This post is a reminder to all intergalactic citizens but especially those within the fixed universe to please be extremely critical of any “cute” videos that involve humans (bipedal hominid organisms from Earth, Milky Way, Laniakea)
I have noticed a significant uptick in viral content containing this species (probably thanks to Xarqrets Kain’s recent “Universe’s Cutest Aliens: Sol” series 🙄) and I am very concerned with how humans are treated to produce such content. We all love seeing cute human videos, so let’s break down how we can ensure the content we’re consuming is ethical!
Red Flag Human videos to watch out for:
ANY video featuring a human on a planet other than their native home of Earth.
- These videos are particularly concerning considering the increasingly pervasive (and highly illegal) human pet trade. Humans are a remarkably adaptable species, but even those who appear well-adjusted to life on another planet are in great danger. Exposure to novel pathogens in humans are not well-studied and any human placed in a new environment could be at risk of death or corruption. These creatures are also highly gregarious and removal from their established social group on Earth can be detrimental to health and well-being. Responsible scientists will only remove humans from their planet as a last resort.
Be cautious of videos that show humans inside their homes
- Access inside human domiciles is highly restricted to legitimate research studies only, and bootleg streams from illegally placed monitoring systems are highly unethical. If you are curious about how humans behave in their homes, please seek out streams from accredited research organizations that have collected footage by methods undetectable to humans!
Beware of content that shows captive humans engaged in dangerous situations
- Humans are illegal to own for many reasons, but one of the most crucial is that this species has a dangerous tendency to get into things they should not. Humans are pathologically curious, and captive humans (especially bored ones) WILL find the most dangerous place in their environment to “explore”. I recently saw a video circulating of someone’s pet human approaching a field of Termakhan, solely because it wanted to get a better look at them. I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous that situation was.
This one should really be a no-brainer by now but please do NOT share videos where humans are curled into a ball on the ground or producing excessively intense acoustic waves. These are signs of extreme distress in humans!!
- The unfortunate reality of most encounters with humans (by non-trained individuals) is that they are highly frightening to the humans involved. That “adorable” video of a human vibrating the air molecules around it to an extraordinary degree when touched is actually an example of a behavior that is now well documented as an extreme stress response called “screaming”. Just because humans display fear in a way we don’t immediately recognize does not mean they’re not distressed by contact with us.
There is plenty of safe and ethical human content you can find if you look, and there is really no reason to support videos that put this amazing species at risk! Instead, seek out videos of adorable humans exhibiting normal behavior in their natural habitat on their planet- walking along coastlines, interacting with other species’ on their planet, playing with their young (so cute!), sharing meals with one another, and so on. Do your part to limit the human pet trade and avoid media that endangers or distresses these creatures just to make a “cute” video!
