If you spend a portion of your time online, you have likely heard about family vlogs. When you think about it, children exposing themselves and performing for cameras so their parents can earn money is kind of dreadful. Now that these children are growing up, they are starting to speak out about their experiences.
Today's OP is one of them. Granted, she spoke out under the anonymity of a Reddit username, but it doesn't diminish the horribleness she experienced. In her words, it was a life-ruining experience.
More info: Reddit
If you think about it, family vlogs are kind of eerie, as it's parents exploiting their children for online clout and money
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
A woman came to Reddit to share about how horrible it was to grow up in a family vlogging environment
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Her parents used to make her and her sisters share personal details about puberty with an online demographic that consisted mostly of adult men
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
In addition to the violation of their privacy, the siblings also couldn't have friends outside of a circle of family vloggers and were homeschooled
Image credits: imonlineforever
The woman described all the experiences as life-ruining and said that since the channel was closed due to the father's abuse and infidelity, she's barely had any contact with her parents
Back in 2013, one video of the OP’s brother went viral. So, her parents decided to capitalize on it and start family vlogging.
If you’re unsure what family vlogging is, it’s basically content about a certain family. Typically, it’s videos about a family's daily life. More often than not, it’s mostly focused on the children – their school life, other activities, or even intimate moments.
The vlogging caused the children to be pulled out of school. Instead, they were homeschooled so they wouldn’t have any external distractions. They also weren’t allowed to make friends outside the family vlogging community.
From the beginning of her family vlogging career, the post’s author hated it. She was a shy kid and didn’t fit in with the parents’ wishes for the videos. Still, the girl was pushed to share intimate moments of growing up. Like her first bras, first period, first kisses, and so on.
What makes it even worse is that their main demographic was adult men. The channel had around 2 million subscribers, which means that as adult men were the majority, there were a lot of them watching. Creepy, isn’t it?
After all, family vlogging is viewed as child exploitation. A family home is a place where a child is supposed to feel safe. Yet, family vlogging ruins that safety, creating a skewed power dynamic between the person in front of the camera (a child) and behind the camera (a parent).
By getting their life events filmed and posted online, children lose privacy, both physically and online. With the loss of privacy, safety is lost too. Their information can be used for stalking, bullying, scamming, and so on.
Image credits: prostooleh / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The restrictions due to privacy issues add to the need to always be camera-ready and perform their lives for others, creating a hostile environment for kids. It all can damage their well-being and development.
Then, there’s the question of money too. In many places, there are no regulations that ensure that the kids performing for family vlogs are compensated.
At least in Illinois, recently there was a new law passed that ensures this. Basically, child vloggers were included in the existing Child Labor Law, next to previously included child performers, actors, and models. Now, kids under the age of 16 who live in Illinois have a right to monetary compensation for their generated profit.
Speaking of profit, to make their own, besides exploiting their girls’ puberty, the OP’s parents portrayed their family as picture-perfect. The reality was way more flawed. The parents always fought, and the father was abusive towards the mother even had an affair. The latter offense was the last nail in the coffin of their channel.
They wasted all the earned money on alcohol, substances, and vacations without the children. Now, years later, the woman has barely any relationship with her folks. Neither do her siblings. They just can’t forgive them for taking away their privacy. Even to this day, she gets recognized anytime she steps outside. Aggravatingly, the parents don’t even regret putting their kids through all of this.
Naturally, many netizens felt sorry that the woman and her siblings had to go through these things. They hoped that they were taking time to better themselves after such trauma, to which the author answered that she’s currently in therapy.
She also shared that at least at this point in her life, she’s not planning to expose them without the anonymity that Reddit provides. It’s just not worth the further trauma that additional publicity would cause. Either way, as her username says, she’s gonna be online forever, so it’s normal for her to not want to contribute to that any further.
So, right now the only proper response to this story is to wish that she’ll get better. Also, this and many other horror stories of family vlogging might convince at least some parents to stay away from such an activity. Is it worth it to traumatize your children for online attention and money? Well, today’s OP doesn’t think so.
Folks online felt sorry for the woman's struggles and hoped she was getting the help she needs, to which she answered that she is, but she isn't planning to expose her parents without anonymity
