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Like, Follow, Subscribe: Is The Internet a Place for Children? Inspired by Kalie Robbins' Unsettling Discovery · Other Peoples Parenting

• 0:00
  Hello everyone.
• 0:01
  Welcome back to another episode of Other People's Parenting where we read parenting books and review them for you.
• 0:07
  I'm Skylar Hurwitz, amateur parent, and this is my mom, Karen Quinn, New York Times best selling author and founder of Habit Coach and Testing Mom.
• 0:15
  Mom, you're giving me an about the author face.
• 0:18
  Oh, it was very like I didn't.
• 0:20
  Know what I was doing to make you laugh.
• 0:22
  You were like, it's like a thousand yard stare.
• 0:26
  I'm sorry, I was wondering why you were laughing.
• 0:29
  I can't believe.
• 0:29
  Yeah, they looked over at you and.
• 0:30
  You're like, like uncanny valley.
• 0:34
  Okay.
• 0:35
  And we have some fabulous news team.
• 0:37
  Would you like to announce we were renewed again.
• 0:40
  We were renewed again.
• 0:41
  So more book reviews from us.
• 0:43
  Yeah.
• 0:44
  Books, articles, ideas, concepts.
• 0:48
  Right, that's what we're here for.
• 0:49
  That's right, that's what we're here for.
• 0:51
  Today we're sharing this.
• 0:53
  This book was honestly pretty dark, but me being a reality TV obsessive person, I loved this.
• 1:01
  Yeah, it was very interesting.
• 1:03
  Yeah, I know.
• 1:04
  I knew very little about it.
• 1:05
  It's called like Follow subscribe by Fortessa Latifi.
• 1:10
  Latifi.
• 1:11
  Uh huh.
• 1:12
  And it's about child influencers which I've become super curious about because we covered a lot of things about trad wives earlier on in the season.
• 1:21
  And so much of the trad wife ethos is surrounded by in their children, you know.
• 1:28
  Right.
• 1:29
  Although it's the mom showing her life.
• 1:34
  But you're right, the kids star in all the videos.
• 1:37
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:38
  Yeah, the kids star.
• 1:40
  And there's obviously a lot of ethical gray area around this for a number of reasons.
• 1:46
  One, obviously the Internet lives forever and children can't quite, particularly young children can't quite, can't quite understand that.
• 1:56
  So this idea of informed consent comes up quite a lot which I'm really interested in.
• 2:02
  We have, I've worked in film and TV for a long time and typically when you work with a child there are a lot of limitations.
• 2:10
  A lot.
• 2:11
  They can only work for a couple hours a day.
• 2:12
  They need specific kinds of breaks and they need to have particular.
• 2:17
  You have to feed them.
• 2:19
  Well, you have to feed everyone, but.
• 2:20
  You have to make especially kids.
• 2:22
  And if there's any allergy, I mean, you have to find out any allergies.
• 2:26
  And yeah, you know, there's a lot.
• 2:27
  Also have to set up a trust account for them.
• 2:30
  There has to be payment to an account specifically for the child in the interest of protecting them from their parents, misallocating their earnings and in the social media sphere, we're realizing that that's not, it hasn't caught up with
• 2:44
  it.
• 2:44
  The laws have not caught up with the content.
• 2:47
  Right.
• 2:47
  And the way content is created and put out there and how much time children work.
• 2:52
  Yes, it's, it's very interesting.
• 2:54
  And, and, and really, you wonder.
• 2:56
  They bring the money is the half of it.
• 2:59
  Yeah.
• 2:59
  There's a lot of other things like putting their entire lives online and sharing, you know, private things about them that will live forever.
• 3:08
  So, yes, also, with everything that's going on with AI Right.
• 3:13
  I think people are going to stop putting their kids on the Internet at all in the coming years because I think there's so many ways they can be misused.
• 3:22
  And again, once it's on the Internet, it's kind of there forever, even if you take it down.
• 3:26
  Right.
• 3:26
  You know, people screenshot, people download.
• 3:28
  Like nothing is ever truly scrubbed from the Internet.
• 3:31
  Right.
• 3:32
  Yeah.
• 3:32
  But will they really stop?
• 3:34
  Now we'll talk about the book because there's a lot of money in it.
• 3:37
  A lot of money in it.
• 3:39
  So it's really like, it gave me, I think, a little more empathy in some cases for the moms who I sort of presumed were just these evil, attention hungry monsters.
• 3:48
  That's actually not the case.
• 3:50
  Some of them are in pretty desperate situations and in the interest of pulling their families out of poverty, they pursue this.
• 3:58
  And, and it's hard because obviously, again, are their children treated perfectly?
• 4:03
  Probably not.
• 4:04
  Do their children always want to participate?
• 4:05
  Probably not.
• 4:07
  But in some cases they do.
• 4:08
  So we'll get into it.
• 4:10
  This is so interesting.
• 4:12
  We learned that the way these sort of family vlogger content.
• 4:18
  So the genesis, if you will, of this whole world is there was a documentary in filming this family called the Loud Family, and they lived in Santa Barbara and, and the documentary basically just filmed the dissolution of their
• 4:32
  family.
• 4:33
  This was in the 70s.
• 4:34
  And I remember this show.
• 4:35
  Oh, really?
• 4:36
  Yeah.
• 4:36
  I remembered it was so different from anything else that was on television showing this real family.
• 4:43
  Like everybody was kind of like, why would you do that?
• 4:45
  Yeah, why would you do that?
• 4:47
  Yeah.
• 4:47
  But then they realized, oh my God, there is a market for this.
• 4:51
  People are fascinated by the lives of other people.
• 4:55
  And then, you know, following the Loud Family, there were the Gosselins, the Duggars, which is that they're a fundamentalist family.
• 5:02
  Right.
• 5:02
  With like 37 kids or something like that.
• 5:04
  Right.
• 5:05
  And then the Kardashians and so on and so forth.
• 5:08
  And obviously my favorite franchise is the Real Housewives.
• 5:11
  Right.
• 5:12
  And you Know, it's funny because a lot of.
• 5:15
  There's this new show on Bravo, it's called Next Gen nyc, and they're doing an LA version, but I can assure you it won't be as interesting.
• 5:23
  And it's a lot of the kids that grew up on the Housewives show.
• 5:27
  So a couple of the girls from Atlanta, Gia from New Jersey, who's been viral since she was probably like, eight, she has that song that she sang when I think her mom and her brother or her, like, mom
• 5:41
  and her.
• 5:41
  I don't know, some family members were fighting, and she's made this song called I Wake up in the Morning.
• 5:46
  I don't remember that.
• 5:47
  Waking up in the morning.
• 5:50
  I don't remember.
• 5:51
  Anyway, Gia is now on this show, and a lot of these kids who grew up on the Housewives are now on television themselves.
• 6:01
  Right, Right.
• 6:02
  So there is, you know, a pipeline,.
• 6:05
  Some might say, and that's the same.
• 6:08
  And we're going to learn more about social media.
• 6:10
  It's the same with social media kids.
• 6:11
  A lot of times when they were featured as little children, they later have their own channels and they get.
• 6:18
  They have.
• 6:19
  So people like to follow them.
• 6:20
  But what's interesting, when they talk all about the history of mommy blogging, which led to vlogging, like, I know.
• 6:29
  You know this, that years ago when they started the Housewives of New York, I was actually approached to be a housewife teen.
• 6:36
  Was approached.
• 6:37
  I was approached.
• 6:38
  But this was before any.
• 6:40
  I didn't know.
• 6:41
  This was like the Jill Zarin, Bethenny Frankel era.
• 6:44
  I run with a fabulous circle of people.
• 6:46
  Exactly.
• 6:47
  And I'm like.
• 6:48
  And I was at the time.
• 6:50
  I mean, I don't run with a fabulous.
• 6:52
  I mean, I run.
• 6:52
  Well, you did.
• 6:53
  I mean, you totally did.
• 6:55
  You had just had a bestselling novel come out.
• 6:57
  Like, you were in the streets and on the news team.
• 7:00
  Well, I was back then, kind of.
• 7:02
  And they came to me and said, would you be interested in being on a show called Real Housewives of New York?
• 7:07
  And I was like, I'm not a housewife.
• 7:10
  Yeah.
• 7:11
  Back when we thought that's what it.
• 7:12
  Was about, I thought that's what it was gonna be about.
• 7:14
  I know.
• 7:14
  It's like, I'm a working person.
• 7:16
  What are you gonna do?
• 7:17
  I'm not in the house.
• 7:18
  I'm in the streets.
• 7:20
  Well.
• 7:20
  And I was like, I'm writing books.
• 7:22
  So what, are you gonna watch me, film me type?
• 7:25
  That's so boring.
• 7:27
  I couldn't imagine what it could be about.
• 7:29
  But anyway, it Just never even occurred.
• 7:31
  And I was think it.
• 7:32
  Now after reading all this whole book, I'm thinking, God, my life would have been so different.
• 7:37
  If I think about how many facelifts you would have had by now.
• 7:41
  Well, gosh.
• 7:42
  And maybe not only that, I mean, products and I don't know, I mean,.
• 7:47
  You would be shilling on the Internet.
• 7:49
  Who knows?
• 7:50
  Diet, tea, vitamins.
• 7:53
  Right.
• 7:53
  Like exactly.
• 7:54
  You would have, you would have had brand deals.
• 7:58
  Would have nothing on me.
• 7:59
  Oh my God, Bethany's lost her mind.
• 8:01
  Well, but the problem.
• 8:02
  Yeah, she has.
• 8:03
  But anyway, but the problem is, I mean, I don't know, it's.
• 8:06
  It's just I'm not a conflict person.
• 8:08
  And I think you have to be comfortable with conflict.
• 8:10
  You do if you're going to be.
• 8:11
  But I didn't know, especially if you were on Early New York.
• 8:14
  That's what I mean.
• 8:15
  Yeah, I.
• 8:16
  You can take your Herman Munster shoes.
• 8:18
  Oh, they're Louis Vuitton.
• 8:19
  Even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes.
• 8:24
  Oh my God.
• 8:25
  Yeah.
• 8:25
  So anyway, anyway, but.
• 8:27
  But the history is really interesting.
• 8:28
  They go into the history of, you know, the television shows and actually it,.
• 8:33
  It started off, I think mommy started off doing pretty valuable work.
• 8:39
  Yes, I would, I would think because they were discussing all these things that at the time were kind of taboo, like how hard parenting is and miscarriages and all of these things that we had, the generations prior had
• 8:51
  always sort of been like, let's not.
• 8:53
  We don't talk about that.
• 8:54
  No, we don't talk about that.
• 8:55
  And they were like, guess what?
• 8:57
  Right.
• 8:57
  And I actually had a blog at the time.
• 8:59
  And yes, I did.
• 9:01
  I had a long form content.
• 9:03
  What was your blog?
• 9:05
  I would write funny stories about.
