Pursuing YouTube Celebrity

A few years ago I was speaking about social media to a group of parents and teens at a church. Afterwards, a mom and dad pushed their 14-year-old boy in front of me and told him, “Go ahead, tell Mr. Mueller about your goal in life.” The boy looked at me and with great confidence proclaimed that he was going to become a YouTube star. As I listened, I knew I needed to discourage him away from focusing all his energies on the pursuit of fame and endorsement fortune. God wants us to focus our energies on discovering and developing our gifts and abilities so that we might bring him glory. But I also knew that while YouTube celebrity status for this kids was a slim possibility, it was still a possibility. In today’s world, kids can make short videos about absolutely nothing and they can go viral on platforms like TikTok in almost no time, generating millions of views. Sadly, this fuels our obsession with building a brand and gaining attention. Parents, are you pointing your kids to the pursuit of something better?