Bad Boys Get Bean Bags

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Was that really the turning point where you really said, like, hey, this is something that we can make into an income?

This is something that can sustain our family for the future.

Was that it?

Or like, what was the turning point where you really said, like, man, YouTube, this can really work for us?

Yeah, China definitely helped when we went to go adopt our son.

It helped with, I think, bringing a broader fan base to our content and it helped us kind of start accelerating some growth buying the house, you know, different things like that helped.

China definitely was the point where we had a super loyal fan base following us and then they were always asking, where's the next content?

Where's the next piece?

Because we weren't daily at that point.

We had slowed it down to like probably three or four times a week.

And they were asking like, hey, daily, can you see more content?

We want to see how Huxley's doing, how the family's getting along.

And it was like, wow, okay, we have something here and people are really interested in our journey.

I'm Jane Marie and this is the dream.

That guy you were just listening to, his name is Jim Stoffer.

He and his wife Micah were once the proud proprietors of one of the internet's most popular family vlogs.

He was describing how in 2017, he and Micah announced to their throng of followers that they'd decided to adopt a child from China and proceeded to share every last detail of the process.

For profit, by selling ads on their YouTube channel, they reached millions and were living some version of the self-made American dream.

And then things fell apart when they decided to return their adopted child, which is a phrase that feels like it shouldn't even exist.

There's a documentary about all of this called An Update on Our Family.

More recently, you may have heard about Ruby Frankie and her family who made a ton of money as family vloggers only for Ruby to end up in jail for child abuse.

Today, we're talking to the woman I consider the foremost expert on family content creators and how the pursuit of that kind of money and happiness often ends in misery for at least some of the people involved.

My name is Fortessa Latifi.

I'm a journalist who covers child influencers, mom influencers, and family vloggers.

To start out, and this is just going to probably sound annoying, but when we talk about this area of research that you do, can you just tell me what you mean by influencers and family vloggers and those sorts of things and maybe talk about a different way of terming that?

Because I feel like it feels very

millennial.

You're like, this is a slur, millennial.

But what do you mean by that exactly?

Like,

where are people on, I know it's on the internet, obviously.

Yeah, so this is like mostly TikTokers, YouTubers,

some Instagrammers.

But I would say that family vloggers, when you talk about that, you're basically talking about these huge accounts that have millions of followers or subscribers where all the content is centered around the family's life.

Meaning like cute kid videos?

Cute kid videos or challenges or wake up with me and make breakfast for my six kids because there's always like six or more kids not always but often yeah

can you describe the scale of this industry it's an industry correct like it's an industry it's a multi-billion dollar industry it's huge okay and like how many family vloggers are out there do we know

It's hard to say because there are so many that are like there's there's a scale, right?

There's people who have 100,000 followers and then there are people who have 5 million subscribers on YouTube and even more than that.

So there really is different kind of stratas of this.

But I will say that I've been researching and studying and writing a book about this for several years now.

And still to this day, I will come across people on Instagram or YouTube that have millions of followers that I have never heard of before.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Who are those followers?

Yeah, good question.

So I have been looking into this for my book.

And I mean, it's hard to say because there's so many of them, but I have talked to some of them.

And some of the people that I talk to are young people who have like less than ideal family lives themselves.

Kind of in the way that like maybe you or I or people our age watched Full House when we were kids to like watch a show where parents apologize to their kids.

And that version of this is.

You're so much younger than me.

Mine is Brady Bunch.

Oh, okay.

So I'm like, Full House.

You're like, no.

No, I was having sex instead of watching Full House.

That's for sure.

Oh, my God.

I'm done.

Yeah.

No, no.

Full house was like my vibe for sure.

But regardless, the Brady Bunch, the Full House, you know, that kind of, I don't know, Family Matters, all these kinds of.

Yeah.

And now people watch these family vlogs to see this idealized version of family.

I mean, I follow a couple of accounts, I think.