• 9:07
  I'm sure I did.
• 9:09
  I don't even know what I did with it or how to even find it anymore.
• 9:12
  But it was.
• 9:13
  I was on WordPress and I had a blog and you know, but the thing was, bloggers helped each other.
• 9:20
  That's where it was different.
• 9:22
  Like, even when I started testing mom, the way that started was I found a guy who had his own blog about getting into private or getting into gifted programs in New York City.
• 9:34
  And I had a book about, you know, testing for kindergarten.
• 9:38
  And I had made a game about, you know, a board game where you could make your kids smarter.
• 9:42
  And I wanted someone to talk about it.
• 9:44
  Yeah.
• 9:45
  So I just found him, texted him or emailed him, I don't know.
• 9:48
  And he's like, sure, send me your book.
• 9:50
  I'll talk about it in my blog.
• 9:52
  People helped each other.
• 9:54
  Not Anymore.
• 9:54
  No money.
• 9:55
  I mean, no money exchanged hands.
• 9:57
  Yeah, that's how it was.
• 9:59
  But now it's like a whole economy.
• 10:00
  It's like 50k a post.
• 10:02
  Yeah, exactly.
• 10:03
  Actually, you know, it's funny, the way this podcast was born was initially we were going to try and see if we could advertise or get on podcast.
• 10:13
  Yeah.
• 10:13
  Just.
• 10:13
  Or like just be guests on podcast to talk about what teen does.
• 10:17
  And people were quoting us like a quarter million dollars for like a 30 second spot every other month.
• 10:24
  And we were like, yeah.
• 10:26
  So on your mind.
• 10:27
  No, we said, let's just do our own podcast where we get to talk about what we like to talk about.
• 10:31
  Yeah.
• 10:32
  And Kiki.
• 10:33
  So now here we are.
• 10:34
  That's the genesis of how this was born.
• 10:35
  But it was like originally there was no money shaking.
• 10:38
  It's a whole different thing now.
• 10:40
  Mommy blogger were really the first to commodify themselves online.
• 10:49
  And you know, they talk about.
• 10:52
  She starts by discussing the Mormons, who are the greatest at this.
• 10:57
  Well, this like, hands down.
• 10:58
  Yeah, this one.
• 10:59
  Mommy blogger are you talking about.
• 11:00
  But like now, I mean, she walked so that like Rachel Parcel and Ballerina Farm and the Mormon wives could walk.
• 11:09
  Shannon Bird, is that who you mean?
• 11:10
  Yeah.
• 11:11
  Yeah.
• 11:11
  Okay, go ahead.
• 11:12
  You want to talk about.
• 11:12
  Yeah.
• 11:13
  So she had five kids and started posting in 2011.
• 11:15
  And she was super, super honest, like uncomfortably honest in her content.
• 11:19
  She was actually one of the first people to talk about having a miscarriage openly and like put a face to a name and documented her kids.
• 11:28
  But she posted things about her kids that were like, really too personal and ended up getting her son bullied because of some of the videos that she had made of him.
• 11:37
  And at one point she was making like 20 grand a month.
• 11:40
  And now I think it's a little closer to three or five because her kids have grow and sort of gone on.
• 11:46
  And one thing that I was so interested in in this book is how much more money your content is worth if you're willing to include your kids.
• 11:54
  Well, that was a big thing we learned in this book.
• 11:56
  Yeah.
• 11:56
  That comes later, right?
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 11:58
  So anyway, when there was like Aubrey Jones.
• 12:02
  Well, and talk about personal.
• 12:05
  Yeah.
• 12:05
  I mean, her post, she got a sponsored post from Kotex.
• 12:10
  So she decides to do a whole, I guess, story, hey, let's make a period kit for my daughter because soon she's gonna have her first period.
• 12:21
  It's like, this is not the public's business.
• 12:23
  I mean, can you imagine being that kid?
• 12:25
  I would be so embarrassed.
• 12:26
  I would leave.
• 12:27
  I Would emancipate myself, like, get me out of here.
• 12:30
  Yeah.
• 12:31
  Also then, so the author interviewed this nanny for a prominent influencer family.
• 12:37
  And she was like, first of all, she didn't wanna be in any of the content.
• 12:41
  And obviously the mom didn't want her to be either.
• 12:43
  Because so many of these mommy bloggers want the public to believe they're doing this all on their own, that there isn't a staff, there aren't producers, there isn't, you know, help.
• 12:54
  And she's like, look at me go.
• 12:56
  And it's like, listen, girl, if you truly are that person, like, you're not, because nobody is.
• 13:02
  But I don't know, I think that there's a lot of misconceptions about the way that these lives are presented versus what is actually going on.
• 13:12
  Right, right.
• 13:13
  And she said, you know, then she tells another story of a woman who paid her nanny to potty train her son, leaving him with the nanny for the weekend.
• 13:25
  And the nanny told the mother how she had done it.
• 13:28
  And then the mother went on and did a post about how she had potty trained the child and gave everybody tips based on what the nanny did.
• 13:36
  Yeah, so there's some fraudulence going on in this field.
• 13:39
  Yeah, exactly.
• 13:41
  Which again, you know, as a producer, I understand that there's this idea that, oh, we're just like filming things that happen throughout the day and posting them.
• 13:50
  And one thing about filming things that are candid, the amount of work that goes into creating a candid looking shot is astonishing.
• 13:58
  Really it is hours and hours and takes and takes and, like, edits and creative things here and there in post production, it's never just like, oh, we film for like 10 minutes a day and then live our lives.
• 14:09
  That's not.
• 14:09
  It's not how it works.
• 14:10
  That's just not how it works.
• 14:11
  That's right.
• 14:12
  That's right.
• 14:13
  Well, and the nanny said that, you know, the who was part of the influencer family was a lot of times the mom was supposed to do posts about particular toys, and then the child wouldn't want to play with
• 14:26
  the toys.
• 14:27
  And, you know, and that got really difficult.
• 14:29
  And so there was so much.
• 14:30
  Well, then it's like you're asking the kid to fake it, which I think is a pretty dangerous thing to teach young children.
• 14:36
  Little children like that.
• 14:37
  Yeah, it's like there's one thing about playing pretend, but that's work and blurring.
• 14:43
  That one is a weird psychological thing for a kid.
• 14:47
  Like, that's confusing for them, but also, like faking Things.
• 14:51
  Teaching kids to fake things.
• 14:52
  Right.
• 14:53
  If they're not actors.
• 14:54
  If they're not actors.
• 14:55
  Yeah.
• 14:56
  And if they're not interested in that.
• 14:57
  Some kids do express an interest in participating in this stuff.
• 15:01
  And for them, I say, okay, like, find ways to include your kids that are healthy and safe.
• 15:06
  Yeah.
• 15:06
  But it always gets out of hand is really what this book made me a lot about.
• 15:11
  Yeah.
• 15:12
  She tells a story about a family that had over a million Instagram followers.
• 15:16
  And they were filming, and then their son went into a seizure and the mom is screaming and saying to the Father, call 91 1, but he kept filming.
• 15:26
  And then they posted it.
• 15:27
  They posted it.
• 15:28
  Right.
• 15:29
  And the content creators say that any video featuring like bloody noses, broken arms, or other medical emergencies, they get the most views.
• 15:38
  So one family, the jepsons, say that seven out of 10 of their top videos feature medical emergency because people like watching that.
• 15:50
  Voyeurism.
• 15:51
  It's voyeurism that people really love to watch.
• 15:55
  There's another video of a family where the daughter is upset and sobbing and the mom comes in to have a moment with her.
• 16:02
  But it's films.
• 16:04
  The whole thing.
• 16:04
  She films the whole thing.
• 16:05
  And she films it from her of her talking to her daughter.
• 16:09
  That's so creepy.
• 16:10
  Uncomfortable to watch.
• 16:12
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  So anyway, so there's a lot.
• 16:15
  It just gets very personal.
• 16:16
  Exactly.
• 16:17
  And so what you realize is what is being commodified is your privacy.
• 16:23
  Essentially.
• 16:24
  You sort of.
• 16:24
  You make this trade off and a lot of people do this and don't make this kind of money, but you sort of say, okay, well, is my privacy worth the money I'm making?
• 16:33
  Is my child's privacy worth the money that I'm making?
• 16:37
  Right.
• 16:37
  Because again, remember, like informed consent, it's not just like asking a kid, hey, do you want to film this video?
• 16:42
  They don't understand the implications of, like, this video is going to go live on the Internet.
• 16:46
  It's going to be accessible by whoever, by strangers, by people you don't know and you will probably never know.
• 16:52
  Right.
• 16:54
  It's true.
• 16:54
  And a lot of these families don't take a ton of measures to protect their kids safety.
• 17:01
  Like, they leave identifying details in the videos, where they live, where they live, their child's full name, maybe where they go to school.
• 17:09
  And it's like, like, yeah, the Internet is not a place for children.
• 17:14
  Well, that's sort of what.
• 17:16
  That's what the author kind of is saying.
• 17:19
  And they talk about the family fun pack YouTube channel, which is a mother, father, eight kids.
• 17:27
  They have Over a million subscribers.
• 17:30
  Their videos have been viewed over 15 billion times.
• 17:35
  Each of the kids have their own YouTube channels and they all say that they Want to be YouTube full.
• 17:41
  Do you YouTube full time?
• 17:42
  When they grow up, they just go to online school because that's more convenient.
• 17:48
  And there are many videos like of their two year old going through her potty training video journey.
• 17:54
  Appropriate.
• 17:55
  Right.
• 17:55
  And.
• 17:56
  And the author wonders, well, how what will this do to this kid when she grows up and she scares them psychologically?
• 18:03
  Possibly, yes.
• 18:04
  Very possibly.
• 18:05
  Almost certainly.
• 18:08
  Well, what's weird is that the other kids all want their.
• 18:11
  All have and want their own channels.
• 18:13
  So maybe for some kids, if you're brought up this way, it just seems normal.
• 18:17
  I know, but again, is that healthy?
• 18:19
  Like is training children to perform in that way healthy?
• 18:26
  Yeah.
• 18:27
  Like I want to just be the first to say this content is not art.
• 18:30
  You know what I mean?
• 18:32
  It's not art.
• 18:32
  It's not like acting in a show or a film where you are trying to tell a story with meaning.
• 18:38
  This is just honestly, frankly, like drivel.
• 18:42
  Right, right.
• 18:43
  But somehow you just like when you kind of get like you can't stop watching.
• 18:47
  I say that as a person who loves reality tv, but it is mind numbing.
• 18:51
  And I think when you include children and sort of push them to participate in this stuff, I just like don't know that that's very healthy.
• 18:57
  Right, right.
• 18:58
  And we hear about Rachel, who's a teenager.
• 19:01
  Her mom is an influencer and she often filmed things and then would promise her daughter, listen, I won't post.
• 19:06
  Post that.
• 19:07
  It's, you know, it's too private.
