Actually the definitive prove is the third season of Arrested Development, which features a “Wee Britain” in Orange County populated almost entirely by Australians (and the South African Charlize Theron).

Further evidence that some people get worked up over the strangest things?

I have this thing about not letting them stick their fingers in outlets, too

Yeah you’re right. Ozzy made them do it. I mean purchasing a toy from WalMart is pretty much equivalent to self induced electrocution. And listenin’ to Heavy Metal makes them worship Satan and sacrifice goats.

And once Ozzy and the Evil Corporations hold that gun to your head it don’t matter whether you’re Chinases or Polynesian. The chidlren! The children! Agghhhhhh nooooooo! Not the children! They’re being advertised to!

WTF?

Oh no! I failed to realize how serious this was! Henry, thank you for the alert! The fact that Wal-Mart might actually try to sell its toys means that any day now we’ll have 4 yr olds voting for Bush and spiritual progressives everywhere will be forced into a tactical retreat against those of us who think that, well, its ultimately the parents who happen to have the money which can purchase the toys. And once this happens then KIDS WILL DRIVE! You’re freakin’ right, this is some sillpery slope that we don’t evem want to consider. And once this happens (again, again) kids drivin’ and all, then they’ll be tried as adults becuase they bought some silly toy from a WalMart commercial.
Next thing we know, all our children (oh no, think of the children!) we’ll be on death row. This is our system is. Please reject it. You don’t want your kids to wind up on death row do you? So WalMart. Bad. Yes, Bad.

Given these two differences (interactive feature that draws users in and pro-active feature that requires more action on the part of users) it’s hard to say how a site of this sort would compare to similar messages conveyed on TV or other media.

Eszter—I don’t think I can win an argument about this. I heard about the site, then looked at it, and thought that it was hilarious. And unbelievable not because it is in itself especially disgusting (there’s plenty more disgusting) but because of the accent and the flagrancy of what it is doing. I know tv ads etc are all pretty flagrant too, but this one is easy to link to, entertainingly funny, and wears on its sleeve the motives of the creators.

Do the child liberationists think that 7 year olds should be allowed to vote? To drive? To be tried as adults? Why bother having parents at all, if they are so robust that nothing can possibly harm them? Or is it only large corporations which have no interest at all in their wellbeing and only want to make money offthem and their parents who can’t harm them?

clyde—yes, the truth is that my 9 year old has all the understanding and self-control necessary to avoid this site, or to take it for what it is. My 5 1/2 year old doesn’t. She’s not especially gullible and immature; she’s just 5 1/2. I’d like to think that everyone understands the developmental limitations of 5 1/2 year olds well enough to keep them off the web altogether, and to limit their TV watching to non-commercial TV or TV watched with adults. We have some evidence from comments here that that’s not true—and, in fact, I didn’t ned that evidence, because I have observed enough other 5 1/2 year olds being given free reign over how much and what TV/internet they consume to know what is going on. The folks at Walmart know that too and the site is designed to exploit that.

Entertainment, information, want satisfaction.

It seems to me that the only people who object to this are those who don’t realize how much sillier they are than the kids they think they’re protecting.