Who do you follow?

I liked that little girl with the curly hair.

Which one?

That has the British mom and the American dad.

And she's really sassy and cute and has lots of funny ideas.

I don't think I know her.

No, you do.

I don't remember her name.

That's how tuned in I am.

Yeah.

But she's adorable.

Trying to think if there's other...

I'm not really into the family part.

Like, I don't care about people.

You're like, I'm not into family as a concept.

No, I get divorced all the time.

You know what I mean?

Like, no, not my vibe.

Although sometimes there are family vloggers who go through divorce and then kind of rebrand as like their single mom era.

So that's a thing.

I've seen that, especially with Mormon ex-wives.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

And many of them got married when they were like, you know, teenagers or in their very early 20s.

And now they're like 30 with like four or five kids.

And they're just like, I'm single for the first time in my adult life and yeah that kind of content is really quite interesting it really is and and a lot of them do like day-long live videos because those pay a lot can we just talk a little bit more about the money and then i want to hear a little more about you so how do people make money

putting their children on the internet yeah

all right uh i feel like i'm like hitting a buzzer i'm sorry there are several different ways it depends also like which platform you're talking about.

So, like, if we're talking about TikTok, if you have over 10,000 followers on TikTok, you get entered into the creator rewards program in which you get paid per view.

So, there's that.

And there's a similar kind of thing on YouTube.

It's called AdSense, where it basically is dependent on how many ads get placed in your video, which is dependent on how many subscribers you have and how many views you have.

And so, these people get paid for views views and for comments and likes and shares and basically engagement.

And then there's also sponsored content or brand posts.

And so those are the things that you're thinking of when you think of like mom influencers being like, this sippy cup changed my life as a mom and everything is so much easier now.

And you also could be as happy as me if you bought this sippy cup.

Right.

Yeah.

So those are, I would say, the two main ways.

And how good individually can the money be?

Like I said, there's a scale right but people are making so much money in this industry that it's almost can feel shocking like i just watched the new ruby frankie documentary and in it kevin frankie the estranged husband says that they were making six figures a month at their height what

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Oh, I need to go.

I have to go.

I have some videos to make.

I'm so sorry that we have to end our interview right now, but I have a very cute kid.

I'm going to bring her up from her nap and like, I don't know, do something.

Six figures a month?

Wow.

I didn't know.

Yeah.

I mean, when you think like, what is the motivation here?

Like, the motivation is money and fame.

Well, yeah, but

it's easy to think six figures a month.

That's bananas.

And but also if you have seven or eight or nine or 10 children, you kind of need money.

Yeah, but do you need six figures a month?

I don't know.

That seems like a lot.

Can you tell me a little bit about where you live and your one kid?

Yeah.

I live in Los Angeles.

I have lived here for a few years now.

I'm married.

I don't even know why I mentioned that, but

I'm like, that's the least interesting thing about me.

We have a daughter who is not yet a year old.

So she's quite little.

And it's really interesting to like do this work while, you know, being pregnant and then being a mom myself.

Have you felt the pull to put content out there?

No.

Good.

You know, not at all.

I feel the opposite pull.

I have never put my daughter on the internet.

I've seen the back of her head a couple of times.

Yes, that's it.

The back of her head.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like she's like a celebrity.

But I feel this very intense, protective.

I don't even know how to describe it, but I'm like, I want her away from the internet.

Yeah.

I put Goldie on a bit when she was really little, but between my ex-husband and I, we did have a rule, which is that she's not allowed to like go on television, you know, like be a child star, which.

It's a good rule.

It's a weird thing to say out loud because like, who in the world would ever do that?

But he works in Hollywood, so it's adjacent enough that we had to be like, no, I don't want her.

I want her to come across mess naturally.

I know.

I'm like, I want my daughter to be doing what I was doing, smoking weed out of an apple.

Right, exactly.

Just be normal.

Yeah.