• 19:08
  And then she did.
• 19:09
  She did.
• 19:09
  Yeah.
• 19:10
  And then another two, Brooklyn and Bailey McKnight.
• 19:14
  They were, they started out as child influencers, grew up, now they're adult influencers, have millions of followers.
• 19:21
  And the author tells stories of a lot of people who have.
• 19:25
  That's what's happened.
• 19:26
  Yeah.
• 19:27
  And people love to follow them.
• 19:28
  Kind of like the, the children.
• 19:30
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:31
  Of the house.
• 19:32
  I mean Gia is now, she was gonna go to law school or something and now she's like, I'm just gonna be an influencer.
• 19:38
  And it's like, listen, you should.
• 19:39
  Everybody should do whatever they want.
• 19:41
  And I think for someone like Gia who actually has a built in audience and like can make a living doing it, it's like, good for you, girl.
• 19:47
  Right.
• 19:48
  But I don't know, again, we've said this before, like if you believe that you some random person are gonna make a living off of anything influence wise, the Amount of time, energy and money and investment that it takes
• 20:02
  just to start making money.
• 20:04
  It's a lot.
• 20:05
  It's crazy.
• 20:05
  I mean, you basically have to become a business, right?
• 20:08
  You turn your life into a business.
• 20:10
  But, and I was reading, I had.
• 20:12
  No real personal life, right?
• 20:15
  Because you're always trying to video everything.
• 20:18
  But I was gonna say, I saw that if you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, it ranges from like 35% to 55%, depending on the age of the child.
• 20:29
  With teenagers, like 55, 57% want to be influencers when they grow up.
• 20:34
  That's what they aspire to.
• 20:36
  Just a symptom of being a teenager, though.
• 20:38
  I think as teenagers, you just want attention and you start to learn that, oh, if I have a job, I make money, I can do more things that I want to do.
• 20:46
  And I think people say that because they think it's easy money.
• 20:49
  They think it is.
• 20:50
  If you're.
• 20:50
  And if you're famous and you know these kids doing so well, they are.
• 20:55
  Making even that's a misconception because again, like, if you're filming Spawn Con, it's not like you just take five minutes out of your day and be like, ooh, look at me using this again.
• 21:03
  There's takes and takes, and then it gets approved by a brand or not.
• 21:07
  And then you just start over and it's like, it's not low lift, right.
• 21:11
  But it does.
• 21:12
  It seems like it is.
• 21:13
  I think it looks like it is to a lot of kids.
• 21:17
  If I were speaking to another parent who was on the fence about joining Testing mom, you know what I would say to them is that you're never gonna regret having done this.
• 21:26
  You may regret not getting help because, you know, you might not get that test score that you're looking for or you're gonna go through a harder experience trying to help your child go through what's something you really need
• 21:36
  professionals to help you on.
• 21:38
  And so I think hindsight is 2020 always.
• 21:41
  And you're really not going to regret this opportunity.
• 21:44
  You know, they talk about Ryan Kaji from Ryan's World.
• 21:49
  Oh, yeah.
• 21:49
  He was the little boy who had unbox his toys.
• 21:52
  He unboxes toys.
• 21:54
  Right.
• 21:55
  And he.
• 21:56
  What was nice about what he did was he wasn't sharing his personal life, he was sharing just unboxing toys.
• 22:01
  But he got a TV show, a feature length movie, sold merchandise, and he was able to keep his personal life personal, which was unusual.
• 22:12
  Yeah, I think it's so interesting too.
• 22:13
  Like, I see influencers that are our age, also our age.
• 22:18
  My age, who are like, try.
• 22:21
  Who are walking this line.
• 22:23
  And I think what sells the most is when you are selling your personal life and, like, the true stuff.
• 22:30
  It's really hard.
• 22:31
  Did sell a lot.
• 22:32
  But he is an outlier.
• 22:34
  Oh, yeah, he is an outlier.
• 22:35
  He's not.
• 22:36
  He's the exception to the rule.
• 22:38
  And I mean, I look at someone like Alex Cooper, who started out doing that podcast, Call Her Daddy, where it was all about her personal life.
• 22:46
  And now that she has her own network, she has really sort of pulled back.
• 22:50
  Right.
• 22:51
  And now it's about Unwell, which is her company.
• 22:54
  Oh.
• 22:54
  And she doesn't really discuss her personal life very much.
• 22:57
  Okay.
• 22:57
  So she's backed off of her personal life.
• 22:59
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  But I think she got famous.
• 23:01
  Yes.
• 23:02
  That's a privilege that I guess you had.
• 23:04
  You can earn, but your content might suffer for it.
• 23:06
  Well, and then they tell us about.
• 23:08
  There's so many good stories in this book.
• 23:10
  Oh, my God.
• 23:10
  Becca Martinez, she was a mom influencer who was a Bachelor contestant, and she actually went on the show to gain followers again.
• 23:18
  Never occurred to me.
• 23:19
  I'm so naive when people go on these shows that they have ulterior motives.
• 23:23
  Oh, my God.
• 23:24
  That's why anybody goes on.
• 23:25
  I mean, why would you humiliate yourself on these shows like the Bachelor and Love island and all of these things?
• 23:30
  You're trying to get followers.
• 23:31
  Yeah.
• 23:31
  You're trying to get eyes on yourself.
• 23:33
  That's right.
• 23:34
  That's right.
• 23:34
  And she says, you know, now she got married, and now she shares the life of herself and her kids online.
• 23:40
  And she says it's possible her kids are going to grow up and be angry with her for sharing all that.
• 23:45
  But look, it bought them a house, and she got to stay home.
• 23:49
  So she says to.
• 23:50
  To me, it's been worth it.
• 23:51
  So.
• 23:51
  Which, again, it kind of.
• 23:53
  It reminds you, like, it is a position of privilege to be able, I guess, to keep your life private.
• 23:59
  It is, in a way, you know, if you can afford to.
• 24:02
  And I'm afraid for some young children whose parents see this as the only way out, and, like, you sort of end up in, like, a Jennette McCurdy situation where she was the breadwinner for her whole family.
• 24:15
  And, like, a lot of these child stars that really struggle and there's so much pressure on them.
• 24:20
  And again, yes, this is about mommy bloggers, but.
• 24:22
  Right.
• 24:23
  If you're gonna be a mom, you presumably have children.
• 24:26
  Right, Right.
• 24:26
  And you realize very quickly that that content creates the most monetization potential.
• 24:33
  Yeah, no, it does.
• 24:36
  So the next chapter, they talk about crossing moral lines, and here they talk about a lot of scandals that have happened around mommy influencers.
• 24:45
  Yeah.
• 24:46
  Oh, my God, I forgot about that one.
• 24:49
  Which one?
• 24:50
  The Huxley.
• 24:51
  That was rough.
• 24:52
  Or sorry.
• 24:53
  No, not the Huxley.
• 24:54
  Oh, no, the Stauffers.
• 24:56
  So Micah and James Stauffer adopted an autistic boy, and then they rehomed him like he was a puppy.
• 25:05
  Right.
• 25:05
  Which is so.
• 25:06
  And they were shocked.
• 25:07
  Which.
• 25:08
  Listen, this kind of thing can happen in adoptions, but there isn't a return to sender option.
• 25:15
  When you adopt a child, especially one with special needs, you have committed to this child, and if you don't have the resources or whatever to cope with it, you find them and you figure it out.
• 25:27
  Or you just.
• 25:28
  They got in so much hot water because everyone accused them of adopting this child for attention, for content.
• 25:35
  And clearly that was the case.
• 25:36
  Right.
• 25:37
  And it did.
• 25:37
  And then they realized, oh, my God, I have to take care of this child all the time.
• 25:41
  This is, you know.
• 25:42
  Yeah, it's really cutting into my filming now.
• 25:44
  That's right.
• 25:45
  So they did re home this.
• 25:46
  I mean, let's say, are they off now altogether?
• 25:48
  I don't know.
• 25:49
  No, it says they took their chance and apologized.
• 25:52
  Yeah.
• 25:52
  So I guess that they.
• 25:53
  But again, it's like, you deserve to go to jail if you do this.
• 25:59
  It's not just, I'm sorry and then you fall off.
• 26:02
  Like, that's crazy.
• 26:04
  Right?
• 26:04
  Right.
• 26:05
  And then there was another scandal about Piper Rockwell.
• 26:09
  Oh, yeah, Piper Raquel.
• 26:11
  Raquel.
• 26:12
  Piper Raquel.
• 26:13
  Yeah.
• 26:13
  So she was a young influencer, and her mom sort of created this world of child influencers.
• 26:19
  She moved her daughter to la, and her daughter made some friends with other kids, kids who were doing stuff online.
• 26:23
  They started collaborating, and then as the kids got to be like early teenagers, like 13, 14, she started sort of pairing them together as, like, couples.
• 26:33
  And it became super inappropriate.
• 26:35
  Like, a lot of people online were, like, obsessed with their little world.
• 26:39
  It kind of reminded me of, like, the Archie comics.
• 26:41
  Do you know what I mean?
• 26:42
  She sort of built, like, a real life version of that.
• 26:45
  Okay.
• 26:45
  With her daughter sort of at the center of it.
• 26:48
  And she was abusive to the kids involved.
• 26:52
  In my opinion, a lot of the things that got posted were pretty inappropriate.
• 26:55
  There's a documentary, right.
• 26:56
  I tried to watch it last night,.
• 26:58
  But then fell asleep, couldn't watch it.
• 26:59
  It's.
• 27:00
  What's it called?
• 27:00
  Bad Influence, the Dark side of Kid Fluencing on Netflix.
• 27:04
  And Piper expressed, and her friends expressed that they weren't comfortable around her mom.
• 27:12
  But obviously Piper doesn't really have a choice.
• 27:14
  That's her mom.
• 27:15
  Right.
• 27:16
  And now she's a young girl on Onlyfans.
• 27:19
  Right.
• 27:19
  But she made $2 million the first day she went.
• 27:22
  Yeah.
• 27:22
  Because she had built this big following, again in my mind, of creepy men following her when she was a little.
• 27:30
  Kid being over sexualized.
• 27:32
  It's like, I don't know, man.
• 27:34
  Like, where's the lie?
• 27:36
  Right.
• 27:36
  Right.
• 27:36
  But yeah.
• 27:37
  Why aren't there laws protecting well from things like that?
• 27:40
  There really aren't.
• 27:41
  That's.
• 27:41
  Well, and we're gonna get into that in a minute.
• 27:43
  But they talk about the Ruby Frankie, you know, controversy.
• 27:48
  So there have been a lot of which you've pro.
• 27:50
  So the Ruby Frankie documentary.
• 27:52
  Ruby Frankie is a Mormon woman.
• 27:55
  She was a fundamentalist, to my knowledge, but she was an influencer.
• 28:00
  She and her husband had a channel with their kids and she posted them and for a while they seemed okay with it.
