The Troubling Reality of Family Vloggers
When Exploitation Becomes Entertainment
Since the creation of social media, people have shared photos and videos of their children. While there is nothing wrong with sharing the occasional photos with friends, many parents took sharing the occasional memory and decided to turn it into a brand.
YouTube and TikTok have become a playground for parents to exploit their children. The idea behind “family vlogging” makes sense. Parents are looking for ways to build a community with others who have the same values. Many of these parents start innocently. Their baby does something funny, they decide to share it, and they start getting likes from people other than their family.
Because of this, they share more and more and more. Once money became attached to the serotonin boost of social media validation, they now had a business based on themselves and their children.
In order for the business to keep growing, they need to showcase more and more. If they kept showing the same innocent moments, the audience becomes bored. If there is one thing that the internet loves, it’s drama and trainwreck moments. There becomes pressure to have kids perform for views.
Social media has become a living scrapbook for kids. The difference is that these precious memories no longer belong to their families. They belong to the world.
No legal protection
Despite the conversation about the morality of children in traditional media, such as television, there is a level of legal protection for children in those places. Restricted work hours, educational requirements, access to money that they worked for, etc.
When it comes to family vlogging and internet content centered around children, there are no legal protections. It is common that the very kids that generate the views for the channel will not receive a penny of the money that their parents collect.
The parents are upgrading their houses, buying new cars, and going on sponsored trips, all while the children have no legal right to any of it.
There have been vloggers that have stated that they refuse to let their children live with them past the age of eighteen because it is their house (despite purchasing and updating said home with videos that are based on those very children).
Until there is some form of legal protection for these children, there is no ethical way for this content to be created. In terms of media, this is a new genre. Soon, many of the children that were a part of the early channels are going to become adults and it is likely that some lawsuits about pay, or lack thereof, will start popping up in the news.
Sexual exploitation
Unfortunately, children on the internet are not only exploited financially. The content that is exploiting the children financially also exploits them sexually.
While this is not the direct intent of (most) family vloggers, the personal moments that they are filming and posting become bait for many sexual predators online. There have been cases of predators commenting time stamps on videos of these children to refer back to/share with other people. These comments often refer to things like bath-time, potty training, swimming, bra shopping, etc.
Many smaller channels likely are unaware of this presence, but larger ones are likely very aware of the risks posed to their children. Any child with access to social media is likely getting some form of inappropriate message into their inbox, if not directly as a comment on the content they/their families post.
While it may be disturbing to think about, this is happening daily on family vlogging channels. There have even been some cases where this has been borderline exploited for more views (which leads to more money).
While it is important to not live in fear of the bad things that people do, it is completely unnecessary to willingly expose children to this kind of exploitation for a paycheck. Unlike personal social media, blocking one or two creepy commenters will not separate the children from these predators. The videos are free to access and share. They are also able to lurk behind the screen without saying a word.
Public displays of punishment
Not only are milestones filmed for the world to see, but so are the times that children are punished. No one expects kids to be perfect, but in addition to traditional punishments, they are now punished for their views. Many vlogging parents share their discipline techniques while forcing their kids to have conversations about their behavior with a camera in their faces.
One infamous family vlogger shared her parenting methods including:
- Threatening to cut the heads off of her child’s toy for leaving it on the bedroom floor
- Refusing to bring her kindergartener lunch because she deserved to be uncomfortable for not being responsible to pack her own lunch
- Taking away her son’s bed as a form of punishment, forcing him to sleep on a beanbag for months
This is just what this family, like many others, is willing to show to the public. These moments are not accidental either. They film, edit, then publish these videos. They know the exact content that they are including about their own children and do not think twice about it.
Lack of consent and privacy
The primary issue with branded family vlogging is the lack of privacy. The children of vloggers often are too young to agree to have their lives put on camera. There has been a recent trend as many of the original children that popularized these videos are becoming teenagers and adults and rebelling against the constant filming.
Imagine having your childhood mistakes, your preteen awkwardness, your teenage experimentation exploited. Your friends can see these videos, future employers, future partners, etc. Strangers, friends, and enemies alike have an insight into your entire life and you have no say in the matter.
There was a famous story about an adopted toddler being “rehomed” due to behavioral issues. (Many viewers of this horrendous moment also assumed that the behavioral issues were not worth the views they were no longer getting from him in comparison to when he was adopted.)
This child will not only be able to see what these adults thought about him, but they will get to see the opinions of strangers. There were news articles and segments on this. There were dozens of videos created discussing the choices his “parents” made for him.
Unlike traditional media, these kids are required to be “on” 24/7. Their job is in their home, at school, and on their family vacations. There are no limited hours, no safe space, and no separation from their “boss.” Privacy in this industry is non-existent.
There are currently no policies on YouTube or TikTok about using children for content on their platforms (other than some obvious illegal activity). It is unlikely that family vlogging will be limited anytime soon, but there needs to be a level of privacy for these kids.
In order to protect children online, there should be laws put in place. If a family is earning ‘X’ amount of income per month from content creation that includes minors, they should be required to put a percentage of that income into a protected account, similar to a Coogan account that is used for children in the entertainment industry.
With the internet being as large as it is, and with all of the new platforms popping up, it is hard to put a specific line of what can be shared online. It is difficult to go over smaller creators that do not have a brand associated with their family vlogs, but it is important to find a standard that protects children that are exposed to a larger platform.
There will likely never be a time where children are not posted on social media, but platforms like YouTube and TikTok should be responsible for the accounts that they pay and governments need to look into implementing policies for child labor laws for online content.
