It's compulsory to have an opinion about this.
That's how it seems, at least, on YouTube where a video of Xia Vigor's impersonation of Taylor Swift is causing tsunamis rather than ripples.
Vigor is 7 years old. She appeared in the Philippines on a show called "Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids."
There, she came out looking like Taylor Swift's miniature clone and offered maximal Swiftian dance moves, pouts and hair flips.
This seems to have flipped a switch in the collective consciousness, but not all in one direction.
Vigor, you see, is blessed with wit and charm far beyond that of most 7-year-olds. In this performance, she takes on the full gamut of high-quality performance, including prancing around in a short dress while singing "You Belong With Me."
More than 2 million people have already sat in YouTube judgment on this video since it was posted on Sunday.
Some see this as deeply disturbing.
Which led to comments such as this from Kitty Vandiver: "How is this less exploitative than a child pageant? Let kids be kids and not hypersexual circus seals. smh."
"Put these parents in jail. disgusting and no one thinks you have class parents," opined Julio Gulio.
Actually, those parents seem just fine with it. Her mom, Christy Bernardo, told the Daily Mail: "People may say she's on TV and I'm exploiting her but she does many things people don't see. At Christmas we visited a poor village and she gave her toys away to the children there."
With Bernardo stood YouTube commenter Bainarih Mindalano: "To those people with very negative comments saying 'this is so disturbing', 'making money off of children', 'she just lost her childhood', yadda yadda. You want her to stop performing? You think the kid would be happy about that? You think she'll feel very thankful towards you?"
Then again, Xia's dad, civil engineer Alan Vigor, admitted to the Mail that his daughter has already been offered a Hollywood deal to become the next Shirley Temple. Because we so desperately need another one.
So you now must declare yourself to be on the side of Vigor or of restraint. There is no in-between.
