“YouTube is not a site for people under 13,” YouTube spokesman Farshad Shadloo told the Washington Post.^[1] Perhaps not, but kids programming is the most popular category on the platform. In fact, four of the top five US channels feature kid content.^[2]

Top 10 Crazy YouTube Channels Where People Risk Their Lives

In a USA Today article, YouTube was quoted as saying, “If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use the service. There are lots of other great websites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.”^[3]

Really? How many children are going to inform their parents that what they’re watching on YouTube is too mature for them? Zero. Kids turn to YouTube for information the way their parents utilize Google. A Protect Young Eyes survey of high school students found that when given the option to choose their No. 1 online activity, teens choose YouTube over social media and gaming at a 3-to-1 ratio. Among tweens and teens, YouTube–not Instagram, Snapchat, or Tik Tok–is the most-utilized online platform.^[4]

Online video usage has more than doubled in four years. The percentage of adolescents who watch online videos “every day” has gone from 24 percent to 56 percent among 8- to 12-year-olds and from 34 percent to 69 percent among 13- to 18-year-olds. And the amount of time each age group spends watching those videos has gone from 30 minutes a day to about one hour a day on average. (Most parents can acknowledge that one hour is on the low side.)^[5]

10 Disturbing Channels From The Weird Part Of YouTube

As of January 2020, a whopping 82,248 videos are viewed every second (this stat is updated daily). And 400 hours of submitted video are received every minute. YouTube can’t filter everything because there’s simply too much, and there aren’t any actual humans monitoring what is coming in. A USA Today review, for example, found plenty of sexualized or violent cartoons that weren’t restricted to adults. Until YouTube or Google is notified about such content, it will remain on the site.

Jill Murphy, vice president and editor-in-chief of Common Sense Media, says there is no easy fix. One of YouTube’s biggest problems is its inability to control a child’s search results.^[6] “Searching YouTube is essentially like searching Google,” explains Murphy. The results are not only looking to offer you accurate information on what you’re looking for, but also suggest some unrelated, but often tempting, things to watch. With so much content and so many options, it can be hard for any age to stay focused.”

So what are impressionable children watching on YouTube? Plenty! Here are just 10 unsettling examples of inappropriate content.

10 A Frighteningly Thin Beauty Vlogger

Eugenia Cooney has been uploading beauty and style tutorials since June 2011. But while the 25-year-old initially garnered subscribers with makeup and fashion reviews, it was something very different that later brought curious viewers to her platforms: at 5’7” tall, she weighs a mere 86 lbs.^[7]

In 2015, commenters on Cooney’s videos began commenting about her dwindling frame and suspected eating disorder. The comments about her appearance took on a life of their own, and by the end of 2015, Cooney’s video’s were receiving more dislikes than likes.

Concerned viewers petitioned YouTube to ban Cooney’s content, alleging that she was promoting eating disorders and negatively influencing impressionable young followers. One Change.org petition (and there were several) received more than 20,000 signatures.

“Some people are saying I’m, like, a bad influence on girls,” Cooney said in a video response to the controversy.^[8] “I just want you guys to know, like, I have seriously never tried to be a bad influence on YouTube or to influence anyone badly. I would never want to do that. I have never told anyone to try to, like, lose weight or to try to, like, change the way they look or to look like me.”

Supporters claim that if Cooney was anorexic or bulimic, she would show other signs, like decaying teeth or unhealthy hair and nails. They propose that she just has “crazy high metabolism.”^[9] Others aspire to be “Eugenia Cooney skinny.”

In 2018, Cooney was suspended from Twitch for a nip-slip violation.^[10] In February 2019, she took a five-month hiatus from social media. Skinny as ever, she was back in action by July 2019 and continues to deliver new videos to 2.4 million subscribers.

9 A Disgusting Waste of Food

On the other end of the spectrum are the mukbangers (we covered the worst of them here). These YouTubers buy copious amounts of food to eat on camera. While some might ingest an entire fast-food menu in one sitting, many leave much of the food to go to waste.

Nikocado Avocado, with 1.83 million subscribers, is perhaps the worst offender. Each episode features the former vegan having a mental breakdown while sitting behind mountains of unhealthy processed foods. He nastily inhales an obnoxious portion of the food while crying and whining, then he goes off the rails and destroys an even more-obnoxious portion–crushing it with a broom or pouring something inedible onto it.^[11]

It’s a disgusting waste of perfectly good food. In 2018, an estimated 820 million people did not have enough to eat, according to the World Health Organization (up from 811 million in 2017). Efforts to reduce the number of babies born with low birth rate and the number of children who are stunted are moving too slowly to stop the rise.

Despite these challenges, obesity continues to increase in all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults. Young YouTube viewers learn little of world hunger and too much about excess and waste.^[12]

8 The Body of a Suicide Victim

YouTuber and internet star Logan Paul has 21.1 million subscribers.^[13] As of January 2020, his channel has received 4.8 billion views, placing him among the top 140 subscribed channels on YouTube.^[14]

Paul, 25, has become quite the controversial character. He participated in the Tide Pod challenge, tasered dead rats, and attempted CPR on a fish he removed from a pond. But it was the dead body video that caused the biggest pushback.

Paul’s YouTube channel had more than 15 million subscribers (mostly minors) when the “suicide forest” scandal hit. In 2017, Paul and team visited Aokigahara forest at the base of Mount Fuji–a site that has recorded hundreds of suicides and suicide attempts–and filmed their encounter with an apparent suicide victim: they shot footage of a man’s body hanging from a tree. “Did we just find a dead person in the suicide forest? This was supposed to be a fun vlog,” Paul, in a ridiculous green hat, said to the camera.

The video was uploaded to YouTube.^[15] Paul “censored” his video, titled “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest…,” by issuing a warning at the beginning, blurring the victim’s face during closeups, and providing suicide hotline information. He also chose to demonetize the video. But none of these efforts made up for the fact that he videotaped a corpse and shared it with his young followers.

More than 6.5 million people viewed the footage over the next 24 hours. Surprisingly, it was Paul, not YouTube, who eventually took down the video. “I should have never posted the video, I should have put the cameras down,” he said in a video apology. “I’ve made a huge mistake; I don’t expect to be forgiven.”^[16]

The apology video garnered 52.8 million views and made the YouTuber even wealthier. He earned $14.5 million between June 2017 and June 2018, up 16 percent from the previous year, and a spot on Forbes’ annual Highest-Paid YouTube Stars list.^[17] And it was kind of awful when Paul posted his “comeback” video, pushing merch and bragging about gaining three million subscribers while on his three-week break in which he said he was “lit as fuck.”^[18]

So were there no consequences for Paul’s airing of a dead body? Experts say YouTube is as much to blame as Paul is. “YouTube encourages stars like Paul to garner views by any means necessary,” Wired magazine wrote in January 2018, “while largely deciding how and when to censor their videos behind closed doors.” Shortly after this article, YouTube announced it had removed Paul from Google Preferred, its top-tier advertising program that allows creators to have access to revenue from premium advertisers.^[19]

Interesting Note: Just hours after Paul’s suicide forest video aired, his younger brother Jake–equally wealthy and controversial–uploaded “I Lost My Virginity” for his younger audience.