Like have your own weird teenage shit, you know?

Seriously.

Where'd you go to journalism school?

I went to the Cronkite School at Arizona State.

Oh, nice.

I am an Arizona trash bag.

You're an Arizona trash bag?

What did you say?

Yeah, yeah.

No, that, what was that show with Kristen Bell?

She was in the Good Place.

Good place.

Yeah.

And she says in that show, I'm an Arizona trash bag.

And I was like, oh my God.

I'm a Michigan trash bag.

Oh, well, listen, we're both trash bags in our own way.

Give me a handful of like.

stories that you've researched and then we can talk about Ruby.

Yeah, sure.

So I have written a lot about this whole world of child influencers and mom influencers.

I had this story that went viral for Teen Vogue that was parent influencers and the children who had their childhood made into content or something like that, in which I interviewed a kid who...

grew up on a family vlogging channel on one of these massive YouTube channels.

And that was really one of the first stories that not only like talked about this world, but talked to the people in this world.

And so since then, I've really made it my my mission to kind of tell this story and to tell it with the people who are in it and not just like, you know, talking heads.

What'd you find out about kids who grow up that way?

Well,

obviously, there's a range of experiences.

And I never want to paint with a broad brush and say every kid who grew up as a child influencer hates it because I fully 100% know that that is not true.

But like this specific story, this person that I call Claire and the story as a pseudonym,

she told me that if she could go back, the content featuring her, she would take it all offline.

She wished none of it existed.

YouTube kind of really dominated her relationship with her parents.

Like that was like all that they talked about, all that they.

Can you describe that?

Like, what did her days look like?

Well, so she would go to school, which is actually like a lot of family vlogging kids are homeschooled.

And there's like the question of why are they homeschooled?

Is it to be able to make more content?

But this particular child went to school and then she would come home and there would be hours of filming and then the parents would go off and edit and then there would be kind of these like strategy meetings about the youtube channel and um what were they scripted i want to get granular here sorry yeah no that's okay yeah so you come home from school and your mom hands you like a bullet points or a call sheet.

I don't know that it was like literally scripted in the way that it was like, you say this and then you say this, but there was very much like a, I imagine here's the thing we're going to do today.

Yes.

You're going to have a lemon for the first time.

Right.

And your reaction is going to be kind of this sort of vibe or, you know, this is what I'm expecting out of this video.

So they would film for hours, you said?

Yeah.

For how much content?

It's hard to say how much of the filming went into how much content.

This is the thing is people are like, oh, it's not that much work, whatever.

It is a lot of work and it is a lot of time.

Yeah.

I know that because like I need someone to manage my social media and I'm not even putting kids on there, but like I know that it's a full-time job.

No, it literally is.

So, okay, so let's go back to the schedule again.

Like, how does it play out for Claire in particular, but also broadly speaking, how do their lives look?

Yeah, I mean, the people that I've talked to, it really is like hours of work each day.

Wow.

This isn't just like a we're popping in and we're just doing this.

And you know, with these really big channels, like it is a ton of work.

And it's interesting because some of the parents, I've interviewed them for my book, and they're like, no, no, it's just, you know, a couple of minutes here and there.

And like, maybe that's true for some channels, but like, it's a lot of work.

Yeah.

And then the editing also takes a long time.

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We just had a law passed here in California where the parents have to set aside some of that money for the kids.

And is that because of Hollywood?

Yeah, so there are three states.

Oh, three.

Oh, okay.

Illinois was first, Minnesota was second, and California was third.

And it was a pretty big deal that it passed in California because there are like three other states that like have the most like kind of influencers.

I would say it's like California, Utah, and Tennessee, maybe.

And so that was like a big deal.

But yeah, so that just passed in California.

And yeah, it's a big deal.

So this kind of crosses over with the work we've done on this show about multi-level marketing, as you're talking about the regions, you know.

What do you make of that?

Like, why families in Utah?

