The ever-expanding group of social media influencers has seen an influx of minors since Musical.ly, now TikTok, hit the scene. Consistently having minors as the main consumers, big celebrities have been made of the children that engage with it. Danielle Cohen, Jacob Sartorius, Sebastian Moy, and Charli D’Amelio are just a handful of stars that have gained their fame before the age of eighteen. Are they destined to follow the same trends of famous children before them? Modern child celebrity has taken on a new image, and we should all be concerned.
Child stars are not a new concept, and there are more than enough positive and negative examples of what fame can do to children. But in this age of social media, we are seeing school-aged children attain massive, ever-present followings. As innocuous as being a child influencer may sound, the vast majority of children are not capable, mentally or emotionally, to handle the pressure and expectations that come with this status. Unfortunately, we did not have to wait long to see negative impacts of this new type of celebrity.
Zoe LaVerne vs. TikTok Popularity
Zoe LaVerne, born in June of 2001, started posting on Musical.ly in 2016. She was fifteen. Gaining popularity at a quick pace with her dance and lip-sync videos, she had nearly 600,000 followers on the app by December 2017.
Fast forward to 2020, and Charli D’Amelio is TikTok’s rising star. D’Amelio had not yet turned sixteen, had only started on TikTok the year before, and she was just about to surpass Zoe LaVerne in followers. Most likely recorded in late 2019, a video showing Zoe’s reaction to Charli’s success is posted online by an ex-boyfriend— also an influencer — showing her in tears on the floor. “She’s so close to passing me, and everyone keeps reminding me that she’s gonna pass me!” she cries, also referring to D’Amelio as “this b — ch”. Zoe laments, saying Charli should not be able to gain more followers than her because “[she’s] Zoe f — king LaVerne, and [she is] literally the star of TikTok”.
Charli did pass Zoe and has been the most followed TikToker since March of 2020. Public opinion of Zoe LaVerne turned largely negative, something that has not changed much since then, though not without fault on her part. As is most often the case, her fame has not entirely disappeared, but it’s difficult to come back from a display like that. Netizens can be unforgiving, especially when someone attacks their favorite star. Zoe, having just turned eighteen, had gotten caught up in the competition of relevance and cracked under the pressure.
Child Marriage?
Zoe LaVerne made her TikTok account herself. Some social media platforms, such as Instagram, have age minimums for joining, so profiles for younger children are often presented as handled by their parents. This is the case for Mila Maxanets, a child model and influencer from Ukraine, whose mother, Daria, supposedly manages her Instagram. Mila, in March of 2021, was eight years old.
Mila is in a relationship with another influencer, Pavel Pai, who was thirteen in March 2021. On their profiles, you can see photos that imitate those of adult couples. There are posts of Pavel kissing Mila on the cheek, Mila sitting in Pavel’s lap, and even a photo of the two in bed together that Mila’s mother had since said was staged.
Not only are photos being staged, but the parents even held a pretend wedding ceremony for Mila and Pavel. The legal age to marry in Ukraine is eighteen, so the two may not be legally wed, but this is the type of relationship their parents have chosen for these children to present. Mila and Pavel, reportedly, have even moved in together.
Saying the photo of the two in bed was staged might have been Daria Maxanets’s way of quelling uproar about the inappropriate nature of the public relationship. Instead, that admission and the “wedding” reveal that this eight-year-old’s relationship is, at some level, manufactured by Daria and Pavel’s parents. Netizens and Mila’s father — her parents divorced around 2019 — have expressed much shock and concern and have accused the mother and Pavel’s parents of using the children to make money. The parents, of course, have denied this claim.
The Fate of the Child Influencer
History has shown how celebrity can negatively impact people, let alone young people. Children are not well-equipped to handle what comes with millions of hyper-attentive fans, with the ebb and flow of Internet popularity, or with the regularly evolving rules of behavior celebrities are expected to follow. The picture becomes more disturbing when the parents are putting their children out like this. Daria Maxanets and the Pais may claim they are not using their children for money, but what else are we meant to assume when they make their eight- and thirteen-year-olds pose and behave like romantic adults for their Instagram followers?
On the bright side, an investigation was launched into Mila and Pavel’s situations. Potentially a positive, Zoe, now twenty, is married and a mother. We can only hope the futures of these three influencers will be better than what we’ve seen of their youths. But what about the others? What about the D’Amelio sisters, who have talked about the malicious criticism and hate comments they have received and whose fame has funded their family’s new lifestyle? What about the babies and toddlers that are the focus of so many YouTube channels? Who is collecting all the AdSense from those videos? Who will be held responsible for the scandals that these minors may get into? Who will be the one actually suffering the impact?
None of this is to say children must be banned from exploring this type of hobby. We simply need to be concerned about how the story of the child social media influencer can play out. Predators are a very serious threat but not the only one. As much as possible, it should be made sure that the content is appropriate, the child does not become overwhelmed with trying to stay relevant, and the child’s activities do not become the main source of income for the family. The risk of harm to the child is too high. Social media use should not be damaging or be forcing teens and preteens to act like adults. Let children be children.