7 Solicitation of Child Pornography

The most popular YouTube channels involve gaming, beauty and, of course, music. Millions of young people flock to channels like Ariana Grande’s or Justin Bieber’s.

Musician Austin Jones was a YouTuber from 2007 to 2017. The singer/guitarist was 14 years old when he started his YouTube channel. Ten years later, he had accumulated more than 500,000 subscribers and 20 million video views. But he won’t be remembered for his music.

In May 2015, Jones came under fire for contacting underaged female fans online. He solicited videos of the young girls twerking. He admitted to doing so and apologized for his actions but he denied that nudity was involved.

In June 2017, Jones was arrested on two counts of producing child pornography. He had persuaded and instructed an underage female fan to make sexually explicit videos of herself. In February 2019, Jones pleaded guilty to coaxing multiple female minors to send sexual videos of themselves to him. YouTube immediately terminated his channel.

Jones (26 years old but still looking like a teenage boy) was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

6 Racism and Anti-Semitism

Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, is a Swedish YouTuber. He registered with YouTube in 2010, and by 2013 had the most-subscribed channel on the site–a record he held through 2019. His 104 million subscribers have viewed his video games, vlogs, comedy shorts, and music videos more than 25 billion times. (He was the first individual creator to reach the 100 million subscribers milestone.)^[20] In 2016, Time named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.^[21]

PewDiePie makes a lot of money on YouTube, and YouTube makes a lot of money from him. But their relationship has had its ups and downs. In 2017, YouTube canceled the creator’s YouTube Red show after racist remarks and behaviors.

In one episode, PewDiePie discussed how the website Fiverr lets users hire freelancers to perform tasks for $5. He claimed that his intent was to point out how the internet could be used to get people to do anything for a small amount of money. But when he paid men to hold a sign with an anti-Semitic phrase as a gag, YouTube removed him from Google Preferred advertising and Disney cut ties with him. The sign read, “Death to all Jews.”^[22]

Later, the YouTuber added some racism to his anti-semitism. During a live-stream broadcast of himself playing a popular video game, PewDiePie expressed frustration in a way that most people wouldn’t. “What a fucking nigger! Jeez! Oh my god! What the fuck? Sorry, but what the fuck?” He quickly realized what he’d said and added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way,” before laughing it off. Apart from removal of some games from his channel, the blunder didn’t cost the YouTuber more than some bad press. The 30-year-old has an estimated net worth of $30 million.^[23]

PewDiePie “took a break” in January 2020, but it wasn’t long before he was back online and adding to his fortune.^[24]

10 Pieces Of Celebrity Gold Hiding On YouTube

5 Animal Abuse for Entertainment

Animal videos have always been huge on YouTube. Lately, however, “pet fail” videos are going viral, and that’s not a good thing. What is intended to be funny can actually be cruel. A surprising number of pet fail videos show animals in distress. Impressionable young people are replicating the pranks (on YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram), and the long-term impact they have on pets may be harmful.^[25]

Under its “violent or graphic content” policy, YouTube explicitly bans animal content “where there is infliction of unnecessary suffering or harm deliberately causing an animal distress.” The viral pet fails appear to be excluded from this definition.

Pet fails, which can rake in millions of views, seem harmless enough–cats being frightened by cucumbers, dogs getting stuck in random objects–but they may have a negative impact on the animals. A video of a cat reacting to tape on its paws garnered more than 375,000 views. Viewer comments express amusement. But the cats, desperate to find balance, look positively traumatized.^[26]

Apart from the immediate physical harm the animals may experience (from a fall, for example) is the potential long-term psychological or physiological harm. In a 2010 study, Nancy Dreschel, Associate Teaching Professor of Small Animal Science at Penn State, found that fear, and anxiety-related behaviors in pet dogs were likely to cause physiological stress response, which could ultimately contribute to increased disease frequency and severity and a shorter life span for the animal.^[27][28]

Pets are amazing. And they can provide an endless supply of cuteness and laughs without being put in harm’s way.

4 Cruelty Toward the Homeless

Spanish YouTuber Kangua Ren, aka ReSet, defines “harmless prank” differently than most people would. Ren was popular for accepting “challenges” from his 1.2 milion YouTube followers. “I do things to give a show,” reported Spanish news outlet El Pais. “People like morbid things.”^[29]

In early 2017, Ren put yet another one of those challenges into motion when he replaced the cream in Oreo cookies with toothpaste and gave them to a homeless man. Ren filmed and then posted a video of the man eating the tainted cookies, becoming sick, and vomiting. After uploading the video, Ren remarked online that he had given the man a 20 euro bill with the cookies. “Look at the positive side: this will help you clean your teeth,” he wrote. “I think you have not cleaned them since you became poor.”

In May 2019, Ren was ordered to shut down his YouTube channel for five years and pay £20,000 to his victim (identified as Gheorge L., a man of Romanian origin). He was convicted of violating the moral integrity” of the Gheorge L. and sentenced to 15 months in prison. As a first-time non-violent offender, his sentence will likely be suspended.^[30]

3 Underage Gambling

Trevor Martin and Tom Cassel, known on YouTube as TmarTn and Syndicate, are popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) gamers.^[31][32]
In CSGO, players can exchange real money for the chance to obtain a modified weapon. The weapon, in turn, can become valuable virtual currency. Professionals gamers repurchase them for thousands of dollars. On their YouTube channel, Martin and Cassel regularly uploaded videos of themselves placing bets on CSGO Lotto and winning big cash prizes.

But there was more to it than online fun and games. Martin and Cassel are co-owners of CSGO Lotto, and the gambling site was welcoming participants as young as 13 years old. Young people were quick to click videos like the now-deleted “How to Win $13,000 in 5 Minutes!”

“I apologize to anyone who feels misled regarding the ownership of CSGO Lotto,” said Cassel, the company’s vice president. “I will always be more transparent from here on out.”

But Martin, president of the company, did not apologize. “I created the site. I wanted to build something awesome for other people to enjoy, and I played on it,” he said in a 2016 YouTube video. “Obviously, on my end, me playing on Lotto rather than other sites gives me an advantage because it promotes my own site, but it is not immoral, there is nothing wrong with it. I am 100 percent honest.”

The videos Cassel and Martin posted were described as “sponsored” by CSGO Lotto. They invited followers to put money into a website that they were themselves behind–a dishonest move in the YouTube community.

2 Second-Degree Manslaughter

In June 2017, a pregnant Monalisa Perez, 21, fatally shot boyfriend Pedro Ruiz III, 22, in a botched stunt that was caught on tape. The aspiring YouTubers, in an effort to attract more subscribers to their channel, promised viewers that they would deliver a new “crazier” stunt every week.

The stunt that killed the 22-year-old? Ruiz held a 1.5-inch book in front of his chest while Perez shot him from point blank range with a .50-caliber Desert Eagle handgun. The shooting took place in front of 30 witnesses, including the couple’s 3-year-old daughter.

In “practice” sessions leading up to the shooting, the couple tested various books in an abandoned building. Thirty minutes before they filmed the stunt, Perez–a self-described “family vlogger”–tweeted, “Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE.”^[33]

A transcript of the video reveals Ruiz speaking to the camera. “The most trustworthy person that I trust in this world is my girlfriend, Monalisa. So if I am going to die, I am pretty much ready to go to heaven right now.”