• 28:06
  And then the older ones started taking issue with it.
• 28:09
  And then she kind of fell in with this woman, Jody Hildebrandt, who was a scammer.
• 28:13
  Yeah.
• 28:14
  And it was this really weird situation where like, if you wanted to go see a therapist in her community in Utah, you sort of had to be a church sanctioned person.
• 28:22
  And for whatever reason, the church was like, this lady knows what's going on.
• 28:27
  And what she was doing was she was having couples come in for therapy and basically convincing the wives that their husbands were abusing them and that like they needed to stay away from them and, and keep their kids
• 28:38
  away from them.
• 28:39
  So she created this alienation between the two spouses.
• 28:44
  And then when she realized how popular Ruby Frankie's channel was, she was like, I gotta glom onto this because this is where the money's at.
• 28:51
  And she did.
• 28:52
  And she ended up convincing Ruby Frankie to leave her husband.
• 28:56
  She and her two youngest children moved in with Jody and she locked her kids in like a dungeon.
• 29:02
  And one of her kids escaped and like made it somehow in the desert to their neighbor's house.
• 29:07
  The video is devastating.
• 29:10
  Devastating of this neighbor walking out, finding this emaciated child with rope burn on his wrist and his ankles.
• 29:18
  And the kid is so out of it and trying to explain what's going on.
• 29:22
  This man, the man is probably like a 60 something year old man sobbing on the phone with the police.
• 29:29
  Oh my God.
• 29:30
  That is a crazy documentary.
• 29:31
  And it's worth watching because it just goes to show one people's Minds are so delicate.
• 29:37
  Like, Ruby Frankie was like, like, basically brainwashed again.
• 29:42
  She should be in jail, and that's where she is.
• 29:44
  And so Jodi Hildebrandt.
• 29:45
  I don't even know.
• 29:46
  They should put her in a cave somewhere.
• 29:47
  Yeah, yeah, they're both.
• 29:48
  But also that, like, that children can fall victim to this kind of thing.
• 29:53
  And at the time, like, Ruby Frankie really didn't think she was abusing her kids.
• 29:56
  She's like, yeah, your kids are possessed by the devil, so we have to, like, beat the devil out of them.
• 30:00
  It's like, oh, my God, that's horrible.
• 30:01
  It is the year 2024 at that point.
• 30:04
  Well, yeah, but there are, you know, there's all kinds of crazy things that go on.
• 30:08
  And was all this filmed and show.
• 30:11
  Yeah, real footage.
• 30:12
  Oh, my God.
• 30:13
  I mean, what a crazy, crazy story.
• 30:15
  Well, anyway, so there've been lots of scandals around these situations.
• 30:21
  Then we talk about.
• 30:22
  She goes into the whole market of teen moms.
• 30:25
  Teen moms.
• 30:26
  Because that apparently is a big topic.
• 30:28
  Yeah.
• 30:29
  Which started with the television show on MTV.
• 30:33
  Yes.
• 30:33
  About teen moms 16 and pregnant.
• 30:37
  And the author interviews one of the first 16 pregnant women, Macy.
• 30:44
  Her name is Leah.
• 30:45
  Oh, Leah.
• 30:46
  Who had twins.
• 30:47
  I remember her.
• 30:48
  And one of her kids had muscular dystrophy.
• 30:51
  So she had a really hard time.
• 30:53
  But she said, you know, she actually thinks that the ones who do it on TikTok are better off than she was because she had no say over what again.
• 31:01
  I mean, she limped so these girls could fly.
• 31:04
  Exactly.
• 31:05
  So now they have their own channel.
• 31:07
  Yeah.
• 31:07
  And they say.
• 31:08
  The girls often will say, well, look, you know, we're doing this to show that if you have a child, you're not alone.
• 31:16
  But they really do present their lives as being pretty cozy and happy.
• 31:21
  But.
• 31:22
  But the truth is, so many of these girls, they.
• 31:25
  All they have is their, you know, high school degree.
• 31:27
  They have very little way of making money.
• 31:31
  You know, the few of them who have ever worked, maybe they worked as a waitress or something.
• 31:36
  But.
• 31:36
  Yeah, this way, you know, but by.
• 31:38
  By showing their children, their family, they.
• 31:42
  They have a way of making money.
• 31:43
  Well, by showing the idealized parts, the.
• 31:46
  Idealized version of it.
• 31:48
  Because they do say that they make it sound a little glamorous.
• 31:52
  Yeah, I mean, I don't.
• 31:53
  I don't follow any of them.
• 31:54
  So I'm not quite sure what they post, but I'm sure for like, a young, impressionable girl, like, I don't know.
• 32:00
  I mean, I want my daughter to do whatever she wants.
• 32:04
  If she Wants to be a stay at home mom, God bless her.
• 32:07
  I hope that's what she finds.
• 32:09
  But like not a teen mom.
• 32:11
  I mean, that people don't.
• 32:13
  You shouldn't glamorize stuff like that because for most people it is a tremendously difficult undertaking.
• 32:20
  Right, right.
• 32:21
  It is, it is for most people.
• 32:23
  And it's not something you want your child to aspire to.
• 32:26
  But in this case, very often it's like your grandmother was a teen mom.
• 32:31
  Your mother was a teen mom.
• 32:32
  Yeah, it's like a cycle.
• 32:33
  It kind of is a cycle that repeats.
• 32:37
  But anyway.
• 32:38
  But they do say that they're, they're, you know, trying to raise awareness about it and.
• 32:45
  But yeah, but again, you're raising awareness to a five figure paycheck every month.
• 32:50
  Right.
• 32:51
  That most girls will never get.
• 32:52
  Exactly.
• 32:53
  Right, exactly.
• 32:54
  You know, and it's kind of like, I don't know, man, like you people have the right to show whatever parts of their life online that they want of themselves.
• 33:03
  But what I hope eventually happens is like if you, I hope that you should not be, you can't really show kids because again, like they can't consent.
• 33:12
  Right, well, that we get into that.
• 33:13
  So we also hear about, you know, what's the truth behind some of these posts?
• 33:20
  And we hear about a man named Sam who had a very successful YouTube channel.
• 33:25
  His kids didn't really want to participate.
• 33:28
  And he said he would have to bribe them to participate or he'd guilt them into it.
• 33:33
  He'd say, you know, hey, this is how we make money.
• 33:36
  I have to feed you, you know, so that kind of thing.
• 33:39
  But they had some kind of scandal.
• 33:41
  They didn't say what it was.
• 33:42
  They ended up going offline.
• 33:44
  So what happened was his older kids then struggled to fit into the normal world.
• 33:50
  They had to go out and get jobs.
• 33:52
  They got jobs as construction workers.
• 33:54
  They couldn't stand the fact that money just didn't come easily.
• 33:58
  They actually had to work for every hour and only get like, you know, 15, $20 an hour, whatever.
• 34:04
  Yeah.
• 34:05
  I think honestly, kids who are influencers, who are making money, I do think that their parents obviously need to put aside money for them, but they don't need it when they're kids.
• 34:14
  No.
• 34:15
  Give it to them in stages, you know, pay for their education, save if there's enough money, like give it to them for a down payment on a house.
• 34:25
  Like teach them about assets.
• 34:26
  Yeah, well, some have done that and many have not.
• 34:31
  And so that's essentially what it was.
• 34:32
  But he said, Sam, this man said, look, you know, people go into this because they want praise for their own parenting skills, for their how, what good, you know, homes they've built, whatever.
• 34:45
  And he said at first he hated the idea of selling his family's privacy, but the more money they started making, he said it became like crack.
• 34:53
  You know, they would do anything for more views and there was just no filter.
• 34:57
  Yeah, that's where it gets damn dangerous.
• 34:59
  That's kind of what he said.
• 35:00
  So anyway, so you know, we hear about families and one mother who, you know, very popular channel, lets her 8 year old create some of the content.
• 35:15
  But then they started getting comments from perverts about her daughter.
• 35:19
  This whole part made me sick.
• 35:21
  Yeah, she says she doesn't let her daughter see the comments.
• 35:24
  Comments.
• 35:25
  She'll block the pervert and report him, but she still lets her daughter post.
• 35:30
  So which is like, why are you letting your daughter post?
• 35:33
  As a parent, your primary job is to keep your kids safe, is to protect them from perverts.
• 35:38
  Both literal and virtual.
• 35:40
  Exactly.
• 35:41
  And if you're not doing that, I like, honestly, I feel bad for your children.
• 35:45
  Well, yeah, I feel bad for your children and they deserve better.
• 35:48
  Well, and the online advocates for children, child influencer rights say that these influencers, the parents are always making up reasons about why what they're doing just isn't.
• 35:57
  Wrong because it serves them right.
• 35:59
  It's very hard to say, well I'm just doing this for the money.
• 36:02
  But yeah, but again, when is enough money?
• 36:05
  When is enough enough?
• 36:07
  At a certain point like you kind of have to just say, listen, I'm doing this for the clout.
• 36:11
  I'm doing this for the attention.
• 36:12
  And the money is like a nice side effect.
• 36:14
  Exactly.
• 36:15
  But they'll say, no, no, I'm doing it because we want to show the world what a happy family looks like, like, or you know, that's why we're doing it.
• 36:22
  I can't, I can't with these self serving liars.
• 36:27
  Okay, talk about why.
• 36:29
  Why.
• 36:30
  Okay.
• 36:31
  Mormon influencers are so successful, so it's so fascinating.
• 36:38
  The Mormon religion is just, it's so fascinating.
• 36:41
  They highly prize work ethic and ambition, typically in men.
• 36:47
  And a woman's version of this is keeping a beautiful home, a beautiful body, a beautiful family.
• 36:53
  And I think the Mormon church has realized that the ability to broadcast their best and their brightest, particularly the women.
• 37:03
  This is sort of the new age of what being a missionary means.
• 37:07
  Right, right.
• 37:08
  This is the new way to spread the gospel and to entice people to come and participate and be Mormons.
• 37:13
  Because their lives look so beautiful and so perfect.
• 37:17
  And these girls do it better than anyone.
• 37:20
  Yeah.
• 37:20
  Because they have been taught from a very young age that beauty and cleanliness is godliness.
• 37:27
  Right.
• 37:27
  So the more beautiful you are, the more, you know, the more perfect you seem, the closer to God you ultimately are.
• 37:37
  Right, right.
• 37:38
  And, you know, I mean, they post some of the best content.
• 37:41
  Honestly, a lot of the mommy influencers I follow, I mean, man, they have got it down to a formula, really.
• 37:47
  The images are beautiful.
• 37:49
  Like, they are interesting.
• 37:52
  And it's interesting too, because a lot of these women are out earning their husbands.
• 37:56
  Right.
• 37:57
  And I mean, what a way to be ambitious and turn that into a business, but also still sort of keep that typical gender role of being a stay at home mom.
• 38:06
  Right.
• 38:07
  Cause that's what they're presenting themselves as doing, really.
