Children make great props for gadget commercials. They're cute—like lil mini grown-ups with years before the regret sets in. They also say the darndest slogans. But a recent barrage of precocious tots in tech ads puts a cheery face on latent panic currently hovering around threat level teal: our inability to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

On the one hand, a little girl working in a startup garage yelling "Grandpa, you don't wan to be an intern forever!" is just a wink at the teenage millionaires of the tech world. Perhaps Xfinity's ad men are even offering subversive commentary on the loss of childhood aimlessness. On the other hand, the unrelenting onslaught of new devices means we'll all be that grandpa sooner than we think.

Same goes with the recent Amazon Fire Phone commercial where a faux-wizened whiz kid says, "I've been on this Earth nine years, I've never seen anything like it." Get it?? Because he's only 9-years-old? AND YOU WILL NEVER EVER KEEP UP WITH HIM. The camera lingers on the bewildered young-ish woman with her mouth agape just long enough to make you wonder if Millennials aren't already obsolete.

The corollary to not keeping apace with tech trends is being left out of imagined startup riches. Again, kids are a good way to terrify TV watchers with impunity. This ad doesn't imply widening income gap exacerbated by technological fluency, the message is: Fuckkkk, I better buy that phone.

Or switch to that carrier?

Guess it's better than selling smartphones as a way to make your kid shut up.

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[Image via YouTube]