The pair set up two cameras. Perez stood close to her boyfriend and pointed the gun about a foot away from the book. She became emotional and pleaded with Ruiz to not go through with the stunt. “Hey, this is the moment of truth, babe,” he told her. “I trust. It’s in, okay, I love you.”

Before pulling the trigger, a crying Perez said, “I can’t do this, babe. I am so scared. My heart is beating…” She added, “Babe, if I kill you, what’s going to happen to my life? Like, no, this isn’t okay…I don’t want to be responsible.” Ruiz assured her he would be fine as long as she hit the book. The transcript ended with Perez pleading, “Stop. Babe, stop. Babe.”

In her interview Perez told investigators: “I didn’t mean to hurt him, he was my everything. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this”.She told authorities that Ruiz was an adrenaline junkie who was intent on pursuing more and more dangerous stunts. She claims he told her that if he died, it would be doing something that made him happy. The county attorney said that while the stunt was “dreamed up, planned, and executed” by Ruiz, Perez had “wrongfully and tragically relied on his assurances that the stunt was safe.

Perez was jailed for six months (plus 10 years of supervised probatiuon) after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors said she was guilty of “culpable negligence that led to the tragic and completely avoidable death.”^[34]

1 Adult Content Directed at Children

Parents can take the initiative to monitor their children’s viewing habits and install parental controls, but kids are pretty good at getting around such efforts. It would be nice to rely on YouTube to protect kids from adult content. That was the intent of YouTube Kids, which was created in 2015 with content specifically geared toward children ages 7 and up.^[35]

The channel/app enables parents to set time limits and block the search function. YouTube Kids adjusts content based on the age and individuality of each child’s profile. But the app has experienced problems since day one.

After parents complained about kid content containing cursing, drug use, sexual language, and dangerous behaviors, YouTube went to work to correct the problem. It took three years, but in 2018, YouTube issued the following statement:

“Content that misleads or endangers children is unacceptable to us. We have clear policies against these videos and we enforce them aggressively. We use a combination of machine learning, algorithms and community flagging to determine content in the YouTube Kids app. The YouTube team is made up of parents who care deeply about this, and are committed to making the app better every day.”^[36]

Nevertheless, the problems persist. A Netsanity article listed just a few of the more recent findings on YouTube Kids. Videos containing misogyny, suicide, stabbings, and school shootings:^[37]

When parents reported a nine-second clip within a cartoon that showed a man teaching kids how to slit their wrists (“Remember kids: sideways for attention, longways for results. End it!”), it took more than a week for YouTube/YouTube Kids to delete the video. The problem is that everything on YouTube Kids comes from YouTube itself.

Honestly, any kid over the age of 7 isn’t interested in YouTube Kids content anyway–they prefer the more adult stuff on the main site. YouTube offers restricted modes of viewing to block adult or objectionable content, but most tweens are smart enough to get around them without their parents’ knowledge. Which is why Protect Young Eyes recommends that “kids younger than high school only have access to YouTube through a browser that has third-party-filter controls installed.”^[38][39]

The bottom line is this: YouTube is a social lifeline for kids.^[40] “All of their friends are talking about it. Kids have devices at school. They’re going to watch it at school…so eliminating it without taking the time to talk about why something bothers you or hearing from your kid about why it’s appealing to them is not necessarily a path Common Sense [Media] would recommend,” Murphy says. “Teach your kids to live with it, rather than shutting it off.”

10 Terrifying YouTube Videos That Will Keep You Awake At Night

Most horror fans have by now probably binge-watched their favourite horror movies a couple of times or are, at the very least, planning a horror movie marathon if lockdown doesn’t end soon. Scary movies featuring creepy kids are often more popular than slasher films or other types of horrors. For instance, Regan from The Exorcist will probably always come to mind first for her head-turning performance, as well as those weird kids from Children of the Corn. And who could forget diabolical Damian from The Omen or the ghost twins from The Shining. Some still feel a chill when they think about the jump-rope girls in Nightmare on Elm Street slowing singing ‘One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…’

On this list are 10 more child characters with the potential to make you have nightmares. Oh – this list has spoilers.

10 Horrific Inspirations For Terrifying Horror Movies

10 Mercy and Jonas

In The Witch, viewers are introduced to possibly the evillest twins after the Grady sisters in The Shining terrified audiences in 1980. While Mercy and Jonas, fraternal twins, may look like normal, everyday children at first glance, it soon becomes apparent that there is something very wrong with them. They accuse their older sister, Thomasin, of being a witch and taunt her every chance they get. They also delight in claiming to have forgotten their prayers, angering their deeply religious parents. At one point they writhe around on the ground during prayers, as if possessed. Moreover, they have creepy conversations with the family’s goat, Black Phillip. It also becomes clear that their playmate is truly evil as Black Phillip is, in fact, Satan himself. In disguise. The twins’ cute faces belie their intentions at first, which makes the unfolding of their true nature even more unsettling to watch.^[1]

9 Doris Zander

Doris Zander is a bit of an odd duck right off the bat. This is obvious even before she becomes possessed, her eyes turning white, creeping the living daylights out of another character in Ouija: Origin of Evil by exclaiming: “Do you know what it feels like to be strangled to death? First, you feel the pressure in your throat. Your eyes water, and you start to taste something very, very sour in your mouth. Then it’s like someone lights a match right in the middle of your chest, and that fire grows. It fills your lungs, and your throat, and all the way behind your eyes. And finally, that fire turns to ice; like pins and needles of ice are sticking into your fingers, your toes, your arms. You see stars, then darkness. And the last thing you feel… is cold.”

Doris goes on to draw stitches on the mouth of one of her dolls, claiming her deceased father did it “to stop the voices.” She also causes the death of two characters and just when you think they are finally rid of her demons at the end after her own mouth is sewn shut, she runs upside down on the ceiling in a mental hospital, giving viewers a jump-scare they are not wont to forget in a hurry.^[2]

8 Rhoda Penmark

In the 1956 movie, The Bad Seed, an innocent looking girl named Rhoda turns out to be pure evil too. Released four years before the critically acclaimed movie, Psycho, the film explores the psychopathic side that resides in a young girl who treats humans like they are absolutely nothing and regard their emotions as something alien.

Eight-year old Rhoda murders three people by means of drowning, arson and with the help of a staircase. While these killings happen off screen, the black and white film still manages to instil an uneasy feeling in viewers as they come to the realization that Rhoda is psychotic despite her big-eyed innocent look. After beating one of her fellow students and leaving him to drown, Rhoda arrives home from school early and asks for a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before going out roller-skating as if nothing happened. While their handyman burns to death in the cellar after she started a fire and locked him in, Rhoda plays ‘Au clair de la lune’ on the piano over and over while he screams in pain and is engulfed in flames.^[3]

7 Samara Morgan

A list like this wouldn’t be complete without everyone’s favorite creepy kid, Samara Morgan. While she wouldn’t scare most people in 2020, when Samara crawled through TV screens in 2002, she pretty much freaked out everyone who laid eyes on her.