• 38:10
  They're running an enterprise.
• 38:11
  Right?
• 38:11
  They are.
• 38:12
  And they talk about Hannah Nealman, who we love.
• 38:14
  Ballerina, farm ballerina.
• 38:16
  We've talked about her before and how, you know, she's really presenting life as a wife in an idealized path past, you know, just that you bake bread and your family's all beautiful and, and you cook and.
• 38:34
  Yeah.
• 38:34
  And you have animals.
• 38:35
  Yeah.
• 38:36
  And it's interesting, there's a statistic that says that 14% of LDS members have had plastic surgery versus gen pop, which is.
• 38:43
  Is like 4%.
• 38:44
  Yeah.
• 38:45
  And that makes total sense to me because I love watching the Mormon wives.
• 38:48
  It's also like the only time they can do drugs is when they go and they get surgery.
• 38:52
  So like all these girls get tons of Botox and filler and they do the laughing gas.
• 38:56
  Oh, is that right?
• 38:58
  Yeah.
• 38:58
  And they're like, this is the only time I could get like laughing gas and justify it.
• 39:01
  Oh, that's funny.
• 39:03
  Okay, okay.
• 39:04
  So there's.
• 39:05
  So that's why, that's why they say that, you know, the Mormons are the big influencers.
• 39:10
  And that's the reason.
• 39:10
  And interestingly, that I learned from the this book, the LDS Church pays its influencers directly, so they'll sponsor campaigns where the influencer goes out and does charity, and then they'll film it and post it, which obviously is the
• 39:24
  kind of press that the church wants.
• 39:27
  And I think it's interesting because they are really challenging a lot of the values of this pretty intense religion.
• 39:36
  And it's just amazing to me that when money becomes involved and reach becomes a thing, how flexible.
• 39:45
  Yes.
• 39:45
  Religions can become.
• 39:47
  Right, right.
• 39:47
  Because when it's every.
• 39:49
  It's rigid.
• 39:50
  Women can't leave the House women can't do this.
• 39:52
  And then suddenly women are making all this money and attracting all these new members and you're like, we should reconsider.
• 39:58
  Go ahead, be a little wild.
• 40:00
  We're gonna be progressive about this.
• 40:02
  And it's like, yes, exactly.
• 40:05
  Are you being progressive or are you being greedy?
• 40:08
  Like, be real here.
• 40:09
  That's right.
• 40:10
  That's right.
• 40:11
  So, all right, so then we get into.
• 40:12
  They talk about parents who had really good strong fame and lots of followers, but they changed their minds.
• 40:21
  They've backed off.
• 40:22
  Why have they backed off?
• 40:24
  Perverts, that's why.
• 40:27
  Yeah.
• 40:27
  So.
• 40:28
  All right, so Maya Knight, she's a TikToker, two daughters.
• 40:31
  She had 8.1 million followers.
• 40:34
  A lot.
• 40:35
  And.
• 40:35
  And in 2023, she decided she was no longer going to show her kids faces online.
• 40:41
  She doesn't anymore.
• 40:43
  Her followers went down to like 7.7 million.
• 40:46
  So she was not.
• 40:46
  So she lost 400,000 perverts.
• 40:49
  That's not that.
• 40:49
  Yeah, right.
• 40:50
  She, she actually managed to survive.
• 40:53
  But well, Nara Smith did that too, I think in the last couple years.
• 40:56
  Like she used to post her kids and now she doesn't.
• 40:58
  She does.
• 40:59
  Well, she'll.
• 40:59
  Or she'll let cover their faces.
• 41:00
  Which I appreciate.
• 41:02
  Right.
• 41:02
  Because again, you create a safety issue if like you have these rabid crazy fans.
• 41:07
  Right.
• 41:07
  And they can just access you.
• 41:08
  There's not that same remove as there is with celebrities who can afford security details.
• 41:13
  Exactly.
• 41:13
  Like these people can literally just run up on you in your house.
• 41:16
  Right.
• 41:17
  They could figure out where you live and all of that.
• 41:20
  Yeah.
• 41:21
  She tells several different people, you know, who had really big followings.
• 41:28
  Aspen Ovar.
• 41:30
  Yeah, I think she's gonna be on the new.
• 41:33
  The New Mormon Wives.
• 41:34
  The OC version.
• 41:35
  Uh huh.
• 41:36
  Well, yeah.
• 41:37
  She says she stopped putting her kids on after four years and she regrets ever putting them online.
• 41:44
  But there's a snark subreddit about her and her family, which is.
• 41:49
  So she just said, that's it, I'm done.
• 41:51
  I'm not putting.
• 41:52
  That's how you know you've made it if there's.
• 41:54
  When you've got haters on Reddit.
• 41:56
  Is that right?
• 41:57
  Yeah.
• 41:57
  Yes.
• 41:57
  Yeah.
• 41:58
  And then I remember the EM Kaiser situation was so, so, so sad.
• 42:04
  She was a famous influencer.
• 42:06
  She still is.
• 42:06
  She just did an interview with Jay Shetty a couple months ago that was very interesting and poignant, but she was out.
• 42:13
  Her husband was watching her three year old and their new baby and the three year old fell into the pool and drowned.
• 42:20
  Oh.
• 42:21
  Oh.
• 42:21
  Yeah, it was terrible.
• 42:22
  That's that I heard.
• 42:24
  But it was an accident, you know, and unfortunately, things like that, that can happen.
• 42:30
  You know, she talked a lot about in the interview how she's really worked hard to forgive her husband.
• 42:35
  She understands, like, it's the kind of thing that, of course, he did not mean for this to happen.
• 42:40
  Of course.
• 42:40
  Right.
• 42:41
  And it wasn't like he was being negligent.
• 42:43
  But, you know, this.
• 42:44
  It happens.
• 42:45
  And people came for her as a parent.
• 42:49
  Right, right.
• 42:50
  Which I imagine that must easily be the single worst moment of your life to then have millions of strangers coming for your neck.
• 43:01
  Well, yeah.
• 43:02
  After that, they said a lot of people took their kids offline because people were posting videos of themselves just weeping uncontrollably over what happened to her child.
• 43:13
  Which I feel I would have.
• 43:14
  Absolutely would have cried.
• 43:16
  I mean, it's devastating.
• 43:17
  Yeah, But.
• 43:18
  But I don't think I would have.
• 43:19
  Put myself as a parent.
• 43:20
  Can you imagine this happening to you?
• 43:22
  And then three months down the line coming across a video like that.
• 43:25
  Yeah.
• 43:25
  When.
• 43:26
  And it's like people need to grieve how they need to grieve.
• 43:28
  And maybe she can't handle that.
• 43:30
  Right.
• 43:31
  Well, she went offline for a while, but they said now she's back online.
• 43:34
  Yeah, she is.
• 43:35
  And again, it's worth listening to her interview with Jay Shetty.
• 43:39
  Cause it really gives you perspective on.
• 43:41
  The situation of what happened to her.
• 43:44
  And also just that, again, being a parent, your heart literally lives outside your body.
• 43:50
  And that's a risk in and of itself is signing up for that.
• 43:54
  I mean, this fear that if something happens to this person, it is the single most devastating thing that can ever happen.
• 44:00
  And you kind of have to say, listen, like, that's a risk you run.
• 44:03
  And everyone's gonna know.
• 44:05
  And.
• 44:05
  Do you really?
• 44:06
  Yeah.
• 44:06
  And imagine living in, like, a small town and everyone knowing, much less living on the Internet.
• 44:11
  Right, right.
• 44:12
  Okay.
• 44:12
  You know, and the judgment and everything that comes with that, you know, it's just awful, terrible.
• 44:17
  Well, and then there was one famous mom influencer who did decide not to feature her kids.
• 44:23
  And she says that her kids are just so upset and they're dying to get.
• 44:26
  They want to be in her content.
• 44:27
  Sometimes you got to tell your kids no.
• 44:28
  And she did.
• 44:29
  She says, I had to explain informed consent to them.
• 44:33
  At your age, there's no way for you to understand the long term or even the short term effects of what it would mean to be in my content.
• 44:41
  So.
• 44:41
  No.
• 44:42
  So no.
• 44:42
  And she says, good for her.
• 44:43
  Yeah.
• 44:44
  But she says, and that's true.
• 44:46
  A child has no idea how they might feel in 15, 20 years.
• 44:50
  Absolutely.
• 44:51
  Yeah.
• 44:51
  Absolutely.
• 44:52
  Right.
• 44:52
  You know, when I think about Karen Quinn and Testing mom, the first thing that stands out is their effectiveness in truly enhancing a child's education.
• 45:03
  You see, Karen is a national expert.
• 45:05
  On gifted and talented testing, and she's the ultimate authority on helping kids get into top schools.
• 45:12
  I know this firsthand because she helped two out of my three kids get into the best schools in New York City.
• 45:18
  City.
• 45:18
  And my youngest child is eight months.
• 45:21
  I'm sure she will help her as well.
• 45:23
  What really makes Testing Moms special is that they're not just about academics.
• 45:29
  They're focused on the social and emotional development of children.
• 45:32
  It's about nurturing the whole child and.
• 45:35
  Giving them a strong foundation in academics and confidence and life skills.
• 45:40
  Her insights and resources have made a.
• 45:43
  Lasting impact on my family and countless others.
• 45:47
  I am forever indebted to Karen Quinn and Testing mom, and you should have no hesitation about trying out their services.
• 45:56
  And then.
• 45:57
  So this was an interesting section of the book, how she talked about how lonely it can be to be a new parent.
• 46:04
  And like a lot of new parents, seek out these mom influencers in many ways to feel less alone, particularly the ones that are more often honest.
• 46:14
  You know, like, I follow a good mix of both, right?
• 46:16
  Some that are like, yeah, today my child, like, figured out a child lock and tried to jump off the stair banister.
• 46:23
  And like, yeah, you know, this is what it is.
• 46:25
  I have three boys and every day is a perilous nightmare.
• 46:28
  And then I follow some who are like, yeah, like to.
• 46:32
  This morning I Woke up at 8:30 and my kids were still asleep.
• 46:36
  Oh.
• 46:37
  And then together we baked croissants that we had made the dough for in their homeschool yesterday.
• 46:43
  And I'm just like, your life is not this peaceful.
• 46:46
  No, I don't believe you.
• 46:47
  I don't believe you.
• 46:48
  You're a liar.
• 46:49
  But I love your content because it brings me peace.
• 46:52
  Sometimes it calms you down.
• 46:53
  So.
• 46:54
  That's right.
• 46:54
  So there's different reasons, I think, to watch these different influencers.
• 46:58
  Some make you feel not alone, some make you feel like.
• 47:01
  But.
• 47:02
  But she says.
• 47:03
  Or there was a psychologist who said that when she talks to her patients about it, you know, they.
• 47:09
  A lot of them say they watch it just to learn, but that it kind of, in the end, makes them feel worse about themselves a lot.
