The Dangers of Family Vlogging

It has been a hot debate for awhile about the predatory nature of many Vlogger families and the exploitation of their children for popularity and profit. In this editorial article, Averie brings the hidden culture of family vlogging to light.

The Dangers of Family Vlogging

By Averie Black

Family vlogging is one of the many popular genres of YouTube. The first family vlog channel started in 2003 and the genre has only gotten more popular over the years. Though harmless at first glance, the culture hidden beneath is much darker.

Vlogging is the act of someone filming themselves throughout the day doing their normal routine. This is usually accompanied by clickbait titles or exciting activities that make people want to live vicariously through them. As The Arts Development Company defines it, “Vlog stands for a video blog or video log, and refers to a type of blog where most or all of the content is in a video format.” The problem is when family vlogging comes in. Family vlogging is filming and posting content of a family’s everyday life. The prime focus of these videos is their children. Some of these family channels will go as far as posting birth videos of their children and, quite literally, start their family vlogs from day one.

The kids of family vloggers cannot consent to clips of them being posted online, and by the time they are old enough to understand what is happening, they have already been desensitized to the vlogger lifestyle. A lot of these vlogs contain embarrassing moments of childhood that no eventual adult would want millions of people, including future friends, partners, and coworkers, to watch. Some of these showcase their daughter’s first period, having “the talk”, and prying their child to talk about their crush to get more views. One of the most famous family vlogger channels, The LeBrant Fam, commonly uses extreme, hyperbole titles such as: We Had To Leave Everleigh and Posie Behind…, We Caught Everleigh Lying To Us…, Our New House Got Flooded, and Zealand’s 1st Birthday Party Did Not Go As Planned…. A lot of these depressing titles have to do with their children being taken, hurt, or getting in trouble. None of these are nearly as severe as the title makes it seem. Even the most innocent channels use their children’s misfortunes for clicks.

LaBrant Fam Video Featuring a Clickbait Title and Thumbnail

LaBrant Fam Video Featuring a Clickbait Title and Thumbnail

Giving family vloggers a platform is opening child abusers up to earning money for their abuse. The infamous, now deleted, YouTube channel DaddyOFive features pranks in which the children are verbally abused by their parents to the point of the kids sobbing and apologizing for things they never did. DaddyOFive was created in 2015 and was not taken off of the platform until 2018. At its height, they earned an estimated 3.88k a year in revenue. Not only is YouTube putting toxic families in the limelight, but they are also paying them, actively promoting abusive behavior. Another vlogging family, 8 Passengers, has been called out for unreasonable punishment and overall bad parenting. After their oldest son, Chad, had been pranking his little brother, their mother, Ruby, took his bedroom privileges. In a now-deleted video, Chad says, “My bedroom was taken away for seven months. I was sleeping on a beanbag since October.” In addition to that, they sent Chad away on a ten-week Mormon, wilderness boot camp where the youth would be camping in the Arizona desert. Though they never directly say why he was sent away, the camp itself, Anasazi Foundation, has been exposed to have abusive instructors, a death toll, and discriminatory behavior against minorities. According to Casetext , a website intended for attorneys to study past cases, "...she was married to a woman named Lilli. Howard told Hogan that her sexual orientation would prevent her from being hired by Anasazi because some parents would find her to be an untrustworthy and undesirable role model for their children." 8 Passengers is still running, with 2.35 million subscribers and the highest estimated income of 11.8 thousand dollars a month as of August 2020.

A Screenshot from the Deleted 8 Passengers Video

The children already have their lives documented on camera, but this also opens them up to harassment. A few channels, such as The ACE Family and Yawi Vlogs, choose to leave comments on even after YouTube has started forcibly turning comments off of videos that feature minors to crack down on pedophilia on the platform. According to Julia Alexander, a reporter for The Verge, “YouTube decided to close some comment sections on videos with children in an attempt to block predatory behavior from pedophiles.” In even more disgusting cases, the parents will knowingly sexualize their children for views. Many channels have been terminated because of adults forcing their children to do sexual or disturbing things and marketing the content toward kids.

Image by Scott Beale on Flickr

When it comes to the more popular family vloggers, they are often seen in big houses and taking expensive trips to Disneyland and Hawai’i. Not unlike other Youtubers, if they are popular enough they can live off of YouTube income. The problem comes in when the children are not getting any of the profit. Without kids, family channels cannot exist, and the focus of family channels is on the lives of the kids and the exploitation of private family moments. Since all of the money goes to the adult with the channel under their name, there is no way of knowing if these parents are giving their children a salary, but one could assume not. Though the kids receive payment through privileges like a big house and vacations, it does not set them up for a good future and they are not in control of their own funds. YouTube’s child safety policy states, “YouTube doesn’t allow content that endangers the emotional and physical well-being of minors.” There is nothing in YouTube policies that could limit child labor or what percentage of earnings must go to featured minors and how those funds are handled.

During the filming of movies and tv shows in which minors are paid, there are very specific laws when it comes to how long they can work, how long they need to be in school, and how their money is handled. For example, according to Nancy Hayes Casting, a casting agency in San Francisco, “Minors in the entertainment industry may not work more than eight hours in a day [LC 1308.7 and 1392] or more than 48 hours in a week [LC 1308.7]. They may only work between the hours of 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. (to 12:30 a.m. on days preceding a nonschool day) [LC 1308.7].” Similarly, a law known as The Jackie Coogan Law prevents parents from stealing their child's money by putting 15% of their earnings into a savings account that their guardians can monitor, but not withdraw from. Unlike the entertainment industry, Youtube has no laws like this and, even more unfortunately, they have no way of knowing what is happening behind the scenes of their most popular videos.

Family vlogging, though innocent in appearance, hides a much darker history of child exploitation and pedophilia. Even if YouTube chooses to make more policies when it comes to their child stars, there is no way for them to know what kind of behavior happens behind the scenes.

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