A Park Forest mother says her toddler was about 50 minutes into what looked like a children’s video when the screen suddenly cut to a grown man sitting on a bed, scrolling through his phone. Ashara Danee said she noticed the strange clip while her son was watching a video titled Brush Your Teeth Song With Ms. Rachel and Elmo, and that the man appeared to be looking directly at the camera before pulling out his phone to record and mentioning Chicago.
The video Danee’s son was watching was not from the real Ms. Rachel channel, according to a report from ABC7 Chicago, which found that an unidentified creator had copied the title and part of a legitimate children’s video to attract views. The station’s I-Team, led by reporter Jason Knowles, blurred the inserted footage of the man because it remained unclear whether he knew his own video had been used this way. Danee’s mother, Keli Stephenson, told the outlet the moment the man pulled out his camera and referenced Chicago was what made the clip so alarming, and that the whole experience felt unsettling.
YouTube Confirms Impersonation, Pulls the Channel
After the I-Team flagged the video, YouTube confirmed the channel behind it was impersonating another creator, the same ABC7 Chicago report states. The company said it terminated the channel and removed the video once it was alerted, and it also said the video had never been available on YouTube Kids, which uses stricter content filters than the main platform. Under YouTube’s own policy, the platform prohibits unauthorized impersonation of a person, entity, or channel that could mislead viewers in a way that harms the community, including deceptively copied branding, content, or usernames, according to YouTube Help.
The I-Team also reached out to the Ms. Rachel show about the impersonation but had not received a response, the station’s report notes.
Why Creators Splice Strangers Into Kids’ Content
To understand what may have happened, the I-Team turned to Andrew Hoog, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Now Secure, who said the inserted clip looked like an attempt to make money off children’s views. Hoog described a broader practice of creators inserting personal videos into clips of popular shows to extend runtime and sidestep copyright issues, which lets them rack up watch minutes and collect ad revenue. He said some creators specifically design titles to attract clicks, then rely on YouTube’s autoplay feature to accumulate additional watch time.
As for the man seen scrolling on his phone, Hoog said he was most likely not behind the scheme at all. “He has probably no idea,” Hoog said, per the station’s report.
What YouTube and Experts Recommend for Parents
Hoog advised parents to verify that videos are coming from official, verified channels and to check a channel’s audience size and view counts before trusting its content. He also pointed to YouTube Kids as an option built around vetted videos for younger viewers. YouTube separately advises users to report suspicious or inappropriate videos through its built-in reporting tools whenever something seems off.