Why families in Tennessee?

Yeah, I have a whole chapter in my book on this.

I got so deep into the Mormon world, but I'll just say that part of it, I think, is that there is this focus in the Mormon faith on proselytizing and on sharing the faith.

And influencing and family vlogging is a way to do that, especially when you tend to be a young parent with a bunch of kids, because that plays really well on Instagram to be like a 25-year-old with three kids.

You know, you're still like young and beautiful and like have light in your eyes.

I'm like, I can't relate.

Oh, yeah.

We did uncover a few factors, at least in terms of MLMs in Utah.

There's very little regulation in some of these places.

Do you see the laws that have been passed in Illinois and Minnesota and California moving to Utah and Tennessee?

There is actually one that is a law that would regulate the child influencer industry basically like these other three states.

And when it was announced and kind of brought up for discussion for the first time, Sherry Frankie was at the hearing and she said something that has stuck in my head.

And she said, there is no ethical or moral family vlogger.

Nice segue.

Let's talk about the Frankie's.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, here you go on a silver platter.

You start.

So Kevin and Ruby Frankie were a married couple from Utah.

They have six children.

I consider them to be like family vlogging royalty.

Yeah.

They were really popular in the early aughts, I would say.

At their height, they had over 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

They were making over six figures a month.

And their whole thing came crashing down when Ruby posted a video that mentioned that her son Chad, who was a teenager at the time, had been sleeping on a bean bag for, I think it was seven months as a punishment.

Like his bed or room had been like taken away.

And she posted it and people were like, wait, this is actually totally insane.

And maybe the strictness of her parenting that we've seen in this YouTube channel is actually a little bit darker than that.

And so she kind of got canceled for that.

And they can we talk about what her content was before that?

Yeah.

They're white people, correct?

Let's start there.

They're Mormon.

Yeah.

Okay.

They're white.

They're Mormon.

They're some of them are quite blonde in that Mormon way.

You know, it was normal family vlogging content.

It was challenges.

It was like,

what do you mean by challenges?

So yeah.

For my book, I have watched so much content and there's just these kind of silly things where it's like, okay, this one that comes to mind is that like this family, this wasn't the Frankies, but I wouldn't be be surprised if they had also done this challenge.

It was like a thing at the time.

But this mom comes in and she assigns each child a color, or they like pick a color out of a hat and it's like purple, brown, green, whatever.

Everyone gets a different color.

And the thing is that they have to only eat food that color for 24 hours.

Then they go to the grocery store.

They go to the grocery store and they pick all yellow food or all purple food.

You know, so these kinds of challenges, kind of like low stakes, silly kind of stuff

got it yeah so there was stuff like that there was stuff like get ready with me and my six kids to go to church or come with us on this family vacation or you know that kind of stuff i'd imagine there would a star would emerge does that happen of the kids yeah

Yeah, so it seems like, and they said this in the documentary, that Chad and Sherry, who were the oldest children, were the stars.

And the videos that had them did the best.

Okay.

I remember the video where she's beaming about forcing her child to sleep on a bean bag.

For months.

For months.

And you can tell he is so uncomfortable.

My bedroom was taken away for seven months and then you give it back like a couple weeks ago.

I don't think our viewers know that.

You've been sleeping on a beanbag.

I've been sleeping on a bean bag since October.

When they posted that video about Chad sleeping on a bean bag, they really lost a ton of subscribers.

They lost a ton of followers.

They lost a lot of revenue and things really changed from there.

And kind of at the same time, Ruby was getting involved with this woman named Jodi Hildebrandt, who sold herself as like a therapist slash life coach, but who Sherry later considers to be their family's cult leader.

Tell me more about her.

So

Jodi, Jody, Jodi, Jodi.

He was kind of brought into the family as a therapist for Chad, the oldest son, because he was kind of acting out in like what seemed to be like...

Well, because his mom was making him sleep on a sleep on a beanbag for seven months.

