Issues with Family Vlogging

[christie]

ugh. family vlogging is incredibly problematic for children. of course with vlogging/social media in general still being in its infancy, we can't thoroughly the impact it has on kids, but it doesn't take a genius to read the writing on the wall.

Spoiler: lengthy 8 passengers rant because i hate them

i brought this up the other day in an a&n thread about some weird ass lady who's been teaching her teen sons to carry tampons for their female classmates and shop for their younger sister's bras, but when i think of how yucky family vlogging is, i think of the 8 passengers/the franke family. they started their channel 6 years ago. their 6 kids are ages 6-17, so the two younger kids have spent their formative years being filmed on a regular basis, and the older children have had their adolescence on display. from what i understand, the parents try to teach their parenting style or some shit in their videos and show how they handle their busy household. not surprisingly, they have zero boundaries when it comes to filming their kids and their business.

bra shopping for their daughter? camera shoved in her face. each kid (i think) had their first shaves filmed and uploaded. puberty talk? unscripted and uploaded. intimate stuff that off-camera makes kids uncomfortable, shared with their ~2.5 million subs on youtube (i'm sure none of which are pedophiles). they got into hot water with CPS because they have a tendency to cheerfully talk about their past punishments, which included sending off one of the boys on one of those "coming of age" survivalist trips in the desert, i think that same boy wasn't allowed a bed/bedroom for 7 months in the house because he pranked his little brother into thinking they were going to disneyland, etc. they categorize being able to eat as a privilege and threaten to take it away, too. there's also a clip where the mom talks about how the school called because her youngest daughter didn't bring lunch. she refused to bring it because the her daughter claimed she made her own and brought it, so she needed her to go hungry and learn her lesson. bitch, she's 6. stop flexing your parenting on youtube and bring your baby some damn food.

there's a lot to unpack that i can't remember, but all in all, i feel bad for those kids. even with the camera off it sounds like it sucks to be in that house, but the exposure can't help either. the kids have admitted they don't really have friends, but i hope they can find some escape from their suffocating household and turn out okay. ♥

i am curious to hear about the experiences of children who grew up in the family vlogger spotlight in the future. particularly children who got to experience both a normal childhood and a childhood they had to share with the internet.

 

[NoReturn]

Don't think it's so much about being healthy, it's about attention and praise they feel are lacking in their life. If you are happy at home, why is it necessary to tell strangers about how you raise your children unless you need the adulation? Sure, it's nice to help people if you think you have the answers, but when you make it your profession or film it, I think you are looking for something for yourself - with little regard to the long term effects to your family, or if they even want to participate.

ugh. family vlogging is incredibly problematic for children. of course with vlogging/social media in general still being in its infancy, we can't thoroughly the impact it has on kids, but it doesn't take a genius to read the writing on the wall.

Spoiler: lengthy 8 passengers rant because i hate them

i brought this up the other day in an a&n thread about some weird ass lady who's been teaching her teen sons to carry tampons for their female classmates and shop for their younger sister's bras, but when i think of how yucky family vlogging is, i think of the 8 passengers/the franke family. they started their channel 6 years ago. their 6 kids are ages 6-17, so the two younger kids have spent their formative years being filmed on a regular basis, and the older children have had their adolescence on display. from what i understand, the parents try to teach their parenting style or some shit in their videos and show how they handle their busy household. not surprisingly, they have zero boundaries when it comes to filming their kids and their business.

bra shopping for their daughter? camera shoved in her face. each kid (i think) had their first shaves filmed and uploaded. puberty talk? unscripted and uploaded. intimate stuff that off-camera makes kids uncomfortable, shared with their ~2.5 million subs on youtube (i'm sure none of which are pedophiles). they got into hot water with CPS because they have a tendency to cheerfully talk about their past punishments, which included sending off one of the boys on one of those "coming of age" survivalist trips in the desert, i think that same boy wasn't allowed a bed/bedroom for 7 months in the house because he pranked his little brother into thinking they were going to disneyland, etc. they categorize being able to eat as a privilege and threaten to take it away, too. there's also a clip where the mom talks about how the school called because her youngest daughter didn't bring lunch. she refused to bring it because the her daughter claimed she made her own and brought it, so she needed her to go hungry and learn her lesson. bitch, she's 6. stop flexing your parenting on youtube and bring your baby some damn food.

there's a lot to unpack that i can't remember, but all in all, i feel bad for those kids. even with the camera off it sounds like it sucks to be in that house, but the exposure can't help either. the kids have admitted they don't really have friends, but i hope they can find some escape from their suffocating household and turn out okay. ♥

i am curious to hear about the experiences of children who grew up in the family vlogger spotlight in the future. particularly children who got to experience both a normal childhood and a childhood they had to share with the internet.