Sure, she has a good reason for being evil considering she was thrown into a well and left for death. But as expected, this elicits little sympathy considering that she is now a vengeful spirit with long, wet black hair hanging over her deformed face. Even before she became this unnerving, haunting spirit, she was able to burn awful images into the minds of her adoptive parents. She could also burn these images onto transparent film. She caused horses to commit mass suicide and is eventually thrown into the well after being suffocated by her adoptive mother.

Samara wasn’t done with the world after dying. She created a videotape which she cursed so that anyone who watched it would die 7 days later.^[4]

6 Stephanie

Stephanie is another sweet little girl with evil on the inside. Not only is she abandoned at home by her parents during an apocalyptic event (because they realized all is not well with their daughter), she also keeps the corpse of her brother in his room after she kills him.

Her parents eventually come back and bury their son’s body. The corpse returns to the house via the attic window, but Stephanie seems unaffected by this. Soon it becomes apparent that there is no apocalyptic monster on the loose. Instead, the young girl herself is the monster. And she’s not alone. After torturing and killing her parents and leaving them at her brother’s grave, she uses her telekinetic power to destroy the neighborhood in tandem with other telekinetic children around the world.^[5]

10 Creepy And Improbable Horror Movie Plots That Actually Happened

5 Brandon Breyer

What would happen if Superman used his powers for evil instead of good? While the movie Brightburn never explicitly states that its main character is Superman in an evil form, Brandon Breyer’s backstory closely resembles that of Kal-El. He crash-landed, presumably from another planet, and landed up in Brightburn where a married couple found and raised him.

Yet this is where the similarities to Clark Kent end. Brandon crushes a girl’s hand after she calls him a pervert in front of his peers. He uses his powers to kill the girl’s mother by piercing her eye with a shard of glass and then attacking her. He picks up a truck, with his uncle inside, and drops it forcefully to the ground, leaving the man with his jaw torn loose and bleeding to death. Brandon also kills his adoptive parents and causes a passenger plane to crash killing all 268 people on board. Oh, and he also dons a very creepy laced mask throughout the film.^[6]

4 Luke Lerner

Babysitting will never be the same again. After being scared out of her mind by what looked like a home invasion while babysitting, 17-year-old Ashley realizes the 12-year-old she’s looking after is the one that orchestrated the entire ‘attack’. Luke Lerner has a crush on Ashley and attempts to seduce her. When he is rebuffed, he becomes incredibly angry especially after Ashley calls him ‘mental’ for planning the home invasion prank.

Luke goes on to hit Ashley with a gun and with the help of his friend Garrett they also knock out and tie up Ashley’s boyfriend when he arrives at the house. Luke eventually kills his own friend and stabs Ashley. When she does not die, Luke tells his mom that he is worried about his babysitter and asks to go the hospital. This last scene happens during the credits, leaving the viewers to draw their own conclusions.^[7]

3 Michael Myers

Michael Myers is arguably one of the most unnervingly creepy characters ever created. He never speaks. He only terrifies his victims with his white mask and heaving panting while he stabs or chokes them.

Perhaps the scariest thing about Myers is that he finds you where you feel safest. That, and the fact that he started killing at the age of six when he murdered his own sister in cold blood while wearing a clown mask, makes for a very disturbing character. Sam Loomis, Michael’s psychiatrist, says of 6-year-old Michael that he had the devil’s eyes and an emotionless face. He also says that he spent seven years trying to keep Michael locked up because living behind the boy’s eyes was pure evil.

He was not wrong. After spending 15 years in an asylum after murdering his sister, Michael Myers escaped and spent another 23 years hunting down the rest of his family, killing several others that got in the way.^[8]

2 Eli

12-year-old Eli befriends the bullied 12-year-old Oskar in Let The Right One In and shares her secret with him; she is a vampire and has been twelve for a long time. Eli feeds on her neighbors and lives with a much older man.

In the film, she scales a hospital wall in search of a patient’s blood, and she cannot stand sunlight or eat food. Being a vampire, she must be invited in to be able to cross a threshold. When Oskar does not invite her in, she bleeds from her eyes, nose, and mouth in a very disconcerting scene. She eventually slaughters Oskar’s bullies, severing one’s head and arm. Throughout the film, Eli continually needs to feed on blood resulting in many casualties. Toted as a romance horror film, there is a lot more horror than love.^[9]

1Charlie

Everything 13-year-old Charlie does in the movie, Hereditary, is creepy. From the clicking thing with her tongue to the way she gasps for air when she ingests peanuts (which she is allergic to). She also snips the head off a bird with a pair of scissors. She keeps the head in a box alongside other animal heads. When she finally loses her own head, literally, she continues being creepy in the afterlife with her brother hearing the clicking sound when he least expects it.

Towards the end of the film it is finally revealed that Charlie wasn’t being the strangest and creepiest kid in the world on purpose. She was temporarily possessed by the demon Paimon, and her own soul was freed when she was decapitated while being driven to the hospital by her brother.^[10]

Top 10 Classic Horror Movie Misconceptions

Both the Union and the Confederacy enlisted child soldiers during the bloody US Civil War that lasted from April 12, 1861, to May 9, 1865. Many of the children served with distinction and returned home. Others were not so lucky and paid with their lives.

10 Edwin Francis Jemison

The portrait of Confederate Private Edwin Francis Jemison is one of the most famous photographs of the Civil War. He was born on December 4, 1844, and enlisted in the Confederate 2nd Louisiana Infantry in May 1861 when he was 16. The photograph for which he is remembered was taken soon after his enlistment.

Edwin’s first encounter with the Union Army was in April 1862 when his unit faced enemy troops in the Battle of Dam No. 1 in Virginia. His second encounter was in the July 1, 1862, Battle of Malvern Hill, which remained the deadliest battle of the Civil War until it was superseded by the Battle of Antietam.

The Confederates lost about 5,500 soldiers during the battle while the Union lost half of that number. Jemison became part of the Confederate casualty list when he was hit by a cannonball while charging toward Union lines.^[1] He was five months to clocking 18.

9 John Lincoln Clem

John Lincoln Clem was born John Joseph Klem, but he swapped “Joseph” for “Lincoln” in reverence for President Abraham Lincoln. In 1861, at age 10, John fled from home to join the Union 3rd Ohio as a drummer.

The 3rd Ohio turned him down for being underage, and he left to join the 22nd Michigan, which turned him down for the same reason. Undeterred, he tagged along with the 22nd Michigan, which later adopted him as a mascot and drummer, although he was only allowed to enlist in 1862.^[2]

John Clem swapped his drum for a musket during the September 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, where three bullets pierced holes in his hat. He strayed from his unit during the battle and was spotted running back to his lines by a Confederate colonel who chased after him and demanded his surrender.

Rather than surrendering, he shot and killed the colonel, who had referred to Clem as a “Yankee Devil.” The incident earned him a promotion and the nickname “The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.” He was discharged from the army in 1864. But he rejoined as a second lieutenant in 1871 and retired as a brigadier general in 1915.