• 47:16
  Well, I think it's hard not to compare yourself to what you see online.
• 47:21
  You know, it's hard and like.
• 47:23
  But you sort of.
• 47:24
  I think again, that kind of comes back to this idea of like, you have to like, do whatever you can to build the life that you want and, and like be with what you have.
• 47:33
  Right?
• 47:33
  Yes.
• 47:34
  You know, exactly.
• 47:35
  And appreciate that.
• 47:36
  That's right.
• 47:37
  That's right.
• 47:39
  So there's also a lot of rubbernecking, they say.
• 47:43
  And they tell the story of one mom who's a mother of 11 children.
• 47:47
  Oh my God.
• 47:48
  All of their children's names start with A.
• 47:50
  That's.
• 47:51
  That's a lot of kids.
• 47:52
  That's a lot.
• 47:53
  And they want to see a life that is so different from their life.
• 47:56
  Yeah.
• 47:57
  And, and this woman doesn't believe her name is Carissa Collins.
• 48:02
  She does not believe in birth control, vaccines, and she home schools and she spanks.
• 48:06
  You don't say she doesn't believe in birth control, obviously.
• 48:09
  Obviously.
• 48:10
  And it's rubbernecking.
• 48:12
  You know, it's like people watch to say, hey, I'm a better parent than she is.
• 48:17
  I feel like people watch this the same way that we watch the Housewives where we're like, these people are so bonkers.
• 48:23
  Like, like, you want to.
• 48:24
  I gotta see, I gotta see this to believe it.
• 48:27
  Right?
• 48:27
  You know?
• 48:28
  Yes, exactly.
• 48:29
  And then they get into the snark communities on Reddit.
• 48:32
  I love influencer snark.
• 48:34
  Oh, you do?
• 48:34
  See, I've been, I've never done that.
• 48:36
  Oh, it's so funny.
• 48:37
  There are only like a few influencers that I've been following that I like to like check up on.
• 48:41
  But the snark channels are so unbelievably funny.
• 48:44
  Uhhuh.
• 48:44
  But it is mean.
• 48:45
  A lot of it's mean.
• 48:46
  Some of the mods get in and they're like, that's too mean.
• 48:49
  But sometimes they don't.
• 48:51
  Well, they don't think of themselves as being mean.
• 48:54
  They're holding people accountable.
• 48:56
  That's what they say, that we're going on to hold people accountable.
• 49:00
  Your haters are just holding you accountable that you like.
• 49:04
  Look, if you're going to put yourself out there to make money, then you know, if you screw up, we are going to hold you.
• 49:11
  And it turns out most of the people on there are former fans who get mad at for something that you've done, some perceived slight.
• 49:20
  Right.
• 49:20
  Like they talk about one example, the LeBron's, and they posted a YouTube video with the title she got diagnosed with cancer.
• 49:27
  And they showed a picture of their little daughter Posey, who everybody knew.
• 49:32
  And so everybody assumed Posey had cancer.
• 49:34
  And so everybody clicked on.
• 49:35
  But she didn't.
• 49:36
  No, she didn't.
• 49:37
  It was some other kid.
• 49:39
  So it was clickbait, you know, and so that's when they start holding you accountable.
• 49:43
  That's low brow.
• 49:44
  That's.
• 49:44
  Yeah, they're saying it's very low brow.
• 49:46
  So that's.
• 49:46
  That's exactly right.
• 49:47
  Like, that's insane.
• 49:48
  Yeah, but they say they're on a moral crusade.
• 49:51
  Are they?
• 49:52
  That's what the snarkers say.
• 49:54
  We're on a moral crusade.
• 49:56
  Yes.
• 49:57
  We're in the right.
• 49:59
  I think people need to get jobs is really what I think.
• 50:02
  It makes people mad, I guess, when you.
• 50:05
  When you see people.
• 50:06
  I would be mad if I saw that.
• 50:07
  Well, again, listen, you know, you've made it when you've got haters, but.
• 50:11
  Yeah, but that's crazy.
• 50:12
  That's desperate being like, look, this child you've all grown attached to and made make it seem as though she has been diagnosed with cancer when she has not.
• 50:20
  I would just think that's just bad juju, bad energy, like towards your own child.
• 50:24
  You're speaking something into the universe that you don't want to see come back at you.
• 50:27
  Oh, no.
• 50:29
  All right, so now we look at sponsorships and actually the economics of influence, which was.
• 50:35
  Just blew me away because I had no idea how much money these people were making.
• 50:41
  I was like, are you kidding me?
• 50:43
  Now I get it.
• 50:44
  I know.
• 50:44
  Okay, so.
• 50:45
  An Alexandra Sabal TikTok was living in Section 8 housing with her three kids before she started.
• 50:53
  Now she has almost a million followers on TikTok and she's been able to buy a house for herself, go back to college before TikTok, on a good year, she made about 25,000.
• 51:04
  And that is below the poverty line, right?
• 51:07
  In nearly every state, actually, I would say in every state.
• 51:09
  But with this person, she said, you know, she focuses mostly on food in her videos and most of the comments towards her are very mean.
• 51:18
  She seems to attract hate watchers because she's a big person and she gives her kids a lot of fast food.
• 51:24
  So people are making mean comments to her.
• 51:27
  So maybe she says much.
• 51:28
  They said much of the comment.
• 51:30
  Her content is rage bait, but she leans into it a little because it's making her money.
• 51:35
  Listen, rage bait all the way to the bank, my friend.
• 51:37
  That's what she's doing.
• 51:38
  Good for her.
• 51:40
  One mom who posts videos of herself doing her daughter's hair.
• 51:44
  I follow her.
• 51:45
  Oh, yeah.
• 51:46
  She makes between 25 and 30 and 40,000amonth.
• 51:50
  I would show my daughter Doing my daughter's hair.
• 51:53
  If that's all it took.
• 51:54
  Yeah.
• 51:55
  I mean, again, I don't know.
• 51:56
  I don't follow her.
• 51:56
  It depends on the kind of content that you're pushing.
• 51:59
  But one thing I realized when I read this book is that pedophiles can find something in any video of any child.
• 52:08
  Right.
• 52:09
  They get really?
• 52:09
  Exactly.
• 52:10
  It's so unbelievably gross.
• 52:12
  And like, there is really.
• 52:14
  I mean, I don't know.
• 52:16
  I.
• 52:17
  I have a private Instagram and I have posted pictures of my daughter who is one year old.
• 52:21
  So obviously she will not look like this for very long.
• 52:25
  Right.
• 52:26
  As she gets older, I will not be posting pictures of her when she is school age.
• 52:29
  I will not be because again, people are freaking creepy freaks.
• 52:35
  Yeah, well, even if it's private, it could still get out, right?
• 52:38
  Yeah.
• 52:39
  I mean, someone could screenshot it and it could.
• 52:40
  I don't think me like, pedophiles follow me.
• 52:43
  But still, like.
• 52:44
  Exactly.
• 52:45
  It's just like, huh.
• 52:47
  Well, and.
• 52:47
  And you, you hear about, like, they talk about the fact that you might make.
• 52:52
  A person could make 100,000 to 150,000 just for one post.
• 52:57
  I'm sure certain people.
• 52:59
  Okay, that takes years to build up to you.
• 53:02
  And it's not like, oh, you just post this one video and then you make all this money.
• 53:06
  That probably took years and years, hundreds upon hundreds of videos of your children and your life before you reach the point of being paid that much money.
• 53:17
  That's the pinnacle.
• 53:18
  That's the pinnacle.
• 53:18
  You're not, you're not talking about all the drudge work that went into that,.
• 53:22
  That led to that.
• 53:23
  Okay, and.
• 53:24
  But there's something called a TikTok Creator Fund that pays creators who have more than 10,000 followers for eligible views on videos that are longer than a certain amount of time.
• 53:35
  There's AdSense on YouTube where they're getting a 45, 55 split in ad revenue.
• 53:43
  Someone mentioned the family fun pack family, which we talked about before, making.
• 53:48
  They're making just probably 200,000amonth from Adsense.
• 53:52
  So there's all these ways to make money.
• 53:54
  There's YouTube and TikTok give you money.
• 54:00
  There are brand deals.
• 54:02
  They make appearances.
• 54:03
  They go to conferences.
• 54:05
  Yeah.
• 54:07
  They participate in sites where they get commissions just by posting links to things they're wearing.
• 54:12
  So there's so many different ways to make money.
• 54:15
  And then once they make money, they hire editors, channel managers, household managers, nannies, brand managers, et cetera.
• 54:25
  And they talk about the fact that they know that content showing their Sick or hurt children do best.
• 54:33
  And the arrival of a new baby that always invigorates a channel.
• 54:38
  Content with children under 13 does better than any content without children because of the creeps.
• 54:45
  Right.
• 54:45
  So people know if you won't show your child, you will lose money.
• 54:51
  And there's, you know, one person who says, I no longer show my daughter's face in her postings.
• 54:55
  She lost half her income.
• 54:58
  Well, again, again, you were.
• 55:00
  I hate to say this, but it's like it's exploitative.
• 55:02
  I'm sorry that you made a better choice and decided to not continue to exploit your child for money that they're probably not going to see.
• 55:09
  Because again, most of these parents are not putting money aside because no one has told them that they have to.
• 55:15
  Right.
• 55:15
  Well, it's only, you only have to right now in five states anyway.
• 55:19
  And the, the laws are so complicated that they make it difficult for people to even figure out how to do it.
• 55:25
  What the correct way is is.
• 55:26
  Exactly.
• 55:27
  But we'll get into that.
• 55:28
  We'll get into that.
• 55:29
  But it, but, but you know, these, these, you know, she talks about this woman, Bethany Johnson, who makes half a million a year and she says, look, I'm a, she's a single mom, high school education.
• 55:41
  Where else is she going to make that kind of money and that.
• 55:45
  So I think circumstantially speaking, there are situations where it makes sense.
• 55:50
  Again, she, this person is like, like it's this or it's poverty.
• 55:53
  It's because again, if you're a single parent, right, you are presumably responsible for your child most of the time, if not all of the time.
• 56:01
  If they're not school age and you don't have child care, you can't afford it.
• 56:05
  Right.
• 56:05
  You have to work from home.
• 56:07
  And this is a way to work from home without a boss, really, and with control over your time.
• 56:13
  Which helps the author and us, I think, understand why some people do this and why people.
• 56:19
  Right, but I mean, many people might choose the money.
• 56:22
  I mean they.
• 56:23
  Yeah, which, listen, I get it.
• 56:24
  You know, it's money.
• 56:26
  Everybody needs money to survive in this world, but at what cost?
• 56:31
  Well, now we get into the wrong kind of attention.
• 56:33
  And that's where she talks about, you know, mothers who have put up content of their kids that are suggestive and inappropriate.
• 56:43
  Prison.
• 56:44
  Prison for these women.