I feel the same way about women who define themselves as being "a mom" before everything else. It makes their sense of identity way too caught up in their children, but it's also bad for the kids themselves.
E.g.

• Pageant/TV moms have been a phenomenon for a while. I'm surprised we haven't see a YouTuber version of JonBenét yet.
• If your mom is way into babies and the "cute" parts of childhood, then kids will be smart enough to notice that their "value" to their mother goes down the older they get. I've even seen kids cry about getting older because they feel like they let their mom down in some way. Add in also that sometimes this is around the same age their dads stop hugging them and it's heartbreaking to see.
• There's nothing wrong with being a SAHM, but only if you've actively doing things. Your kids can't be your hobby. A mom who has no hobbies or interests of her own is passively NOT-modeling those behaviors for her kids.

It's ok to acknowledge that some people aren't good moms. They aren't terrible moms either, but the default of thinking of mothers as everyday heroes or whatever is stupid, even more so when social media gets involved and the mom get addicted to social-media-asspats as soon as she gets knocked up.

 

[Puerto Pollo]

I feel the same way about women who define themselves as being "a mom" before everything else. It makes their sense of identity way too caught up in their children, but it's also bad for the kids themselves.
E.g.

• Pageant/TV moms have been a phenomenon for a while. I'm surprised we haven't see a YouTuber version of JonBenét yet.
• If your mom is way into babies and the "cute" parts of childhood, then kids will be smart enough to notice that their "value" to their mother goes down the older they get. I've even seen kids cry about getting older because they feel like they let their mom down in some way. Add in also that sometimes this is around the same age their dads stop hugging them and it's heartbreaking to see.
• There's nothing wrong with being a SAHM, but only if you've actively doing things. Your kids can't be your hobby. A mom who has no hobbies or interests of her own is passively NOT-modeling those behaviors for her kids.

It's ok to acknowledge that some people aren't good moms. They aren't terrible moms either, but the default of thinking of mothers as everyday heroes or whatever is stupid, even more so when social media gets involved and the mom get addicted to social-media-asspats as soon as she gets knocked up.

*insert random location and random event, double points if interrupting more competent people, like a Professor at his own university class*

"as a mother, I..."

*insert bunch of completely useless crap nobody cares about*

 

[CheesyBoy]

ugh. family vlogging is incredibly problematic for children. of course with vlogging/social media in general still being in its infancy, we can't thoroughly the impact it has on kids, but it doesn't take a genius to read the writing on the wall.

Spoiler: lengthy 8 passengers rant because i hate them

i brought this up the other day in an a&n thread about some weird ass lady who's been teaching her teen sons to carry tampons for their female classmates and shop for their younger sister's bras, but when i think of how yucky family vlogging is, i think of the 8 passengers/the franke family. they started their channel 6 years ago. their 6 kids are ages 6-17, so the two younger kids have spent their formative years being filmed on a regular basis, and the older children have had their adolescence on display. from what i understand, the parents try to teach their parenting style or some shit in their videos and show how they handle their busy household. not surprisingly, they have zero boundaries when it comes to filming their kids and their business.

bra shopping for their daughter? camera shoved in her face. each kid (i think) had their first shaves filmed and uploaded. puberty talk? unscripted and uploaded. intimate stuff that off-camera makes kids uncomfortable, shared with their ~2.5 million subs on youtube (i'm sure none of which are pedophiles). they got into hot water with CPS because they have a tendency to cheerfully talk about their past punishments, which included sending off one of the boys on one of those "coming of age" survivalist trips in the desert, i think that same boy wasn't allowed a bed/bedroom for 7 months in the house because he pranked his little brother into thinking they were going to disneyland, etc. they categorize being able to eat as a privilege and threaten to take it away, too. there's also a clip where the mom talks about how the school called because her youngest daughter didn't bring lunch. she refused to bring it because the her daughter claimed she made her own and brought it, so she needed her to go hungry and learn her lesson. bitch, she's 6. stop flexing your parenting on youtube and bring your baby some damn food.

there's a lot to unpack that i can't remember, but all in all, i feel bad for those kids. even with the camera off it sounds like it sucks to be in that house, but the exposure can't help either. the kids have admitted they don't really have friends, but i hope they can find some escape from their suffocating household and turn out okay. ♥

i am curious to hear about the experiences of children who grew up in the family vlogger spotlight in the future. particularly children who got to experience both a normal childhood and a childhood they had to share with the internet.

