From a certain age, children and young people want to find out about media, friendship and love, but also about politics and world events. Talk shows or TV series for adults can quickly become boring for young people because they have little to do with their lifeworld. The funk online service specializes in formats that appeal primarily to teenagers and young adults.
funk is a network of audios, videos and channels that young people can follow on the net. Content is produced for specifically 14-16, 17-19, 20-24 and 25-29 age groups and aired on funk.net and popular platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. Whether in comedy, music, trends, politics, sexuality and love or knowledge – funk offers over 70 channels for different age groups. There are various formats such as podcasts, reports or fictional soaps.
In the process, funk also devotes itself to alternative topics outside the mainstream and shows how diverse society is. You can see that well in formats like On the Toilet or Hunters and Gatherers.
funk ‘s offerings are just as diverse and can be found where young people watch videos anyway. funk caters to the viewing but also listening habits of young people, who prefer to use media when it suits them and not when something is on TV or radio.
In front of the camera and behind the microphone are often young people themselves with different cultural backgrounds, with whom the young viewers can identify. “Who am I and how do I want to be?” are important questions among young people. The characters in the funk formats can be role models for them. It’s about topics that interest and appeal to them, such as documentaries on YouTube about the everyday lives of influencers, why sneakers are so hot, or what it’s like to live without a smartphone for a week. But also serious topics around crime, extremism or racism are dealt with.
The funk offering is financed by the broadcasting contribution. This allows producers of videos for funk, to create content that is ad-free and independent of financial and political influences. funk is open, so viewers can submit topic requests and YouTubers themselves can become part of the network. All content on funk is pre-screened.
At 14 or 17, young people have different interests than at 12, which is why funk ‘s formats are not aimed at a specific age group, but at many different ones. However, this means that not all of funk ‘s offerings are necessarily suitable for your 14-year-old child.
Since funk is produced by public broadcasters, the offering is freely available and there are no hidden ads to entice children and young people to buy products, as is the case with many private YouTube formats.
Younger viewers in particular can get the impression that the people in front of the camera are showing themselves in a very private and personal way. However, this is not always the case, e.g. for web series (e.g. B. iam.meyra or print), which are followed in real time via Instagram or Snapchat. It is hard to tell that these are actresses and not real people. Therefore, stay in conversation with your child about what they are looking at and make them aware that not everything they find on such networks is real.