That

might not have helped the situation.

When he's talking in the documentary about like how he was acting or whatever, I'm like, so you were a normal teenager just kind of being a jerk.

I'll give you the reason why I lost my bedroom.

Pretty funny, but now that I look back, it's pretty depressing.

No, we never told RV worse that I woke Russell up at two in the morning and told him that we're going to Disneyland and he has to pack.

And he got up and made his bed all neatly and then packed all his clothes in the suitcase.

And then he walked out the door and I'm like, Russell, he's like, what?

And he's all happy.

You think it's funny?

Because you think it's funny, then maybe you need longer without a bedroom.

It was not funny.

Russell got the big bedroom, and Russell's bigger bedroom also had a bathroom.

But what you guys didn't know was

Chad didn't get any room.

He didn't get anything.

He was sleeping on the floor in the family room.

it seems almost like we're watching his realization of what's going on in real time yeah on that video where he's like oh wait my mom might be not a good person

it is wildly uncomfortable and i think it's just bizarre that ruby edited that like she chose that content you know like she didn't think that there was anything wrong with it which i think is very strange.

Okay, so Chad's acting out.

Yeah, Chad's acting out.

Jodi is brought in as this therapist, and she seems very quickly to take over the family.

And she starts doing sessions with Ruby, Sherry, Chad, Kevin.

Kevin joins the men's group.

And Kevin's the husband.

Kevin's the husband.

He joins the men's group where it's basically like a group therapy session.

And Jodi has these very strange ideas about truth.

And it's hard to even like reiterate because they're so nonsensical, but it's very cold-ish language that just doesn't really mean anything.

So we are honing in around teaching and educating and protecting and inviting children or anybody else who's an adult to protect their own spirit.

And you have to teach a child to do that.

Yeah.

Because if you don't teach them, they will just grow up selfish.

That would be the natural default.

Yes, exactly.

That's really, that's said.

That's well said.

Like that is the natural default.

What I just, you know, it's like going down a slide, that's super easy.

I just default into being selfish.

And many of you know that.

Many of you still are selfish.

Children come to the world from a position of focusing on self because they need to survive.

So there isn't a child that's been born that doesn't grab your attention with screaming and crying and letting you know, like, hey, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, right?

And if you don't teach them as a child, she'd been known for being a fairly strict parent.

Oh, I just remembered the stuffy that she was going to cut its head off.

I don't remember that one.

I forget what the punishment was for.

She said something like, if you do that again, I'm going to cut the head off of your favorite stuffy.

If you cut

one more thing in my house, we're chopping its head off.

I'm going to take the scissors.

Look at me.

And I'm going to cut its head off.

Grandma would be so mad.

So, what are you going to do?

Are you going to cut anything else?

No.

You promise?

Look at Mama.

That is bananas.

The one that comes to mind for me is when she made a video of her kid who is five years old.

Their teacher called and said, So-and-so forgot their lunch.

I remember this.

Yes, can you bring their lunch?

And Ruby was like, No, she needs to learn her lesson, and that means being hungry.

And I was like, Girl, what?

She was again beaming about this, saying, I won't give you lunch anymore if you keep forgetting to bring your lunch bag.

But like a five-year-old, come on.

I just got a text message from Eve's teacher, and she said that Eve did not pack a lunch today and can I bring a lunch over to the school.

I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch and it would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with lunch.

But I responded and just said

Eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning and she actually told me she did pack a lunch.

So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry.

And hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch.

You forget your lunch.

It's not a big deal.

Or just go to hot lunch.

But it's just like hunger as a punishment is extremely big.

Yeah.

But she got worse.

Yeah, things devolved.

So they had that cancellation

and she just takes over the family.

And eventually Chad is kicked out.

I think he was 17 when he was kicked out.

Sherry, the eldest daughter, is told that she's not really to contact the rest of the family anymore.

