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"They're aimed at kids" is an excuse often used to dismiss criticism of characters aimed at younger audiences.
This article will focus on the matter regarding characters, which is similar to the "it's made for kids" excuse shown on the Crappy Games, Terrible Shows & Episodes, Dreadful Literature, and Awful Movies wikis.
It is well known that kids are easier to entertain by simple things that grownups may find stupid or boring at first.
Even if a character is aimed at kids the adults may also be interested in them (for example, most characters made by Disney or their subsidiaries such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studios, etc.; those characters are aimed at younger audiences, but also respect viewer intelligence and don't pander towards kids, and sometimes are featured in media for teens and adults.
There is no excuse for making a poorly made character aimed at kids.
Why this excuse shouldn't be made for kids
This is just a way for critics and parents to dismiss criticism towards people who criticize terrible characters "that were aimed for kids". By dismissing criticism, the quality of these types of characters may never improve.
By pointing out the flaws in kids' media characters, can leave improvement and ensure that more characters aimed at kids can be made to be enjoyed by grownups as well.
This whole excuse makes kids look like idiots with no real taste who will like anything aimed at them, which isn't true. Kids are smarter than they're given credit for.
It should be noted that contrary to popular belief, actually even kids would very likely not enjoy these poorly conceived kids' media characters, hence highlighting this fact further.
The only thing this excuse encourages kids to do is to stoop to a low level, always ignore the parents, and not listen.
Most of the time, many of these characters aimed at kids are often intentionally made to act extremely immature, such as being a huge crybaby who cries over even the smallest things despite some of these characters in question are being too old in age to act that way (with Caillou, Angelina Ballerina, Peppa Pig, the ThunderCats Roar! version of Lion-O, the Cat in the Hat in the second season of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, SpongeBob SquarePants during season 6-7, Thumbelina, the GO! versions of the Teen Titans, Reggie, Norm, Dusty Crophopper, Surly Squirrel, and Gene Meh being some of the worst offenders out there), either as for cheap laughs or solely just to match with the immature mindsets of the target audience they're aiming at under the mindset from the creators that kids need characters that are very childish just like them, which is not a good thing since children need to learn to grow up and mature sometime in their lives and to learn the fact that childish behavior isn't always acceptable in real life. Some of these characters aimed at kids are incredibly annoying and never shut up every minute they're onscreen under the false assumption that kids' characters need to be very loud and noisy at all times otherwise their target audience of kids would lose interest in them (with Bubsy, Stanley, Cool Cat, SwaySway and Buhdeuce, Fred Figglehorn, Fanboy and Chum Chum, the GO! versions of the Teen Titans, Reggie, Norm, Dusty Crophopper, Surly Squirrel, and Gene Meh being some of the worst offenders out there) which is not a good thing, since not only does these noisy characters negatively influence kids to be annoying and irratic to others, yet, contrary to popular belief, actually even kids would very likely be annoyed at such noisy characters. And besides, children need characters that know when to be quiet because that'd teach them the fact that there are right times for the kids to be noisy and quiet respectively in real life. This would also make you kill these characters with your guns or knives, wish them dead and celebrate their death, or a giving them poop and pee to eat and drink (and if they vomit, they'll clean it up with their tongues).
Some of these characters aimed at kids tend to be written with a very flat and one-dimensional characterization, or have them heavily flanderized from their original complex characterizations to just one measly character trait, all because of the mindset from the creators claiming that kids are unable to relate/identify with characters with complex characterizations, which is not only false in every sense of the word, yet it is very intelligence-insulting to the kids as well. And besides, kids' characters with complex characterizations are important in helping to shape a child's mindset and character growth. This would also make you hit the characters' heads with a hammer, violently assault them, and worse, run over them while exercising and giving them rotten stuff.
The overuse of this excuse is what tends to make kids' characters, especially cartoon characters, in general, receive a negative reputation from older audiences, even though some of these characters don't even deserve all the hate and backlash they receive or if the characters in question are well received or not.
This excuse is the main reason why the American television industry treats cartoon characters exclusively for kids instead of for general audiences most of the time. Besides, animation is an art form that deserves to be treated better, not a genre.
List of Good Characters Aimed at Kids
NOTE: Please keep in mind that some good characters aimed at kids could also use the excuse
Zoe (Sesame Street; seasons 30-46, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland)
The Monster Clubhouse Monsters (Sesame Street) (their frantic pace, as well as the bouncing off the walls, raised concerns among children and parents; Monster Clubhouse would be discontinued after season 34 of Sesame Street as a result of this)