I really fucking hope YouTube starts cracking down on what kind of content kids should be allowed to be in. YouTube made it so that everyone can be a reality TV star, with none of the FCC requirements.

 

[Bakarina]

I really fucking hope YouTube starts cracking down on what kind of content kids should be allowed to be in. YouTube made it so that everyone can be a reality TV star, with none of the FCC requirements.

YouTube got in a lot of shit about COPPA but the only thing that really happened was that content creators that had channels geared towards crafts or animations that, while not child-friendly and weren't ever geared for anyone that young, were considered to be for children and nearly lost everything so now content creators have to bend over backwards because of YouTube's fuckups while family bloggers are STILL on the platform.

 

[cactus]

YouTube got in a lot of shit about COPPA but the only thing that really happened was that content creators that had channels geared towards crafts or animations that, while not child-friendly and weren't ever geared for anyone that young, were considered to be for children and nearly lost everything so now content creators have to bend over backwards because of YouTube's fuckups while family bloggers are STILL on the platform.

Anyone under the age of 13 isn't even allowed on the site. But we all know YouTube and their arbitarily enforced rules.

 

[NoReturn]

It's good this is it's own split off conversation. I get why the mods did it and I hope it doesn't die.

 

[Shydun]

it's fine if you're just documenting days out or whatever. but like, recording your childs life 24/7? fuckin insane. i get like, photo albums n whatever but dude chill out, your child doesnt need to be pimped out online for money and clicks. fuckin psychos out there

 

[Dread First]

As far as 8 Passengers is concerned, Todd Grande did an amazing video on them along with the potential ramifications of family vlogging as a genre on YouTube. As for my thoughts on the subject of family vlogging? I find the entire practice revolting, to put things mildly. I can't pretend like I'm an authority on what children, preteens, and teenagers are like anymore because the bitter fact of the matter is that I'm a grown adult who's so far removed from his youth. At the same time, it's fucking horrifying to me that grown adults think it's a good idea to monetise their entire life, not to mention their children's in such a theatrical style without any regard for their privacy, their safety, or even their own mental health.

A recurring theme among content creators of all kinds, be they streamers, YouTubers, OnlyFans "models," etc. is the glaring lack of privacy that they now have considering how their lives are now basically a matter of public record. The oldest adage when it comes down to the internet is that once it's out there, you can't take it back. Kiwi Farms exists purely because there are an alarming amount of individuals on the internet who think it's a good idea to broadcast every facet of their lives, right down to the most intimate and embarrassing details or their questionable opinions/life circumstances. The fact that two grown adults think it's a good idea to not only consistently violate their entire family's privacy, while also monetising said violations of privacy is fucking revolting when you realise just how much information they're sharing. There's also the technical question to consider regarding said violations of privacy.

I doubt that Ruby Franke and her husband are well-versed regarding how they're able to afford such a luxurious lifestyle at the expense of their children. Our modern technological world actively spies on literally everyone at any given time. Metadata from your phone and computer exists on virtually every photo, video, and screenshot that you share. I can't stomach more than a few minutes of family vlogging, but a recurring motif I've noticed is that so many of these videos are shot in a "long take" format where there are minimal cuts. Now think about this: most phone operating systems nowadays have robust, built-in editors (like Apple iMovie) that allow you to create, edit, and render videos entirely on your phone without any real need to use a computer. Combine the metadata that your phone actively collects, the fact that you can edit stuff easily on your phone, and the fact that most social media companies like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and even places like Gab and Parler don't scrub said metadata from the stuff that you upload, and you have a fucking recipe for disaster. All it takes is for one person to develop an abnormal interest in your life for them to stalk you and pinpoint your exact location in the world.

This might sound like an exercise in paranoid theory-crafting, but data breaches happen all the time. Ashley Madison, Equifax, and Parler are the big ones that come to mind. However, security breaches happen even on smaller websites like Kiwi Farms. We have entire websites dedicated to finding out whether or not your email addresses, passwords, and other such details were compromised. In more extreme cases like with the former, whole photos, videos, conversations, posts, and other such things were archived despite being "deleted" with metadata completely intact. If the US government can pinpoint every single person who partook in the Capitol Hill riots due to preserved metadata from the Parler data breach, what's stopping a wayward paedophile from using YouTube-DL, Bibliogram, Nitter, or any other platform to download the raw video/photo files and using a metadata viewer to pinpoint exact geographical coordinates of the entire 8 Passengers family? The phrase "weaponised autism" exists for a fucking reason, you know.