• 56:46
  Right?
• 56:46
  And the first mother they tell about is Ren Eleanor, a little three year old who was the subject of her mother's TikTok posts.
• 56:55
  I mean she had 17 million followers and she would post all These suggestive photos of Ren.
• 57:01
  3 year old of a 3 year old with these captions that made it sound dirty.
• 57:06
  Again, jail.
• 57:08
  Well, and why is this?
• 57:09
  It was inappropriate.
• 57:10
  And thousands of people called for her to be taken off and she will was the police.
• 57:16
  Well, they.
• 57:16
  People did call the FBI.
• 57:19
  People did.
• 57:19
  And, and, and they talk about an article in the New York Times in 2024 where they analyzed two and a half million posts and they found all these details about pedophiles cheering on the publishing of kid influencer content
• 57:36
  with comments like, I'm so glad these new moms are pimping their daughters out.
• 57:41
  I mean, really disgusting.
• 57:42
  Listen, that is disgusting.
• 57:43
  But a lot of these moms need to hear this.
• 57:46
  Right?
• 57:46
  They consider these.
• 57:47
  Justify it all you want.
• 57:49
  Right.
• 57:50
  But this is a byproduct.
• 57:52
  These, these bad people consider the content parents post about their kids just be a treasure trove for them.
• 57:58
  It's so foul.
• 57:59
  And they're talking now about, you know, how so many influencer parents have revealed that yes, they've had to deal with pedophiles.
• 58:09
  And yet they persist.
• 58:10
  Many do.
• 58:11
  Many have.
• 58:14
  But now with AI, you know, there's been a new article in the Times saying that look, there's, you know, with AI being able to manipulate pictures, it's just threatening to overwhelm the authorities because they take pictures from the
• 58:30
  Internet.
• 58:30
  Of course it is.
• 58:32
  Yeah.
• 58:32
  Because again, I mean, people aren't trained to deal with stuff like that.
• 58:35
  This.
• 58:36
  And the ingenuity of pedophiles is astonishing.
• 58:40
  I know, I know.
• 58:41
  Well, and, but what she, what happens is there was a.
• 58:44
  They, they talked to an investigator who works with newly released pedophiles and she says these, a lot of these offenders save thousands of images and videos of kids from TikTok and YouTube and Instagram.
• 58:57
  And, and this, this investigator said, I would never post my child's face, face or name on the Internet.
• 59:04
  Now that I've seen this, why are.
• 59:05
  Pedophiles allowed out of jail?
• 59:07
  Well, I eventually.
• 59:10
  Listen, you have to be released or maybe you haven't gotten well, I don't know.
• 59:15
  Can they make an island for them and they can all just go there together and not bother us?
• 59:22
  Maybe.
• 59:23
  Well, and what happens is a lot of moms will continue, continue to post content with their kids saying, hey, look, you know, it's more likely going to happen with an uncle or a cousin than some stranger online.
• 59:36
  Okay?
• 59:36
  Literal, justify literal physical sexual abuse.
• 59:39
  Yes.
• 59:40
  It almost always happens with someone that your child knows that the parents know.
• 59:44
  Yes.
• 59:45
  That said, that's not like a reason to keep posting these.
• 59:49
  Right?
• 59:50
  Well, that's not like, okay, the threat is them, like, showing up at your house and kidnapping your kid.
• 59:55
  I, I guess, maybe.
• 59:56
  Well, yeah, but again, like, these are images that will live on of your children forever in the hands of these horrific people.
• 1:00:03
  I know, I know.
• 1:00:04
  Yes, I know.
• 1:00:05
  And how do you, like, reconcile that and keep going?
• 1:00:09
  Well, people, people do.
• 1:00:11
  I mean, like, they'll say, like one influencer said, well, there are thousands of children on social media.
• 1:00:16
  Why would a pedophile choose my child to focus on?
• 1:00:19
  Well, they might, you know, they might.
• 1:00:21
  I don't know, girl.
• 1:00:22
  I don't know.
• 1:00:23
  But if that's a risk, why are we doing this?
• 1:00:25
  Yeah, but that is.
• 1:00:27
  And that's what they talk about is that this is, you know, and they talk about one woman whose child's picture was found on the dark web.
• 1:00:35
  And, and they, the mom did take it her account down, but the daughter got so upset that she put it back up.
• 1:00:43
  So she didn't, you know.
• 1:00:45
  Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  So anyway, I also think it's dangerous.
• 1:00:48
  To train children to think that attention is the end all, be all, and that anything that gets you attention, negative or positive.
• 1:00:54
  Positive.
• 1:00:55
  Is worth pursuing.
• 1:00:56
  Right.
• 1:00:56
  I think that's a really dangerous thing to teach a absorbent little mind.
• 1:01:02
  Yes.
• 1:01:02
  And, and I think.
• 1:01:03
  Right.
• 1:01:04
  And that's why keeping social media, little children off social media is important.
• 1:01:08
  But social media aside, like, teaching kids that attention is the currency.
• 1:01:13
  Yeah.
• 1:01:13
  That they need to strive for.
• 1:01:15
  Right.
• 1:01:15
  In general is very dangerous.
• 1:01:18
  And it creates narcissists.
• 1:01:20
  Right.
• 1:01:20
  It creates egomaniacs.
• 1:01:22
  It creates kids who will do anything and everything for attention.
• 1:01:25
  And like, that's not healthy.
• 1:01:28
  I, I would agree, but I, I'm thinking about, like, I have friends whose grandkids, you know, have their, their, their adorable little kids, and they have their own YouTube channels where they try to emulate these other kids and
• 1:01:41
  they don't do a very good job, but they try.
• 1:01:44
  Yeah.
• 1:01:44
  And because they see it and they.
• 1:01:46
  If my kid wants to make videos, make the videos.
• 1:01:49
  I'm not putting them on the Internet.
• 1:01:51
  What?
• 1:01:51
  Well, that's the thing.
• 1:01:52
  They make her a private channel with no followers.
• 1:01:55
  But I wonder, you know, if you make a private channel, are you.
• 1:01:59
  Once you put it on the Internet.
• 1:02:00
  I don't know.
• 1:02:00
  Or maybe just no channel.
• 1:02:02
  I'll put it in a folder on my computer.
• 1:02:04
  When you want to watch these videos of yourself, there they are.
• 1:02:07
  Because, look, people will say, oh, there's child actors in films.
• 1:02:10
  There's this.
• 1:02:10
  And that there are.
• 1:02:11
  Again, it is not perfect.
• 1:02:13
  It is the best they could do.
• 1:02:15
  But there are laws that protect kids both on stage and from, you know, parents who are unscrupulous.
• 1:02:25
  Right.
• 1:02:25
  You know.
• 1:02:26
  Right.
• 1:02:26
  Well.
• 1:02:26
  And in fact, let's get into the next part, which is regulate.
• 1:02:30
  Regulating it.
• 1:02:30
  Yeah.
• 1:02:31
  Because.
• 1:02:32
  Yeah.
• 1:02:33
  What they talk about is the fact that, like, can you imagine if you went viral as a toddler and then hundreds of millions of people have watched you your whole life growing up, you reach the age of 18,
• 1:02:44
  and there's no money that's been set aside for.
• 1:02:46
  You, which happens, I'm sure, all the time.
• 1:02:48
  It happened to Ariana Berry Spearman.
• 1:02:50
  She was Kim Zolciak's daughter, is still her daughter.
• 1:02:54
  She's also on Next Gen nyc and one of the first few episodes that came out.
• 1:02:58
  All this money she had made as a kid influencing.
• 1:03:02
  And I don't know that she made, like a salary from the show, but in theory, I mean, she was making a lot of money.
• 1:03:06
  Her mom had spent every Red Wow.
• 1:03:10
  Scent.
• 1:03:10
  Yes, well.
• 1:03:11
  Well, with this within.
• 1:03:13
  With blogging, it's just.
• 1:03:14
  It's legal in 45 states.
• 1:03:16
  You don't have to put any money aside.
• 1:03:18
  Okay.
• 1:03:19
  In another context, that's slavery.
• 1:03:21
  Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  But anyway.
• 1:03:22
  Well, just because they're your kin doesn't mean they're not being enslaved by you.
• 1:03:26
  Well, and now there's five.
• 1:03:28
  There's five states where it is not legal, and there's five more states where they're trying to pass legislation.
• 1:03:34
  But the issue is really all of these laws, all they're doing is getting money to the kids.
• 1:03:40
  But it's not creating workplace protection, anything like that.
• 1:03:44
  No time how much time you can spend or how much privacy you can violate.
• 1:03:51
  However, creating a framework for once a child becomes old enough, if they can prove that they didn't want X, Y or Z on a channel or online, that they have a framework to sue their parents.
• 1:04:02
  That's.
• 1:04:03
  That's in Utah.
• 1:04:04
  That.
• 1:04:04
  In just Utah.
• 1:04:05
  Interesting thing, a lot of Utah influencers are moving to Nashville.
• 1:04:09
  Oh, really?
• 1:04:10
  To evade these laws.
• 1:04:12
  Laws.
• 1:04:12
  Oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah.
• 1:04:15
  Oh, well, interesting, because they're saying in Utah, all you have is the right.
• 1:04:20
  The child has the right to tell their parents, take my content down.
• 1:04:23
  Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  The parent does not have to take it down.
• 1:04:26
  So it's okay.
• 1:04:27
  What's the point?
• 1:04:27
  It's creating a law for a lawsuit.
• 1:04:30
  That's all it is.
• 1:04:31
  But that's.
• 1:04:32
  That's like, so what?
• 1:04:33
  So this is the thing, right?
• 1:04:34
  Here's Another, it's a power imbalance.
• 1:04:36
  Right.
• 1:04:36
  You children are reliant on their parents for everything.
• 1:04:38
  Everything.
• 1:04:39
  Right.
• 1:04:39
  They are not in most cases going to be able to have the wherewithal and the strength mentally and the resources to be like, I don't want to do this.
• 1:04:52
  Right.
• 1:04:52
  Because in no other context can you really say that to your parents.
• 1:04:56
  Right.
• 1:04:56
  No, I'm not doing this.
• 1:04:57
  Like, you have to do what they say again.
• 1:04:59
  And kids are impressionable and, and rightfully they should be able to trust their parents and do what their parents say because theoretically parents have children's best interest at heart.
• 1:05:09
  Right?
• 1:05:10
  They should.
• 1:05:11
  Well, they should.
• 1:05:11
  But anyway.
• 1:05:12
  But these laws, what I think they talk about is the fact that they just don't really deal with the real issue.
• 1:05:19
  And just even the money, let's just say the money.
• 1:05:22
  Like, here's the Utah formula for how much money is a child owed.
• 1:05:27
  I'll read it to you.
• 1:05:28
  But it's so complicated.
