in and day out, toiling at my computer, wondering what I'm doing, wanting to know what does it all mean. Hanna, perhaps you might try the animated version? I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the "Is This Real Life?" T-shirts appear in online stores.

If The Dental Surgery Doesn't Hurt You, The YouTube Post Won't, Either

I think the "David After the Dentist" video passes the "appropriate to post" test. This isn't likely to haunt him forever; given how fast kids grow, it won't be long before even his biggest fans wouldn't recognize him on the street. (And since the clip is from last summer, he probably already has enough new front teeth to disguise him.) He's old enough that his dad probably asked and got his permission before posting, and young enough that it's not likely his peers are out there on CollegeHumor.com discovering this clip and laughing behind his back. And the material is harmless enough that I think when David revisits it in a few years, he'll crack up as much as the 3-million-plus who've already watched it on YouTube.

I can see your point, Hanna, that the dad comes off as kind of cruel, the way he's sitting up there laughing and filming while his child suffers. But I feel like it's how the kid—not the blogosphere—interprets what the parent is doing that matters, and David doesn't seem to mind his dad's low-key attitude. In fact, it might be putting him at ease. Of course, this is coming from someone who thinks it's hilarious that my parents used to coo to my sister and me, when we were too young to understand anything beyond tone of voice, "You're such a stupid baby! Awww, look how ugly you are!" Sure if someone were watching (online or otherwise), that would seem awful. But since all we took from it was the affectionate cadence, I think it's genius.

Who Do You Hate More, the Dentist or Your Dad?

It's taken me a while, and a schooling from a couple of Slate men, to figure out what's wrong with David's dad. As anyone online this afternoon knows, his dad posted a video of him freaking out after getting anesthesia at the dentist. My husband and I have just started posting a couple of kid videos on YouTube, and it never occurred to me that anyone other than my mom would look at them. But every once in a while, the blogosphere picks one up, and then suddenly you and octuplet mom are in the same boat. Probably, in that car, what Dad and David were doing made some kind of sense. But from the outside, here's what it looks like: David is sitting in the back of the car, suffering. He is seriously discombobulated. He thinks his entire life from that point on will be a bad acid trip. And Dad is grooving on it, joking, recording the lolling of the head, the screaming, with his handy camera, looking forward to the moment he can post it as a cool video online. Ladies, anyone else want to join me in judgment?