The Kid Should See This  • November 5, 2025

💸 WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK:

How can brand names trick your brain with sound? ➜

When I studied communications design in college, one early class changed how I saw images forever. We learned to decode visual messages by asking questions like: Who created this image? Who was the intended audience? What messages did they want to communicate, and why did they create it? Who paid for it, and how do specific details serve those goals? What’s missing?

That framework, now common in media literacy education, was transformative for me as a young person. Decades later, I still use those same questions when discussing images, videos, and ads with my kids. They’re swimming in messages—scrolling, streaming, and seeing hundreds every day. Knowing how to pause and ask how and why something was made is a real superpower.

This Otherwords video about brand names adds another layer to this conversation. Here are a few related videos that can help grow critical media literacy skills:

🥸 Sugar: Hiding in plain sight

🚩 What is misinformation? What is disinformation?

🕵️‍♀️ What is propaganda and how can you spot it?

😵‍💫 Why do people fall for misinformation?

🤔 Critical Thinking Strategies: A guide for assessing information

✅ 4 Tips for Making Kids Ad Savvy

And whether of a news story or a social interaction, these conversations can naturally bridge media literacy with emotional literacy. A few more video conversation-starters to add to the list:

🧠 How to get unstuck from negative thoughts and perceptions

🟣 Where did the idea of “normal” come from?

🤼 The psychology behind ‘Us vs Them’

🍪 Snack Attack, Eduardo Verastegui’s animated short about perceptions

🐍 The Uses of Envy

💸 Five Cents, an animated short about spending money

Do you teach or discuss media and emotional literacy with your students or family? If you have any videos or resources that you'd like to share, please send them my way!

Happy November! - Rion

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