And Kevin is, quote, invited to leave.

And basically,

I like that phrasing.

Sorry.

Anyone who is listening and needs to break up with somebody, that's a new way of doing it.

You're invited to leave.

Yeah, but it just shows like the culty language, you know?

Yeah.

So he's invited to leave and he moves out.

And then it is Sherry, Jodi, and the youngest four kids on their own.

And then things go terribly wrong.

Yeah.

Then things take a turn that is, I don't think that anyone expected, even people who saw the beanbag video or the keeping the lunch from the kid video.

Like Ruby is arrested for aggravated child abuse and

she's found guilty.

So is Jodi.

And I mean, it's just horrific stuff.

Like,

the kids were like, the two youngest kids were like emaciated and had like burns on their wrists and ankles, I believe, from being like tied down.

It was just like, it was just truly, truly horrible stuff.

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What happened with the Frankie?

Can anyone see that coming because of their involvement in family blogging?

Like, is it connected?

You know, it's hard to say.

I think that one of the reasons that Jodi was so drawn to the Frankies in the first place was because they had this big platform and because she craved that platform for her own work.

And so there is the question of would Jodi and Ruby have become so intertwined if Ruby hadn't had this platform to kind of offer.

And that seems like a broader problem, correct?

In that the followers of these family vlogging channels are a particular set for the most part.

Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to say because, first of all, there's so many followers, but I've tried to do some digging into demographics, but even that is difficult because these are self-reported demographics, you know, so like I feel like I've seen some of your reporting on some of these channels where it's mostly creepy old men following children.

Yeah.

Well, the New York Times did this bombshell investigation called something like a marketplace of girls sold by moms and stocked by men.

I just like can't get over it.

And everyone should go read that investigation.

But basically what they found was that there are groups of pedophiles online who congregate and share child influencer content amongst themselves.

So the connection between Ruby and everything that went awry there is mostly that the fame of her family attracted this cult leader.

I think so.

I think when people point to the Frankies and I've seen discussions online of like, who's going to be the next vlogging family that's going to go down like the Frankie?

And I'm like, first of all, God willing, no one, because that was like so horrific.

And second of all, I think when we talk about what's going on behind the scenes of family vlogging families, I hope that it is nothing like what was happening behind the Frankies.

Like, I think we do need to talk about what life is actually like for these kids, but this is hopefully incredibly rare.

Yeah.

I would imagine if you're making content all day and editing at night and this is your full-time job, your connection with your kids is maybe not great.

Like there's no downtime where you're just like snuggling or making cookies and you're not filming.

Yeah.

The young people that I've talked to who were raised by influencer parents say that it's hard to feel like their parent is their parent and not their boss.

Yeah.

Because it's a business, you know, like think about the Frankie.

Think about other families.

They're making six figures a month.

This is a business.

This isn't like a fun little hobby, you know?

Would you equate it with like child actors?

I do think there are some similarities to child actors, but I think the wild thing is, is that there are even fewer protections for child influencers than there are for child actors.

And not that there are perfect guardrails for child actors, but there are some, and there are much fewer for child influencers.

So, yeah, all of this being so public, there's been another story recently about a family blogging channel.

Stoffers.

So they were kind of a similar yeah they were they were family vloggers.

They were also from Utah.

They were also Mormon.

They created similar content and then they started making content around a possible adoption.

Hi guys and welcome back to my channel.

Today Jim and I have a very big surprise and secret that we want to share with you guys.

Jim and I have decided that we are

going to adopt from China.

We are going to be adopting a little boy from China and we do plan on taking y'all with us through the journey and all of the stuff along the way we did get some imaging done recently on our son we got a CT scan done in China and his diagnosis is neurological so it pertains to his little brain and we don't care what's wrong with him the only need that our little boy has is he needs his mama not to be scared but needs his mama to come on and get him home so that he can have a nice family that really truly cares about him and if anything and they went and adopted a son who they named huxley and

sorry

it's like the most vlogger name ever huxley it's so on brand mormon names are just really special favorite name is geronimo it is a native american name hey geronimo another name that i love is mazarin we are doing a little fundraiser for little huxley we have a thousand piece puzzle.