When you look at the big picture, family vlogging isn't just a grotesque violation of non-consenting children's privacy, it's borderline criminally negligent behaviour. Only time will tell if family vlogging gets made an example of in a court of law, but I doubt that time will come soon.

 

[Lame Entropy]

Monetizing your children is disgusting. You're giving them a digital fingerprint before they even understand the ramifications. Imagine going to school and having your classmates bring up the video your mom posted about buying you a bra or talking about your first period. That would be fucking humiliating and children can be cruel to each other.
Young people are perfectly capable of making asses of themselves online but taking away their choice to do so is gross.

 

[Jack Awful]

It's awful and should be illegal. It incentivizes drama and dysfunction, as that gets clicks, and kids should have space and boundaries, which is something that's decentivized. It also shows narcissism in the parents because they think they're important and entertaining enough to broadcast their family to everyone.

Parents willing to put their kids through that for fame and fortune shouldn't be parents.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

Some of the worst I saw was the Ingham Family; they sold merch of their newest baby, Jace, in the form of a creepily realistic Reborn doll: https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/26/youtubers-ingham-family-selling-reborn-doll-version-child-10466984/

And the dad's allegedly a wrong'un: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45296022

 

[NoReturn]

Monetizing your children is disgusting. You're giving them a digital fingerprint before they even understand the ramifications. Imagine going to school and having your classmates bring up the video your mom posted about buying you a bra or talking about your first period. That would be fucking humiliating and children can be cruel to each other.
Young people are perfectly capable of making asses of themselves online but taking away their choice to do so is gross.

It's awful and should be illegal. It incentivizes drama and dysfunction, as that gets clicks, and kids should have space and boundaries, which is something that's decentivized. It also shows narcissism in the parents because they think they're important and entertaining enough to broadcast their family to everyone.

Parents willing to put their kids through that for fame and fortune shouldn't be parents.

The podcast "You're Wrong About" has a great series on Princess Diana and multiple times during the series they mention how one of the hosts believes that the monarchy is child abuse, and that what we've seen of royal children being in the spotlight for hundreds of years is now being seen on a much larger scale with this sort of shit.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I miss the days before it seems everyone was trying to be "Internet Famous" and "monetized".

 

[JustFuckinaDude]

It’s difficult to stomach for me as well.

I know someone who follows a vlogger named Jessfam or some shit, and as far as I understand it, she got famous for getting knocked up at 16 or something. It just seems so exploitative, even before I consider other issues like lack of privacy.

I miss the days when a woman who got pregnant out of marriage wasn’t celebrated.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

It’s difficult to stomach for me as well.

I know someone who follows a vlogger named Jessfam or some shit, and as far as I understand it, she got famous for getting knocked up at 16 or something. It just seems so exploitative, even before I consider other issues like lack of privacy.

I miss the days when a woman who got pregnant out of marriage wasn’t celebrated.

I wish the guy who knocked up a 16-year-old were famous instead, say, with a mugshot on the news.

 

[Hambubger]

The content on those channels is abysmally terrible along with the negative ramifications of this bs

 

[NoReturn]

The content on those channels is abysmally terrible along with the negative ramifications of this bs

What are they even like? I can't stand watching more than a few minutes at a time so I don't really get the gestalt.

 

[JustFuckinaDude]

What are they even like? I can't stand watching more than a few minutes at a time so I don't really get the gestalt.

“Look at this thing my kid is doing! By the way, thanks to my sponsor!”

“Now we’re shopping at Walmart! By the way, thanks to Walmart for sponsoring this video!”

“Time to go to bed, with this pillow given to us by our sponsor!”

 

[Dread First]

“Look at this thing my kid is doing! By the way, thanks to my sponsor!”

“Now we’re shopping at Walmart! By the way, thanks to Walmart for sponsoring this video!”

“Time to go to bed, with this pillow given to us by our sponsor!”

The really sad thing is that once-respectable doggo Instagram pages like Milperthusky and Lifewithmalamutes are going down the "family vlog" route once they had children of their own. So far, nothing too objectionable happened yet; it's mostly just cute photos of the babies next to their dogs, but it still creeps me the fuck out whenever I see children who barely crossed the 2-year-old threshold have full-on social media pages.

Like for fuck's sake man, is nothing sacred anymore? Must they mention their children in the same breath as a sponsor for the cradles/toys/whatever that they were given?