Imagine your entire childhood was filmed and uploaded to YouTube. All your temper tantrums, embarrassing moments and awkward phases are available to anyone with internet access. 

This is the reality for kids on family vlog channels. 

Many family vloggers, those who make internet content by filming their family’s daily life, have amassed viral popularity. Well-known family channels include The Labrant Fam, The ACE Family and the Ballinger Family. 

Family vloggers are no strangers to controversy. Most recently, Ruby Franke of the channel “8 Passengers” was sentenced to prison for child abuse. According to the Associated Press, Franke pleaded guilty by saying, “With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty.” 

Franke admitted to denying her kids food, kicking and holding their heads underwater, binding them with rope or handcuffs and other abusive behaviors. 

This may be extreme for family vloggers, but some of her abusive tactics were uploaded to YouTube including banning her son from his bedroom and threatening that Santa would not bring toys to the kids as a form of punishment. 

Boring videos don’t entice viewers. Mundane, run-of-the-mill family life won’t get these channels viewers and engagement. So, they turn to extreme actions to get clicks even if it harms their kids. 

Regardless, making money off of content about your kids is distasteful and exploitative. 

Many of these channels show parenting decisions, which in turn exposes the faults and missteps of the kids. Imagine the embarrassment these kids feel when their mistakes and punishments are posted for the whole world to see. 

Some children can’t escape the public eye due to the status of their parents. However, some celebrity parents take explicit action to protect the privacy of their kids.

Eva Mendes said about her kids’ privacy on social media, “Since my children are still so little and don’t understand what posting their image really means, I don’t have their consent. And I won’t post their image until they’re old enough to give me consent,” according to E! News. 

Kim Kardashian also takes action to protect the privacy of her kids, though she is not as strict as Mendes. Kardashian’s daughter, North West, regularly uses TikTok, but does so on an account shared with her mom in which comments are disabled and, as the bio says, it is “managed by an adult.” 

It would be so easy for these celebrity parents to use their kids to make content and money. However, many of them understand the scrutiny that comes with being public on social media and want their kids to be safe. 

However, family vloggers are doing the exact opposite. They don’t protect their kids’ privacy and often force them into bad situations for the thrill of a new subscriber. 

Whether the parents are abusive, like in the case of “8 Passengers,” or if they just show regular daily life, the bottom line is these kids cannot consent to this media exposure. 

I know some of these family channels may have entertaining videos and it may be easy to binge them for hours on end. But I beg you to resist the urge to watch those videos, despite the tempting clickbait, and respect the privacy of these kids. 

Categories: Opinion

Tags: Opinion