So they adopt Huxley and they start making content around him and you know bringing him into their family.

Come on in there man.

Reorganizing the shoe closet for me eh?

I couldn't do my day without him.

Our connection as a family has gotten so profoundly amazing.

He is easily one of my favorite people in the entire world.

I think he's definitely my son.

Aren't you?

Are you my boy?

Yeah, you like fast cards too, like Rad.

It's so cool, guys.

Yeah, thumb guard never worked.

He's so smart.

He was either really mad or he pulled it off.

No, he always figured out how to pull it off.

He pulled it off, but usually he was very mad before that.

They start making content around Huxley's medical diagnoses and how those diagnoses are making their lives difficult.

I'm not having a good date.

I never tell you guys the truth.

And that's why you don't see a lot in the box.

He's probably having a real time.

Are you done?

He's just having a bad day.

He's a grumpy day today.

You know, with international adoption, sometimes there's unknowns and things that are not transparent on files and things like that.

And once Huxley came home, there was a lot more special needs that we weren't aware of.

And then eventually Huxley disappears from the content and people are like, where did he go?

And then that leads to this tearful video.

where the mom basically says he's no longer in our family.

There's not an ounce ounce of our body that doesn't love Hugsley with all her me and there wasn't a minute that I didn't try our hardest.

Do I feel like a failure as a mom?

Like 500%.

We've never wanted to be in this position.

It's really hard to.

We truly love him.

So that became a viral story about an influencer rehoming their adopted son, but the content was still up and she was still making money from it, but wasn't his parent anymore.

Yes.

Those are the two main ones that come to mind for me that have really kind of turned the tide for people.

And you think it's turning?

I mean, laws, obviously, that are being passed to protect the children.

But in terms of audience interest, is that changing?

It's hard to say because you'll like watch this family content and there'll be like tons of comments where people are like, what are you doing?

This isn't right.

These kids can't consent.

And like, that wasn't even a discussion before.

But at the same time, some of them are more popular than ever and they're making a ton of money.

So it's like the cultural feeling towards them has changed, but that hasn't changed their audience or their power as influencers.

Say more about that.

You mean there's more negative chatter around it?

Yeah, but I feel like people are still watching.

Like maybe it's hate watching, but they make the same money whether you're hate watching or watching out of actual joy or whatever.

What do you make of this?

Like, why are people doing this?

Honestly, when I'm scrolling and I like see a cute kid doing a funny thing, like I just want to watch because their kids are funny and cute.

But also like there is an actual career path for people who want to be family influencers and it's quite lucrative, like we were saying.

But.

Is there any longevity?

Yeah.

Well, some child influencers have already reached the age where they've become like influencers in their own right as young adults.

Do you you know Brooklyn and Bailey?

No, thank you.

Also Mormon, also from Utah.

They are 25 now and they were child influencers on their mom's YouTube.

That was incredibly popular.

And now, because they're Mormon, they're both married and young, and one of them has had a child.

And I thought it was really interesting because when they announced the birth and they have like 10 million followers on their like joint Instagram account, they have a joint Instagram account.

gross yeah

and they put an emoji over the kid's face and i thought that was fascinating and they still have not shown his face but i wonder what the story is there that i wonder what the story is there and what grandma thinks yeah yeah because because it's like kind of i mean it can feel kind of like an indictment right like oh you did this to i mean but on the other hand they're incredibly successful they have all these businesses and they like, I mean, they're doing better than I am, you know?

What got you interested in this?

When I was a teenager, it was the time of like 16 and pregnant and teen mom on MTV.

And

I just was so fascinated about what it's like to live your life in front of cameras like this.