• 1:05:29
  Earnings equal all paid minutes featuring the qualifying minority divided by total paid minutes times paid minutes featuring the qualified minor divided by the sum of all minutes for all qualifying minors times the preceding month's income from social media
• 1:05:49
  divided by two.
• 1:05:50
  That's how you figure out how much money that the kid is owed for every post.
• 1:05:56
  So how do you expect anybody to figure that?
• 1:05:59
  I was like going, wow.
• 1:06:00
  Well, again, it sounds to me like, like this creates an industry for accountants.
• 1:06:04
  Well, yeah, I guess you need social media manager, accountants.
• 1:06:07
  You do need accountants to say, I.
• 1:06:09
  Know the formula, I know how to do this above board.
• 1:06:12
  Right.
• 1:06:12
  And we'll take care of it.
• 1:06:14
  We'll look at everything you post and tell you what you owe.
• 1:06:16
  Exactly.
• 1:06:17
  But anyway, there should be an auditing system.
• 1:06:19
  This is so complicated.
• 1:06:20
  I know.
• 1:06:20
  It's really, what they're saying is, look, it, it's like, you know, the, the laws have just not kept up with the reality of creating, creating content.
• 1:06:30
  It's kind of the wild west right now.
• 1:06:32
  Right.
• 1:06:33
  And a former influencer says, look, compensation isn't even the issue.
• 1:06:36
  The biggest issue, the issue is the emotional and psychological harm and damage that comes from posting someone's entire life image character for the public to see and consume.
• 1:06:47
  And that will.
• 1:06:48
  Without consent.
• 1:06:50
  Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  Because a child can't give consent and that won't be changed by these.
• 1:06:55
  It's like, you know how like kids can't drink or buy cigarettes or get piercings or all these things with laws around that this is arguably significantly more dangerous.
• 1:07:05
  Right.
• 1:07:06
  Well, and the way the laws are written, it's kind of a backlash against mom influencers and not the tech companies that are creating all the incentives to begin with.
• 1:07:15
  Like parents wouldn't make their kids turn into influencers if they weren't so highly incentivized to do it.
• 1:07:23
  I mean, it's like, I don't know, I think that that abdicates a lot.
• 1:07:26
  Of respons responsibility on behalf of the parent.
• 1:07:28
  Because again, it's not the tech company's responsibility to protect your child.
• 1:07:32
  Yours company.
• 1:07:33
  Yeah, the tech company has a responsibility to their shareholders.
• 1:07:37
  Right.
• 1:07:37
  So they create products that keep people on them and that are harmful.
• 1:07:40
  And people like to look at children online.
• 1:07:43
  Yeah.
• 1:07:43
  I mean, let's face it.
• 1:07:44
  So again, I think that as much as she made a pretty compelling argument for that.
• 1:07:49
  However, as a parent, your responsive, your responsibility is to protect.
• 1:07:54
  Protect your child.
• 1:07:56
  Okay.
• 1:07:57
  You know, and you as the parent have.
• 1:08:01
  It's not a fiduciary responsibility, but it is.
• 1:08:04
  Well, it's more, it's more than a fiduciary.
• 1:08:07
  Yeah.
• 1:08:07
  I mean that's the greatest responsibility of.
• 1:08:10
  All you have is to protect your child.
• 1:08:12
  Yeah.
• 1:08:13
  In whatever ways, Whatever perils they face.
• 1:08:15
  Right.
• 1:08:16
  Don't create perils for them.
• 1:08:18
  Well, anyway, so in conclusion, this is what the author comes to at the end and she says, look, I have a lot more empathy now and understanding of mom influencers and family vloggers than I did when I went
• 1:08:30
  into this whole thing.
• 1:08:31
  And she says the original mommy bloggers, they did a lot of good because they got us talking about things that we needed to talk about.
• 1:08:41
  And it's not helpful to say that every parent who puts their child on the Internet is an evil money grubber.
• 1:08:49
  Yeah, I don't think that's the case.
• 1:08:50
  Some kids love doing it and some kids hate it.
• 1:08:55
  And there are parents who overwork their kids and post very personal updates about them.
• 1:09:01
  But I'm sure there are some that are trying to respect their kids boundaries.
• 1:09:06
  But for some kids this is great.
• 1:09:08
  For other kids this is horrible.
• 1:09:10
  Yeah, there's a lot of.
• 1:09:12
  On the Housewives right now in Atlanta, there's this woman, or last season actually Kelly, who's going through a divorce, who has minor children.
• 1:09:20
  And so much of her divorce battle seems to be around having her ex husband consent to letting her young kids film with her.
• 1:09:29
  And the argument she has made is look like the show is my livelihood and they are a big part of my life and not being able to show them impacts my ability to support them.
• 1:09:41
  So I can understand that argument.
• 1:09:43
  However, there are production companies around this.
• 1:09:47
  And not to say reality TV has any good production protection for their talent because they don't.
• 1:09:52
  It's not union.
• 1:09:53
  Except for Mob Wives, which was a very short lived show, but of course they were unionized.
• 1:09:58
  Genius.
• 1:09:59
  Right?
• 1:09:59
  But there is so little protection in reality TV as well.
• 1:10:04
  But again, still at least there are other adults around and like producers and people who in theory, if something untoward were going on, they could step in.
• 1:10:13
  Right.
• 1:10:14
  And these production companies are ultimately responsible again to follow laws around filming with children.
• 1:10:19
  Right.
• 1:10:20
  Because other.
• 1:10:20
  Each even, even if it's not union, if you're irresponsible with a child on set, you're still open to lawsuits, right?
• 1:10:27
  Of course, of course.
• 1:10:28
  Yeah.
• 1:10:28
  Oh, that's interesting that that's part of.
• 1:10:30
  And so the husband doesn't want.
• 1:10:32
  No.
• 1:10:32
  And, and it seems to me like he doesn't want it because it just pisses her off.
• 1:10:36
  Right.
• 1:10:36
  But also maybe he is a responsible person and it's like I just don't think that like putting risking.
• 1:10:43
  Because you never know what's going to come out in the edit, like risking putting this stuff out about my kids and their likeness, their image, their character.
• 1:10:50
  Character.
• 1:10:50
  If they won't want this in a few years.
• 1:10:53
  Right.
• 1:10:54
  You know, that's true.
• 1:10:55
  Well, so the author says, look, some things are too private to post.
• 1:11:00
  And, and you know, you're at your job as a parent is to protect your kids and not put up things like a girl dealing with her first period or that's not potty training.
• 1:11:10
  It's nobody's business.
• 1:11:12
  That's what she says.
• 1:11:13
  Yeah.
• 1:11:13
  And she says, look, the ma.
• 1:11:14
  The money is mouth watering, the fake fame is intoxicating, the possibility of economic freedom.
• 1:11:21
  It sounds insane for the few that make it to the top, the very few.
• 1:11:25
  But she says, look, I would never ever for anything do it myself.
• 1:11:30
  No, that's, that's where the author came in.
• 1:11:33
  No.
• 1:11:33
  And I wonder, like saying that, am I coming from a position of privilege?
• 1:11:37
  Because again, there is no amount of money that would convince me that turning my child into an influencer was the answer.
• 1:11:42
  Answer.
• 1:11:43
  Well, yeah, that then you are in a position where at least you have enough money.
• 1:11:48
  You can say that.
• 1:11:49
  Yeah.
• 1:11:50
  You know, but I, but you do see why people do it?
• 1:11:53
  Totally, totally.
• 1:11:54
  Absolutely.
• 1:11:55
  In some circumstances, in some limited circumstances, I can understand it, but it doesn't mean I support it, but I can understand.
• 1:12:05
  And certainly if you read this book, you would probably try to take every, every, every ounce of protection you could take.
• 1:12:13
  You could try.
• 1:12:13
  I mean, I don't know.
• 1:12:14
  What does that even look like?
• 1:12:15
  I don't know.
• 1:12:16
  I don't know.
• 1:12:16
  Because now that I've read this with the pedophiles, and, you know, they're everywhere.
• 1:12:20
  I know.
• 1:12:20
  And my nanny used to say that to me.
• 1:12:22
  Everywhere we went, she's like, people are going to try and abduct you.
• 1:12:25
  And it's both of our jobs to ensure that our heads are on a swivel.
• 1:12:28
  Right.
• 1:12:29
  That we're watching out of a movie.
• 1:12:30
  Theater once, because a man kept moving closer and closer to me.
• 1:12:33
  We were in the middle of a church children's movie.
• 1:12:36
  She grabs my arm, she says, we're leaving.
• 1:12:38
  That man's trying to kidnap me.
• 1:12:39
  Good for Bev.
• 1:12:40
  Bev was the best.
• 1:12:41
  Bev did not play.
• 1:12:42
  Bev would never put her kids on the Internet.
• 1:12:45
  No, no, never.
• 1:12:46
  That was our babysitter.
• 1:12:47
  Oh, my God.
• 1:12:48
  She was the best.
• 1:12:48
  Bev found out a creep was even looking at a photo of us on the Internet.
• 1:12:52
  She would track them down.
• 1:12:54
  Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  No, no, no.
• 1:12:55
  Throw them in jail.
• 1:12:56
  So what did you think of this book?
• 1:12:57
  It was an interesting book.
• 1:12:58
  It was a lot of things I did not expect.
• 1:13:01
  I kind of went into it with this idea that I, like, knew all about this, but I really, really didn't.
• 1:13:05
  I mean, the money is crazier than I thought.
• 1:13:09
  The situations are crazier than I thought.
• 1:13:12
  Yeah.
• 1:13:13
  But I've watched the Ruby Frankie documentary and the one about Piper Raquel.
• 1:13:17
  Both worth a watch for sure.
• 1:13:19
  Especially if you're, like, considering turning your child into an influencer.
• 1:13:24
  I would not.
• 1:13:26
  But I liked it.
• 1:13:27
  I liked it.
• 1:13:28
  I think it was a good way to close out the season.
• 1:13:30
  Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  I learned so much that I did not know, and I was just pretty blown away by what was in here.
• 1:13:36
  Yeah.
• 1:13:36
  Cause I think, again, parenting in the age of the Internet is something no one's ever really done before.
• 1:13:42
  So we're all just.
• 1:13:43
  We're trying to give you the intel that we can find, guys.
• 1:13:46
  Cause it's sparse and research is limited.
• 1:13:50
  Yeah, but the author did a good job.
• 1:13:52
  Yeah, she did a great job.
• 1:13:53
  I would read this book, honestly, if I were a parent of, like, a teen.
• 1:13:57
  Especially if they want to go online and start a channel and become an influencer.
• 1:14:02
  Which it's not like a silly, harmless little thing, you know?
• 1:14:05
  It's not just, like, a little pet project.
• 1:14:06
  Like, it could set you up for some pretty chaotic results.
• 1:14:09
  So.
• 1:14:10
  Yeah.
• 1:14:10
  Yeah.
• 1:14:11
  But, guys, we're gonna take a break because even we need sleep.
• 1:14:14
  We will see you next week.