8 Elisha Stockwell

Elisha Stockwell first enlisted in the Union Army during a recruitment drive in Jackson County, Wisconsin, when he was 15. His father disapproved of his enlistment, which caused the recruiters to remove Elisha’s name.

Undeterred, he fled with a Union soldier who was a friend of his father and had come home on leave. Before taking off, Elisha visited his sister and told her he was going downtown. She told him to return early for dinner.

Elisha did, two years later.

During his second enlistment, he told the recruiter that he could not remember his age although he thought he was 18. The recruiter knew Elisha was younger than 18. Still, the man listed Elisha’s age as 18 and his height as 165 centimeters (5’5″)—a height he only reached two years later.

Elisha saw a dead man for the first time in the 1862 Battle of Shiloh when he stumbled on a dead, disemboweled soldier with his back to a tree. According to Elisha, the encounter made him “deadly sick.”

He also saw his first action in that battle when he joined a downhill charge toward Confederate lines. When the charge was called off, half the men in his unit were either dead or wounded.

For the first time, Elisha realized that his decision to run away from home was foolish because warfare was no joke. He returned home after the war to learn that only three (including him) of the 32 men and boys from his hometown who had left for the war had lived.^[3]

7 William Johnston

William Johnston is the youngest recipient of the Medal of Honor. He was born in July 1850 and enlisted in the Union 3rd Vermont Infantry as a drummer in May 1862.

He participated in the “Seven Days” battle that lasted from June 25 to July 1, 1862, in which his unit was forced to retreat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s forces. Confederate troops followed and fired at William’s unit as it retreated, forcing many soldiers to dump their weapons and drums.

Only William had his drum when the entire division, which included the 3rd Vermont Infantry, was mustered for an Independence Day parade on July 4. So he played for the entire division.

President Abraham Lincoln was so impressed with William’s resolve to hold onto his drum when the older soldiers dumped their weapons and drums that Lincoln awarded William the Medal of Honor. At age 13, William is the youngest recipient to date.^[4]

6 John Cook

John Cook enlisted in the Union 4th United States Artillery as a bugler when he was 15. He participated in the deadly Battle of Antietam where his battery was attacked by Confederate infantry.

His battery suffered about 17 wounded or dead during the first wave of the assault. The wounded included the commander, Captain Campbell, whose horse was killed. Injured survivors were targeted by enemy fire as they attempted to retreat to the rear, but John managed to drag the captain back there before returning to commandeer a cannon.

He was joined by the division’s commander, Brigadier General Gibbon, who loaded and fired the cannon like a regular soldier. Meanwhile, the Confederates made three unsuccessful attempts to capture the cannons.

The third attempt was the most dramatic as they got within 3–5 meters (10–15 ft) of the cannons. At the end of the fight, the battery had 44 men and 40 horses dead or wounded.^[5] John Cook was awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts, making him the youngest artillery soldier to ever earn such a distinction.

5 Robert Henry Hendershot

Robert Henry Hendershot was 10 when he joined the Union’s 9th Michigan Infantry as a volunteer drummer in 1861. He took the drumming craft with unusual seriousness for an ill-mannered rascal who regularly fought with his mother and skipped school to pelt train passengers with fruits.

However, he was only allowed to enlist in the unit in March 1862. It was from this moment that his accounts of the war became divided between truths, exaggerated truths, and outright lies.

He reportedly killed a Confederate colonel during a siege in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he was captured and freed during a prisoner exchange. He reenlisted in the 8th Michigan as Robert Henry Henderson on August 19, 1862, but found his way into the 7th Michigan instead. There, he claimed to have taken the surrender of a Confederate soldier in the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Trouble started in August 1891 when veterans of the 7th Michigan denied that Robert was ever in Fredericksburg. They stripped him of the title “The Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock” and claimed that the real drummer boy was either John T. Spillaine or Thomas Robinson.^[6]

Meanwhile, the 8th Michigan claimed that it was Charles Gardner. Robert only got his title back after several notable people, including President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant, intervened.

4 Charles Edwin King

Charles Edwin King holds the record of being the youngest fatality of the Civil War. He was born on April 4, 1849, and enlisted as a drummer in the Union’s 49th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers on September 12, 1861. He was 12 years old. His father opposed his enlistment but gave in on the assurance of Captain Benjamin Sweeney, who promised to keep Charlie away from the front lines.

Charlie first saw action in the Battle of Williamsburg, where the Union Army was routed from the Virginia Peninsula by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s troops. Charlie saw combat again in the September 17, 1862, Battle of Antietam, which remains the deadliest battle of the Civil War.^[7]

Estimates vary, but the casualty rate is believed to be at least 22,720 troops: 12,400 from the Confederate side and 10,320 from the Union. This doesn’t include civilians who died of disease after the battle and the 6,300 soldiers who died in a prelude to the battle three days earlier.

The battle would also be Charlie’s last as he was seriously wounded when shrapnel from a Confederate shell exploded close to him at the rear lines. The shrapnel passed through his body, causing extensive injuries that turned fatal three days later. He died on September 20, 1862, at age 13.

3 Frederick Grant

At age 12, Frederick Grant, the son of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, followed his father to war. Frederick camped in his father’s tent and was allocated his own horse and uniform. General Grant barred the boy from visiting the front lines, but he still did, at least until a Confederate soldier shot him in the leg.

Frederick’s low point of the war was the Battle of Port Gibson, where the Union suffered 131 dead and 719 wounded. Frederick visited the battlefield after the fighting and helped to gather the dead. This horrendous task made him sick, and he quickly left to join other soldiers bringing the wounded to a makeshift hospital. The sight at the hospital was worse, and the horrified boy left to sit by a tree.^[8]

A report by someone else who also visited this hospital after the battle stated that its yard was filled with a heap of amputated arms and legs. According to the person, seeing that was worse than seeing dead people, as it evoked in him very deep feelings he had never felt before.

2 Edward Black

Edward Black enlisted in the Union 21st Indiana Infantry as a drummer at age eight, making him the youngest person to ever serve in the United States Armed Forces. Like other drummers, Edward was always at the front, where he played his drums to lead and direct the troops. This made him and other drummers perfect targets for enemy soldiers willing to disorganize the unit.

Edward was captured during the Battle of Baton Rouge and imprisoned on an island in the Gulf of Mexico. But he regained his freedom when Union forces captured the island and nearby New Orleans.

After President Lincoln banned the use of child soldiers in 1862, Edward was discharged and returned to his Indianapolis home with his drum. However, the trauma and injuries he sustained during the war haunted him so badly that it probably contributed to his death at age 18. His drum currently sits at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis where it remains one of the museum’s most prized artifacts.^[9]

1 Abel Sheeks

Abel Sheeks fled his Alabama home to join the ranks of the Confederate Army when he was 16. With the Confederates short on uniforms, Abel had to wear his blue shirt and trousers (which resembled the Union’s uniform) into battle. That continued until a colleague asked if he wanted to be mistaken for a Union soldier.

After each engagement, Abel scoured the battlefield to scavenge uniforms from dead Confederate soldiers of his size. According to him, he hated doing it but was left with no choice. In a few weeks, he had a full Confederate uniform.