And I kept watching.

And I actually just wrote a story for the cut on how it's been 16 years and teen mom is still on.

And some of the kids are turning 16 that were born on the show.

Whoa.

I just like started looking around and thinking this is kind of duplicating itself, but it's happening in influencer kids where they don't have producers, but they kind of do, but the parents are the producers.

What's wrong with us?

Go.

I mean, listen, how much time do you have?

All the time in the world.

I think that

we want to make money and

there's fewer ways to do so.

Exactly.

In a world where there are fewer and fewer paths to living like a middle-class life to enter the viral lottery, like if you win, you're set, you know?

And so, I don't blame people for entering.

Like, I think that I have a lot more sympathy for these parents and families who are involved in this industry than people expect from me.

But I do.

I mean, same.

It's not the individual.

No, it's not.

It's the system.

And that's what I always loved about your reporting because Arizona and Michigan seem to be very similar.

And all of the girls that I went to high school with are either nurses or in pyramid schemes or both.

And it just makes me so sad

because I know like what they're trying to do.

And I know that it's not going to happen.

And that's how I feel about family vloggers when I see people like trying to get to that height because it's so rare to get to that height where it really changes your life.

But there's always the chance that you do, right?

It really does remind me of what you've said on the dream before that, like 99% of people lose money in pyramid schemes or whatever.

But there is that 1%, you know?

Well, especially with parent vloggers going viral, you better be on your best behavior.

You better be.

That's the thing is like, I can't imagine opening up my parenting to people to have opinions about.

Yeah, no.

I mean, we are perfect.

You and I, nailing it.

Yeah.

Maybe we should start a family blog channel.

We're both in LA.

Let's do it.

And my husband has always said that that would be like the perfect villain arc for me is that I like become a journalist and then I like have a baby and then I'm like see the dollar signs and become one myself.

Like he face turns into the cash register emoji.

I mean, it sometimes it does when I'm interviewing these people and they're telling me how much money they're making.

I'm like, oh, fuck.

I took the wrong path.

Are there commonalities between the most popular family vlogger accounts?

Like, what are the bullet points there for what makes something successful?

Yeah.

So the most popular family vloggers have a lot of kids, like at least four, but more is better.

They are often...

quite religious.

It helps if they're blonde.

And this also goes into like how Mormon family vlogging is.

But yeah, the best thing is having like younger parents or parents who started having kids young and then just didn't stop.

Can you tell me about your book?

Yeah.

So my book is called Like, Follow, Subscribe.

And it's coming out through Simon and Schuster in not that long.

So stay tuned for pre-order stuff.

But it is about all of this.

It is about family vloggers and how Mormon they are.

And it is about the teen moms of TikTok and the kids of the original mom bloggers.

And I talk to everyone involved in the industry.

And literally, I feel like every time I do a podcast, my tongue is like bleeding from biting it so hard because I'm trying to like keep all of my stuff for my book.

But like you guys are.

But also don't worry about that.

Yeah.

A family vlogger wouldn't.

You know?

I mean, they wouldn't worry.

They, they are worried about things that I cannot even comprehend.

Well, congratulations on your book.

Thank you.

Do you feel guilty making money off of family vloggers?

Oh my God.

No one's ever asked me that question.

I don't know.

I don't think so because I think it's kind of the same way that people are like, why do we have to like talk about influencers at all?

And it's like, well, because they have influence, you know, and like family vloggers.

They're a multi-billion dollar industry and we do need to be talking about them because they do have influence and sway and and they are also i think a bell weather for like how this country is moving right now you know more conservative and more to the right and and more individualistic yeah exactly yeah and very like bootstraps and make your own bread and have your own farm and that kind of stuff so no i don't feel guilty and i think that we need to pay attention to them and take them seriously

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

This was so fun.

Also, thanks for having the very best name I've ever heard in my life.

Oh my gosh.

Well, you're welcome.

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