The Family Business
Family blogging and vlogging is a million-dollar industry that claims to offer advice and community to those raising their kids in a digital world—but do the kids pay the cost?
Content Warning: Mentions of child abuse, neglect
There was one genre of content that had a quiet explosion in the 2010s—the family channel. Whether it was the opulence offered by creators such as the ACE family or a more grounded day-to-day coverage of The Dougherty Dozen, parents and individuals alike found joy in watching creators go through the hardships of raising kids and the joy of seeing their favorite creators’ children grow. Families would grow along with channels and we would accompany vlogging parents to their scans, learn about pregnancy as it unfolds, and see how the dynamics in these families would change as the children we became connected to grew into older sisters and younger brothers.
But was this healthy for the kids? It was a point not really considered at the genre’s height. Vlogging was considered the parent's job, and the children's place was in the background, despite how much of the content they were actually in. These kids got holidays, PR packages, brand new houses, and the best of the best at every milestone; they just had to share those milestones with thousands to millions of often grown-ups who felt they knew them personally.
This is where the trouble came. All of a sudden, preteen girls learning about their first period or getting their first bra was monetizable content. Young kids at the butt of "family pranks" were being recorded while they asked their parents not to use them for their channel, and putting it on their channel. These examples are from the most infamous of the bad family channels—Daddyofive and 8 passengers.
For those that didn’t follow—Daddyofive was a family "prank" channel that in 2018 was exposed by YouTube newsreader Philip Defranco in a campaign to expose them for child abuse and neglect. The Maryland police agreed with this assertion, who charged Martin and Mike and Heather Martin, who took Alford Pleas to two counts each of child neglect, and the children that Martin had used for his channel had full custody transferred to their mother who claimed that she had been coerced into signing a custody agreement that stopped her from seeing her children for 3 years. By the time this had unfolded, the channel had accumulated 750k subscribers, over 170 million views; in 2024, he is still vlogging with his stepsons on a channel with almost 80k subscribers, where their bio insists wrongful conviction and that the channel is mainly run by his kids despite him being front and center in most videos.
8 Passengers is a darker story still. Run by Ruby Franke, it followed Ruby’s life as a stay-at-home mum to 6 children, but as time went on the treatment of her children became progressively worse, exacerbated by the involvement of her new life coach Jodi Hilderbrant. Her oldest son in particular was subject to wilderness therapy and did a 9-month stint sleeping on a beanbag in their living room despite the "YouTube-money" home. In the end, she and Hilderbrant pled guilty to child abuse at the end of last year, and as the case came out it became apparent how much her children had suffered while Franke taught others about parenthood.
In the case of the Frankes, that eldest son Chad has some moderate Snapchat fame, a healthy 229k on Instagram, a few thousand Twitch followers, and a tendency to make "my mom's a felon jokes," which after his childhood is absolutely his right. Meanwhile, his elder sister Shari spoke to the Utah State Legislature last month to advocate for greater protections for child influencers, stating that she came to them "as a victim of Family vlogging." Their minor siblings have been placed under the care of the state.
Shari Franke speaks to Utah State legislators about the dangers of family vlogging, October 2024. Via @sharifranke on instagram © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
It is easy to separate the cases of abuse from the genre of content as a whole; in fact, it is more comfortable that way. Vlogs of kids in Disney World, keeping video diaries when they’re sick or a series teaching older kids and preteens how to cook don’t appear harmful on their face, but scratch and the issues begin to show. When Shari Franke discusses it, she recalls being paid or taken shopping when her embarrassing moments were filmed or when they recorded an event they were excited for; she also highlights that payment for children is under the table and far from guaranteed. "There is no vacation from filming," she reminded Congress, a fact that can be easy to forget when the content comes across so innocent.
Taking this further, it is not just how much the children are filmed, it’s what about these children that is shared by their parents. It feels innocent, helpful to share tips on topics such as discipline, how to help with bedwetting, or what to do if your child is being picked on. This content on its face is informative and helpful for first-time or parents at a loss, but for the children that are contained in these anecdotes the tales of the most embarrassing aspects of their childhood are immortalized on platforms that amass thousands if not millions of views in some cases. This can be negated somewhat by not sharing the faces or names of your children, but for a child in a school setting, they know that once their peers work out who their parents are, that anonymity is shattered in their personal life.
It is not just the notes of embarrassment that can cause unrest and trauma in a family blogging setting—putting your children on the internet so brazenly exposes them to people looking for deviant content. This particular rabbit hole can get dark very fast, with the least graphic example being that those who have deviant interests in children may watch family content then leave comments with timestamps that when pressed, offer those with similar interests compromising stills of these child influencers. More recently, there has been controversy on TikTok where parents are posting their toddlers in situations that may be compromising in regards to those with aforementioned deviant interests, with some discourse occurring surrounding parents posting this compromising content on purpose due to the views and subsequent revenue that such content creates. This issue is also mentioned by Shari Franke.
The final aspect to discuss is one touched on briefly, which is the financial aspect of working in this family business. As Shari Franke mentioned, the work of the child influencer is daily and constant, and the money is not guaranteed. A couple of US states, namely Illinois, whose law states that children under 16 are entitled to a percentage of earnings of content when they appear in at least 30% of content in a 30-day period and the content generates at least 10 cents a view. California followed suit in September 2024 with an update of their Coogan laws alongside a piece of legislation that ensures that 15% of earnings go into trust if the child appears in the same 30% of content, but these are the only states with such stipulations and other laws focus on transparency in advertising rather than work completed. The UK has no such measures despite introducing new child safety legislation with the new Labour government. France has updated their laws to give child influencers the same protections as child actors and models up until age 16, focusing on putting money into savings accounts and getting authority permission for employment of child influencers by a company, and Norway has instilled an age limit of 15 for social media accounts—the extent to which there is regulation of child’s social media in the EU.
Most of the child protection laws online focus on children being the consumer rather than the content, giving parents free reign to work their children for any shifts they please and for whatever money they see fit. Commentators have compared the state of the child influencer to the state of the child actor in the early 20th century: able to be worked by their parents at their whim and spend the money that they generate as they please. Now that children like Shari Franke are reaching the age of autonomy, it’s only a matter of time before the lived reality of child influencers comes to light; though the mode has changed, the story of the exploited child may have stayed the same.