Training for military life was hell for the boys at the Confederate camps. Drills were the centerpiece, and shooting practice was almost nonexistent because guns and ammunition were in short supply. This meant that many Confederate soldiers received their shooting lessons right on the battlefield.^[10]

Drills at the Union camps were no better. One Union boy who had endured enough of the boring, repetitive actions during his first drill told the drill sergeant, “Let’s stop this fooling and go over to the grocery.” The drill sergeant did not take kindly to his suggestion and ordered a corporal to “drill him like hell.”

Oliver Taylor is a freelance writer and bathroom musician. You can reach him at [email protected].

Arguably one of the most famous rulers to have ascended to any throne in human history was Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). What sets the 11th Pharaoh of Egypt apart from many others is that he rose to power before his tenth birthday. After a nine-year rule over Egypt, Tutankhamun is suspected of having died of either malaria or another infection.

History tells of many other rulers who were crowned heads of their respective territories before reaching the age of majority. Like the young King Tut, these child rulers saw not only their reigns but also their lives come to a startlingly and tragic early end.

10 Lungtok Gyatso, Ninth Dalai Lama (1805–1815)

The Ninth Dalai Lama, Lungtok Gyatso, was born in 1805 in a little village called Dan Chokhor in Kham, Tibet. Interestingly, a number of sources list Lungtok’s parents as Tenzin Choekyong and Dhondup Dolma, although many sources state that he was, in fact, an orphan. Lungtok was selected over another to be the reincarnation of the Eighth Dalai Lama, Jampel Gyatso.

Around the time of his reign, major regional power shifts took place. The Qing Dynasty struggled to retain power and influence in Tibet, and Tibetan leadership and aristocrats were at odds with Qing officials. The selection of the Dalai Lama was overseen by a Qing official, something that was contested by some Tibetan leaders. This was because the Qianlong Emperor mandated that selection be made from a golden urn supplied by the emperor, effectively giving control of the selection process to the Qing dynasty. The Tibetans managed to forego using the urn after the emperor announced his retirement. At the tonsure ceremony in 1808, the child was given the name Lobzang Tenpai Wangchuk Lungtok Gyatso. He took the throne at the end of that year.

In 1815, Gyatso, who was described as having sharp intellect, taking great interest in dharma, and memorizing lengthy prayers, allegedly fell ill with a cold. It is also reported that the Ninth Dalai Lama was actually assassinated due to the turmoil that ensued during the time of his reign. Notably, the three Dalai Lamas who followed all died young, raising suspicions that they were also murdered.^[1]

9 Alexander IV of Macedon (323–309 BC)

Having to follow in very large footsteps, Alexander IV of Macedon was born in 323 BC, the son of Alexander the Great, after his father died in Babylon the same year. Alexander IV’s rise to the throne was neither immediate nor easy. The young king’s uncle, Arridaeus (who also went by Phillip), succeeded his brother as king but was soon found to be mentally incapable of acting as ruler. The regent to Arridaeus, Perdiccas, campaigned to put a hold on selecting a new successor in an effort to hold onto power and influence for himself. His efforts were met with a lot of resistance, however, and Alexander IV was born soon after.

Perdiccas was killed in 320 BC, and the then-guardian of the royal family, Antipater, was later killed in 319 BC. Antipater’s son, Cassander, plotted his way to the regency, forcing Roxane to flee Epirus with her young son and Polyperchon (a family guardian). There, the pair united with Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. Alexander IV’s status as successor and true king to the Macedonian throne was realized after Olympias retook Macedon and was named regent. In 316 BC, Cassander eventually managed to besiege and execute Olympias, and Cassander was accepted as regent.

In an effort to end the Third Diadoch War in 311 BC, a peace treaty that recognized Alexander IV’s rights and claim to the throne was established. Cassander, however, decided not to honor the treaty and imprisoned the young king and his mother in the citadel of Amphipolis. In 309 BC, the then thirteen-year-old king and his mother were assassinated by poisoning.^[2]

8 Ptolemy XIII, Theos Philopator (62–47 BC)

In 51 BC, the father of twelve-year-old Ptolemy XIII and his older and more famous sister, Cleopatra VII, died. In the wake of his father’s death, Ptolemy was named senior ruler by the de facto regent, Pothinus, much to the dismay of co-ruler Cleopatra. Under the influence of Roman general Pompey the Great, Pothinus, and Theodotus, Ptolemy’s strong-willed older sister was eventually expelled from Egypt in 48 BC.

Not long after her expulsion, Cleopatra wielded an Arab army to help her siege the Egyptian city of Pelusium, sparking a civil war with her brother. Pompey, unfortunately, sealed his fate after losing to Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece. To win the favor of Caesar, Ptolemy set a trap for Pompey in Alexandria and ambushed him.

There in Alexandria, a peace treaty was attempted between the warring siblings but failed to produce a positive outcome. While the siblings were detained by Caesar, Pothinus pushed their youngest sister Arsinoe to the forefront and took Alexandria. Arisinoe, however, did not get along with the heads of the Egyptian forces and was successfully offered in exchange for Ptolemy. The young king was no match for Caesar and was defeated in battle. While running for his life, Ptolemy drowned, and Caesar asserted his dominance over Egypt.^[3]

7 Emperor Antoku (1178–1185)

On December 22, 1178, Tokohito was born in Kyoto, Japan, to Emperor Takakura and his wife, Tokuko. The emperor’s son was named Crown Prince soon after his birth that same year. Although Tokohito took the throne a few years later in 1180 under the Taira clan at the tender age of two, it was his grandfather and warrior Taira Kiyomori who had sway and held control over the government. Tokohito took the name Antoku Tennō as the 81st emperor of Japan.

In 1183, the Taira clan was forced out of Kyoto City by men under the control of Minamoto Yoshinaka. Antoku and his clan eventually made their way to Yashima, where they would establish a temporary palace. Here, Minamoto and Antoku’s clans clashed in the Battle of Yashima. The shame of defeat caused Antoku to flee to the sea.

Two years later, the clans waged war against each other in the Battle of Dannoura, where the Taira clan would once again taste defeat and ruin at the hands of Minamoto’s naval fleet. Rather than die at the hands of the Minamoto fleet, many of the Taira clan’s commanders and fighters committed suicide by throwing themselves into the sea. Antoku’s grandmother followed suit, taking not only two of the three imperial regalia with her but the young emperor as well. Antoku and his grandmother plunged into the sea and drowned.^[4]

6 Peter II of Russia (1715–1730)

The grandson of Peter I the Great, Pyotr Alekseyevich was born in 1715 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Sadly, Pyotr’s mother died only 10 days after giving birth to him. Peter I’s son from his second marriage, Tsarevitch Peter Petrovitch, had died, making way for his grandson, Pyotr, to eventually become the Emperor of Russia. This was only made possible after a close adviser to Peter I and Catherine I, A.D. Menshikov, influenced Catherine to include young Pyotr in her will in 1727. Catherine I died, and Pyotr, who took the name Peter II, was declared emperor.

