Your Clear Backpack Is NOT About Safety

[00:00:00]If you're watching this from almost any country on Earth, every country in fact, except one, your first reaction to seeing this picture is probably a simple one. Why on earth would a child need a clear backpack? What is a 12-year-old carrying that a school needs to see at all times? They're fair questions. And if you're American, you know exactly why these bags exist. And that is the only sentence that subject is getting from me. The local news has run this story a 100 times. And what none ever gets around to is what the thing does to the kid who has to wear it. Because here's what they don't tell you about the see-through bag. It doesn't make anyone safer. It falls to bits in days. It puts everything you own in front of every thief in the building. And the one thing it does with total reliability is inform a few thousand teenagers that they're suspects from the moment they walk in.

[00:00:50]And this bag is very much not a oneoff.

[00:00:52]On this channel, I've covered E-H Hall Pass, the app that locks every toilet trip you take, and the pouches, which lock your phone away from you all day.

[00:01:00]I've even covered school Chromebooks that track what kids do at home on their sofa long after the last bell. They're different gadgets, yes, but it's the same instinct. The clear backpack is just the newest member of the family and the only one you can literally see right through. This is a specifically American problem, by the way. Nowhere else on earth has it occurred to a country that the sensible response to danger is to make its children carry their entire private lives around in a transparent sack. And the rest of the internet keeps saying so. Under a video of one American kid hauling theirs into class, the top responses aren't outrage. They're bafflement only in America, says the top one. Confused in European, says the next. I do have some sympathy for the school bag as an instrument of misery, mind you. Because when I was a kid, my own school made me carry a proper leather briefcase. Not a rucks sack, an actual briefcase. Yes, it was the kind of school forever auditioning for a poshness it had never earned. I hoard that thing around for years, convinced it was the worst idea a school had ever had about how a kid should transport books. And then I saw what America had come up with, and I thought myself bloody lucky indeed. Quick reminder to hit subscribe if you're enjoying the video so far. Thank you. So, let's start where it lands, which is on the students that actually have to use these damn things. The one job the transparent bag does without fail every single time is embarrass whoever's carrying it.

[00:02:26]Somewhere in America, one of you sat down before term even begun and asked a ruba strangers odd line for a verdict on the bag you've been issued. The comment reads, "Guys, I'm a freshman. Do you think this backpack is ugly? Or they may bully me if I use this backpack? That's a 14-year-old doing market research on their own humiliation. No thought spared for algebra. The pressing worry is whether the compulsory equipment is going to get them picked on. And the honest answer is possibly. And yet there's nothing they can do about it because the bag is mandatory. And that dread is everywhere once you start to look. One student posted their reaction to the announcement, captioned, "My reaction when I found out my school is making me wear a clear backpack." And the talk reply beneath it read simply, "My backpack." Like, bro, why? And it goes a bit deeper than looking a bit naff because a clear bag makes everything inside public. Every inhaler, every prescription, every pad, every tampon, every spare pair of underwear packed for an emergency. All of it riding down the hall in full view for anyone to clock. Under one video of a student showing theirs off, someone asked a question that artist itself.

[00:03:30]What if you have pads? A student paper put it less delicately, describing having to carry pads, tampons, and a backup pair of underwear where everyone could see, and effectively announced the contents of your bag out loud, whether you wanted to or not. But the one that stopped me was the one that explained the entire scheme by accident. They wrote that they were mad and sad for Clear Backpacks because our principal made us have one. And then in brackets, like a footnote, she said, "It's just for safety." That bracket says a lot. A kid who's already spotted the gap between what the policy says and what the policy actually does. They were told safety, yet what they got was a see-through bag and a daily audience for everything inside it. And ridiculously, the bag can't even manage the one thing a bag is meant to be for. They surveyed their students first, which was brave because 88% of more than 16,000 of them said no. The district went ahead anyway with bags costing about $13 each and they started splitting within two days.

[00:04:26]Some kids went through several in a fortnight. One reported replacing his six or seven times. And no, I didn't do that for the meme. Here's the proof.

[00:04:34]Which raises the question, who sells a school 10,000 bags that can't even survive October? Well, there's a whole cottage industry doing exactly that.

[00:04:43]Wholesalers shipping transparent rucks sacks by the pallet at a price that guarantees the quality you just watched fall apart. The district spends the public money, the supplier banks the order, and your family pays for every replacement. There's also the question of what the money wasn't spent on. In the words of this student, I am that person to have the same pair of shoes for 3 years.

[00:05:07]I am the person to have the same backpack >> for 3 years.

[00:05:12]>> For plenty of families, a mandatory new bag is a bill. As this student continues, >> how is it helping us? Now, something that would help us is more teachers because a chemistry teacher quit and y'all couldn't find one to replace.

[00:05:24]>> A school that found the money to put every student behind transparent plastic could not in the same year find a chemistry teacher. Great priorities.

[00:05:33]Somebody is doing well out of this whole clear backpack thing. And you can see who by simply searching for clear backpacks. Indeed, type it into Google and you don't land on any debate as to whether they work. You land on a shop.

[00:05:45]Rows of buy now product cards, bargain pallet stuff at the bottom, and the big brands stacked on top. Jan Sport wants $55 for one. There's a Nike one at 60.

