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January 29, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Those of you who read this blog regularly will recognize a few running themes that crop up consistently, and one of them is that parents need to exercise extreme caution with what sort of entertainment they allow their children to consume. These days, our culture’s storytellers have a distinct agenda, and that agenda often permeates the stories that they tell. The same parents who send their children to a Christian school to avoid state indoctrination are frequently happy to park their kids in front of screens where content produced by people who hate Christianity is streamed.

Yet another example is the 17-year-old YouTube megastar Jojo Siwa, who, the Christian outlet Disrn noted, is “known for her bubbly, uplifting, and clean songs and dances” and has just “announced that she now identifies as LGBT.” Although most adults have never heard of Siwa, she has a massive following among adolescents and children. She has 12.1 million YouTube subscribers and 10.4 million Instagram followers. Her fashion accessory company is aimed at 6- to 12-year-old girls, and children are obsessed with her products due to clever marketing and her peppy online personality.

Interestingly, Siwa doesn’t actually identify as gay. She has no idea what she is, she’s just certain she’s not straight. “I just always believed that my person was going to be my person,” Siwa informed her tween fans. “And if that person happened to be a boy, great, and if that happened to be a girl, great! Of course people are going to say it’s not normal, but nothing is normal. Literally not one thing about anybody is normal and it’s OK not to be normal, it’s OK to be a little different, it’s OK to be a little weird, strange, different. That’s something we should never, ever be afraid of. That’s something we should be proud of.” In short: “(N)o matter who you love … it’s OK.”

YouTube personalities like Siwa are called “influencers” for a reason — it’s because they have influence in spades, and their audiences listen to them. Siwa, obviously, didn’t start this parade — she’s just getting on the bandwagon. In fact, she’s part of a trend where teen girls actually worry that they’re “dumb and boring” if they’re straight, especially now that there’s so many other options to choose from and the culture encourages rather than discourages experimentation in identity. As a friend observed, “LGBT is now a joke with no meaning other than ‘clout.’ When people are joining a community because of the perks, it’s not persecuted anymore.”

Many parents probably have no idea who this person is — even though their children watch her videos and follow her on social media (I certainly didn’t.) Others let their children follow the YouTube star because they thought she was family-friendly in comparison to the other options out there. But we are going to have to start being much, much more discerning than that. Not so very long ago, parents could assume the culture wouldn’t teach them messages explicitly opposed to Christian values. That time is past, and we must react accordingly. 

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.