Menshikov wasted no time manipulating the young ruler once he had moved him into his house within the first few months of his reign. Peter II, who was promised to marry Menshikov’s daughter, was not pressed under the adviser’s thumb for much longer as he fell ill and was eventually exiled to Siberia by the aristocratic Dolgoruky family. Peter was instead betrothed to Yekaterina Alekseyevna Dolgorukaya in 1729. With a stroke of horrible luck, however, Peter II died of smallpox on the day set for the wedding. He was only fourteen years old.^[5]

5 Edward VI (1537–1553)

Sixteenth-century England fell prey to the rule of one of the most infamous and ruthless monarchs to have lived, Henry VIII, for more than 30 years. After his death in 1547, he was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Because the king was a mere nine years of age, a council of nobles had the task of managing the affairs of the kingdom. This group included the king’s uncle, Edward Seymour—until he was overthrown by the Earl of Northumberland, John Dudley.

The political and religious climate at this time was one of Protestant reformation and economic instability. Furthermore, the king’s place as ruler was on rocky ground as the ambitious Northumberland moved to secure the future of his family by hastily marrying his son to Henry VIII’s great-niece, Lady Jane Grey, who was widely accepted by the people as heir to the throne. During this time, Edward VI was discovered to be suffering from tuberculosis. Edward, the last Tudor baby to be born, never married and died at the age of fifteen.^[6]

4 Emperor Zhao Bing (1272–1279)

Emperor Bing of Song, born Zhao Bing in 1272 to a concubine of Emperor Duzong, was destined to become the last emperor of China’s Song dynasty. Before holding the title of emperor, he was given the title “Prince of Xin” in 1274, after which it was changed to “Prince of Guang.”

Bent on conquest and glory, Mongol forces led by general Bayan took the Song capital of Lin’an and, with it, the then-Emperor Gong. Gong’s brothers, four-year-old Zhao Bing and Zhao Shi, fled to Jinhua with the help of their officials. There, Zhao Shi was named Grand Marshal, and his brother Zhao Bing, Vice Grand Marshal. By 1276, a seven-year-old Zhao Shi became the new Song emperor, Emperor Duanzong.

General Bayan was determined to rid China of any remaining Song dynasty members and led an attack on Southern China. The Song army hit a major roadblock in this fight as the young Emperor Duanzong would not live past 1278 due to illness. With low morale, the number of Song soldiers started to diminish. Lu Xiufu, one of the officials who previously helped the brothers escape peril, would once again step in and flee with Zhao Bing to Guangzhou, where he would eventually be named emperor.

Facing imminent defeat in 1279 at the hands of the Mongol naval forces, Lu Xiufu took the seven-year-old Emperor Zhao Bing to a cliff and plunged into the depths of the ocean together. With this act, the Song dynasty had come to a tragic end.^[7]

3 Alexios II Komnenos, Byzantine Emperor (1169–1183)

The life of Alexios II was a turbulent one. The future emperor was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in 1169. Eleven years later, his father, Manuel I, died, leaving behind his son and Alexios II’s mother, Maria. Because it was determined that the new emperor, Alexios II, was too young to rule, his mother took up the regency alongside Alexios II’s cousin, who also shared the name Alexios.

Turmoil would soon follow as friends of Alexios II attempted a coup intended to secure the young emperor’s place on the throne. In response to the coup attempt, however, rioting took place in Constantinople, and the failed attempt was capitalized upon by Emperor Manuel’s first cousin, Andronikos Komnenos. Andronikos seized control of the Constantinople government, and a slaughter of thousands of Roman Catholic inhabitants ensued.

In a bid to eventually seize power for himself, Andronikos isolated Alexios II by killing his mother, older sister, and his cousin Alexios. What’s worse is that the young emperor was apparently made to forcibly sign off on the death warrants himself. By 1183, Andronikos made himself co-emperor. In October of that year, the plot to gain absolute power came to a head when Andronikos gave the order to assassinate Alexios II. He was strangled to death with a bowstring.^[8]

2 Edward V of England (1470–1483)

Edward was born at Westminster Abbey in 1470, a time when the War of the Roses raged on. In 1471, at a mere one year old, Edward was deemed Prince of Wales by his father, King Edward IV, who was living in Holland in exile at the time. The young prince lived a very strict and structured upbringing as dictated by his father. Receiving an education, exposure to religion, and having positive influences around him were the order of the day. A betrothal to the Duke of Brittany’s young daughter Anne was also arranged as a means of strengthening political and military ties. Sadly, this marriage union would never come to fruition.

At age twelve, Edward learned of the death of his father in April of 1483. The fallen king’s son became King Edward V soon after. The former king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Edward’s protector. Conflict soon arose between the protectorate and the royal council, which was mainly comprised of the family of Edward’s mother, the Woodvilles, who wanted the young king to take the throne right away. In reality, the Woodvilles wanted a regency for their own benefit instead of Edward V under the protection of the Duke of Gloucester.

The duke eventually arrested the Woodville leadership and took custody of Edward V and his younger brother, who were taken to the Tower of London. Gloucester later claimed that the marriage of the king’s father was not valid, and the king and his brother were illegitimate. On June 26, parliament declared Gloucester as King Richard III. The young monarch was ruler for a mere two months and seventeen days.

The disappearance of the young king and his brother is shrouded in a cloud of mystery. It is believed that they were murdered at the Tower of London after being held in heavily guarded captivity. Sir Thomas More later wrote that the young king and his brother were smothered to death. In 1674, two remains believed to be that of the boys were discovered by King Charles II and laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.^[9]

1 John I of France (1316)

John I of France goes down in French history as being the youngest to ever hold the title of king, having the shortest recorded reign in French history, and being the only French monarch to have reigned from the day of his birth to his last.

The only son of King Louis X and Clémence of Hungary was born in Paris on November 15, 1316. Because the child king was born after the death of King Louis X, he was known as “John the Posthumous” (Jean le Posthume).

Tragically, John I only lived to see five days on Earth and was dead on November 20. The infant was buried in Saint-Denis Basilica. It is speculated that John I was killed by his uncle and future king Philippe V as a means of gaining power and control of the throne for himself. Other rumors state that Philippe replaced the still-living child with a dead infant. This claim has never been proven. Decades later, a man claimed to be the supposed king John I but was swiftly detained, imprisoned in Naples, and died there.^[10]

You’ve probably heard of famous Gen Z child prodigies like JoJo Siwa, Simone Biles, Emma Chamberlaine, and Billie Eilish. From popularizing viral dance videos to never having lived without the existence of the internet, children from Generation Z are known for many things.

Although many older generations peg these “zoomers” as being overly sensitive and highly reliant on “likes” and “follows,” Stanford University behavioral scientist Roberta Katz describes the “typical” Gen Z as, “A self-driver who deeply cares about others, strives for a diverse community, is highly collaborative and social, values flexibility, relevance, authenticity and non-hierarchical leadership.”

There are so many influential Gen Zs that are changing the world in fields that have far less media exposure. From Grammy-nominated jazz pianists to Olympic silver medalists and published authors, here are ten child prodigies you’ve probably never heard of.

10 DJ Switch

Erica Armah Bra-Bulu Tandoh, born December 12, 2007, is a multi-faceted performance artist and child prodigy from Dadieso, Ghana. Although she has experience in multiple performance areas, Erica is recognized mainly as “DJ Switch,” the youngest winner at the 2018 Ghana DJ Awards. She even took home the Best Female DJ award the following year, at just 11 years old. In 2020, not only was DJ Switch featured on Roc Nation’s social media for Black History month, earning her international recognition for her talents, but she also won a Global Child Prodigy Award.

