YouTube showed kids a skeleton horror film. Video.

YouTube showed kids a skeleton horror film. Video.

YouTube mistakenly showed kids a 24-hour horror film about a skeleton walking through a cemetery looking for love and dying of depression.

Web cartoonist Chris Straub runs a YouTube channel, LOCAL58TV, where he posts short horror stories in the aesthetics of VHS movies. On July 5, 2022, he complained that the video hosting algorithms had unexpectedly labeled one of his videos “YouTube Kids.” By doing so, YouTube made the videos available for viewing, including on accounts with strict parental controls.

The short film, called Show For Children, tells the story of a cartoon skeleton who wanders through a cemetery looking for his girlfriend. He looks into the graves, but encounters only terrifying, realistic skeletons and other creatures there. At the end of the clip, the protagonist himself lies down in one of the graves and dies of depression, transforming into a realistic version of himself.