[00:05:54]The cheap bag tears in a Fortnite, and the one built to last cost a family $50 or $60, so somebody's cashing the check either way. The shops are on Tik Tok, too, which honestly takes some nerve.

[00:06:05]The same app school kids are using to vent about being forced to carry these things are also selling them the bag discounted free delivery by Monday. Even the phone pouch people never quite managed that. The bag creates one more problem the board never considered. And it's the audience. Your classmates can see your business and so can everyone else in the building, including the people you'd least want to. In the words of this student, not a good idea.

[00:06:28]Thieves will see items they want to steal in a backpack and target that student. Every phone and every bit of tempting kit a child owns set behind glass like a jeweler's window. Except the jeweler remembers to lock the case.

[00:06:40]And when the last bell goes, the shop window walks out of the school with you.

[00:06:44]As this person says, as much as I like the look of clear backpacks, I would never want to own one. In high school, since I didn't have a car, I would have to bust my work. and a clear backpack basically flaunting the fact that I had an expensive laptop on me is really just asking the people around me to rob me.

[00:06:59]Especially in the more sketchy areas I had to stand and wait alone in. I don't think school officials have considered this. Clear backpacks are not as safe as they come across to be. The next morning you carry it back in and the deeper cost starts again. Indeed, a transparent bag is a search that never ends. It searches everyone at once all day on the standing assumption that any 12-year-old might be the problem. This student followed that logic to the end of the road, writing, "Maybe everyone should wear see-through clothes so we can protect ourselves from concealed weapons, too." Another added, "Stupid band-aid solution while not addressing the actual problem and conditioning children to not have privacy." Another made the civil liberties case in a single line.

[00:07:35]Children do have a right to privacy, especially those nearing adulthood. This should not be an option, and plenty of students go straight to the thing itself. As this one says, it's a performative solution for school shootings. Another went darker, writing, "American school essentials, like an AR-15, trauma kit, bulletproof vest, and a helmet." And I agree, the clear backpacks indeed appear to be a performative solution because a see-through bag only reveals what someone is careless enough to leave loose in the main compartment. Anything folded inside a jumper stays invisible.

[00:08:07]Anything in a pocket, a waistband, or a shoe never gets near the bag at all.

[00:08:11]This commenter nailed the absurdity better than any safety consultant could.

[00:08:15]We found the shooter concealed his weapon in his waistband. So, starting next week, we'll be enforcing a strict no pants rule. And just when you think it can't get any da, it indeed gets da.

[00:08:25]Almost every version of the policy lets you carry one small opaque pouch inside the clear bag for personal items, which politely hands back the exact hiding place his see-through bag was meant to remove. Like this kid who drops a solid bag straight inside their transparent one, captioned POV, "School got to have clear bags, but you put a bag in a bag.

[00:08:42]Where there's a loophole to be found, kids will indeed find one. And where the bag has faced a real test, it's fed about as well as you'd expect, which is to say badly. In the words of this student, "Yeah, school started doing this thinking it would prevent shootings from happening, and it didn't work at all. I went to a school a few years ago that had the clear backpack rule, and a few weeks into the school year, a literal riot broke out of the cafeteria, and about six people had guns, and a couple of people had knives. There were so many people that got expelled from that riot. one school, one term, one mandatory clear bag, and it prevented none of it. And honestly, it's pretty sad that a country reached for a plastic rug sack before actually thinking to change its laws. As this student said, "This is terrible. All these shootings.

[00:09:25]Yeah, we should find a solution. How about gun control? No, guns aren't the problem. Let's just force students to wear these stupid things." Another added, "America will do anything to stop school shootings except actually fixing what makes it possible in the first place." The schools themselves appear to not believe in the bag either because they keep the metal detectors. They keep the morning bag checks and put more staff on the doors. Every extra layer is the same institution admitting the bag doesn't do its job and it stays mandatory anyway because it looks like doing something. Which brings us back to the family this bag belongs to because the pattern should look familiar by now.

[00:10:01]Ehaw pass logs how long you spend in the toilet and keeps it on a server. Yonder pouches seal your phone in neoprene so you can't reach the outside world. all day. Your school Chromebook reads over your shoulder at your kitchen table in your own home on the weekend. And now the clear backpack puts your tampons, your medication, and your lunch on public display. Four different products, four different invoices, one message.

[00:10:23]You are not trusted like at all. Most of that surveillance hides in software in servers and loginins and dashboards. The clear backpack is simply the only one you can see with a naked eye hanging off your damn shoulders. And the timing is the crulest part. This is the stretch of your life when you actually need privacy. You're working out who you are.

[00:10:43]And what you want more than anything is one small corner of the world that's yours. That's the moment they chose to take it for something that was never going to keep anyone safe in the first place. So that's the see-through backpack. It tears in two days. Somebody gets paid whether it lasts or not. It hands every thief a shopping list. And every kid a label. And it's one dependable achievement. is making you weigh your embarrassment in public so the adults upstairs can feel like the matter's been handled. Performative safety measures really are the worst.

[00:11:10]Slash that like button if you think that they should get rid of see-through backpacks. We'll see you soon. I'm Snip Snap. He's my cat, Lucky. Snipe snap outs.