DJ Switch is passionate about supporting her community, and in 2019 she donated tables and chairs to a junior high school in Brafoyaw, Cape Coast, Ghana.

In the future, DJ Switch will continue DJing while pursuing a career as a gynecologist.

Social Media:

Instagram: @djswitchghana

YouTube: DJ Switch Ghana

9 Anisiia Volodymyrivna Gonymovych

In 2017, Anisiia Volodymyrivna Gonymovyc, born December 24, 2007, became the first Ukrainian to win “Mini-Miss Universe.” Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Anisiia is a competitive ballroom dancer, model, singer, pageant winner, television correspondent, and journalist. She has been spotted at Odessa Fashion Week as well as the 2017 International Kids Fashion Week.

Not only is Anisiia a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) International Academy of Journalism. In 2020, she was listed as one of the Global Child Prodigy Award’s “Top 100 Child Prodigies of the World.”

Social Media:

Instagram: @anisiia07

8 Stacey Fru

Stacey Fru, born February 16, 2007, is an award-winning South African author, activist, and public speaker. Her debut book, Smelly Cats, was published in 2015, when Stacey was just seven years old. Since then, Stacey has written five more books, all published by the Johannesburg publishing company Profounder Publishing.

Stacey won the Pan African Award for Literary Work in 2019, the Outstanding Young African Entrepreneur Award in 2020, and was shortlisted for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2020. In 2022, Stacey was appointed as the Director and President of AfroStory.

Social Media:

Twitter: @staceyfru

Instagram: @staceyfru

7 Jhulia Rayssa Mendes Leal

Jhulia Rayssa Mendes Leal, known more commonly as Rayssa Leal, is an Olympic silver medalist born on January 4, 2008. Rayssa competed at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics in the women’s skateboarding street competition. She is the youngest athlete ever to represent Brazil at the Olympics and is the youngest Olympic medalist in 85 years. Rayssa was awarded The Visa Award at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for her outstanding sportsmanship during the competition.

Rayssa was born in Imperatriz, Maranhão, Brazil. In 2019, Rayssa competed with, and outscored, three-time X-Games Gold Medalist Alexis Sablone, and six-time X-Games gold medalist Letícia Bufoni, proving to the world just how much of a prodigy she is.

Social Media:

Instagram: @rayssalealsk8

6 Tanaka Koki

Tanaka Koki, known by his stage name, “Koki,” is a Japanese K-Pop idol born on January 29, 2009. He first arrived on the K-Pop scene during the survival competition TV show known as LOUD in 2021, making the final lineup of the show in September 2021. Koki was the second-youngest participant and competed against trainee idols as old as 21.

Although Koki will no longer be debuting with the group from LOUD, Koki will continue as a trainee under PYS’s label P NATION.

Social Media:

Instagram: @pnation.official

5 Zuriel Oduwole

Born in July 2002, Zuriel Oduwole is a Los Angeles-born American filmmaker, education advocate, and public speaker. Zuriel made her first documentary, The Ghana Revolution (2012) when she was ten years old. Her second documentary, The 1963 OAU (2013), would earn her recognition in Forbes. By the time she was 12, Zuriel’s fourth film, A Promising Africa (2014), was getting international acclaim, and Business Insider cited Zuriel in their “World’s Most Powerful Person at Every Age.” In 2015, Elle Magazine put Zuriel on their list of “33 Women Who Changed The World”.

Zuriel now has seven films under her belt, and her most recent documentary, Nelson Mandela—A Centenary Life of Giving (2019), earned her recognition from the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 2019.

Social Media:

Twitter: @ZurielOduwole

Instagram: @zuriel.oduwole

4 Juju Noda

Juju Noda, born February 2, 2006, is a professional racing driver currently slated to compete in the 2022 W Series, an all-female formula racing championship, at the age of 16. Juju is the daughter of the former Formula 1 racer, Hideki Noda. She’s been driving karts since she was four and has been testing “single-seat” race cars since she was just nine years old.

Juju’s first race as a professional was in 2019 at the Lucas Oil Winter Race Series, finishing things off in 14th place. In 2020, Juju moved to Denmark, where she would start competing in the F4 Danish Championship with a team run by her father. She won her first-ever race and finished the 2020 season in 6th place overall. The next year Juju finished the championship in 7th place.

Social Media:

Twitter: @JujuNoda_Racing

3 Alma Deutscher

Born on February 19, 2005, Alma Deutscher is an esteemed composer, violinist, and pianist who composed her first sonata when she was five. Alma is from Basingstoke, England, where she played both the violin and the piano by the age of three. Her first opera, The Sweeper of Dreams, was finished in 2012 when she was just seven, and she would go on to write two more, Cinderella and The Emperor’s New Waltz.

Alma has also composed five orchestral pieces, six piano pieces, seven chamber pieces, and four songs. In 2019, she was recognized by the Beijing Music Festival, winning the Young Artist award—in the same year, she was given the European Culture Prize. In 2021, Alma became the youngest ever recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci International Award.

Social Media:

YouTube: AlmaDeutscher

2 Joey Alexander

Joey Alexander is a jazz pianist, born on June 25, 2003. He was born in Depasar, Bali, Indonesia, and was the first Indonesian artist to chart on the Billboard 200. By the time Joey was six, he had taught himself to play the piano by ear. In 2013, at the age of nine, Joey won the Grand Prix at the Master-Jam festival. When he was eleven, he released his first album, My Favourite Things, which was nominated for the “Best Jazz Instrumental Album” Grammy in 2016. Joey has twice been nominated for “Best Improvised Jazz Solo” at the Grammys in 2016 and 2017 for his pieces “Giant Steps” and “Countdown,” respectively.

When Joey was eight, he was able to perform for one of his idols, Herbie Hancock, when Hancock visited Jakarta. After receiving Hancock’s praise, Joey “decided to dedicate [his] childhood to jazz.” He would go on to win the Grand Prix at the Master-Jam Festival in Odessa, Ukraine, the following year.

Social Media:

Instagram: @joeyalexandermusic

YouTube: Joey Alexander

1 Ewok

Ewok is a professional E-sport athlete and influencer born on September 18, 2005. Ewok started playing Fortnite in 2018, and just one year later, he signed a streaming contract with Twitch. He became the first deaf member of the FaZe Clan. Ewok has been a pioneer for deaf representation in the gaming industry and explained that he uses a “sound visualizer” that Fortnite put in place to make their game more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing players.

In 2020, Ewok came out as transgender and bisexual, becoming the first “out” transgender player for FaZe. He (born she) was listed in Forbes‘ “30 Under 30” in the same year. Despite an onslaught of “trolls” after Ewok’s coming out, with people attacking his sexuality, and even questioning the truth behind his disability, he continues to be a leader in his field. As of April 2022, Ewok has 329.9k followers on Twitter, 336k followers on Twitch, and 490k followers on Instagram.

Social Media:

Instagram: @ewokfn

Twitter: @ewok

Twitch: @ewokttv