So many kids growing up in the spotlight

[Greentrees2021]

I was pondering tonight how when I was young (80s) there were not a lot of famous kids. It's long been a belief that kids growing up in the public eye have a hard time of things e.g. the Royal kids, child actors etc.
But nowadays I'm starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable about how many children I know from social media and I could tell you infinitely more things about these kids than I ever could have about Macauly Culkin. I wonder if sometimes the parents regret that they started posting about their kids when they were cute babies with the future seeming far away in the distance but now they can't take it back.
For example, the McFly families. It felt like they started posting cute things about their kids as byproducts of their parenting journeys. But now the kids are older, very recognisable and so much of their childhoods have been documented and shared. How do parents undo this? It feels like once you've started down this road, you can't take it back.
I was a very shy child and would have absolutely hated my parents to share things about me with the world. Are we heading to a future with a lot of children who will have been damaged by this?

The odd post on a public profile is one thing. Like the Cambridges who only release official pictures and never give anything away. Or carefully controlled posts. Georgia Tennant, for instance, blocks her kids' faces out and keeps it all pretty generic. But all these influencers who document every darn thing to the world are obviously taking inspiration from all the ghastly reality shows on TLC where cameras follow people around all the time. Are they trying to get famous? Or copying their own TV idols? It's tragic for the poor children.

@WildWombat

The odd post on a public profile is one thing. Like the Cambridges who only release official pictures and never give anything away. Or carefully controlled posts. Georgia Tennant, for instance, blocks her kids' faces out and keeps it all pretty generic. But all these influencers who document every darn thing to the world are obviously taking inspiration from all the ghastly reality shows on TLC where cameras follow people around all the time. Are they trying to get famous? Or copying their own TV idols? It's tragic for the poor children.

Cat Deeley does similar to GT never seen her boy’s faces. I see one of the Tennant’s older DC Olive is now acting so it seems weird to be seeing her on the red carpet etc.

@Sparklingbrook

No one is really shamed by those photos because everyone has them, or something like them.

But they aren’t all over the internet forever. You can’t tear them up and bin them. That’s the huge difference.
You can dig them out of the box in the loft and put them right back in there.

Plastering your children’s pictures all over social media is not normal.

But I'm not saying it's the same thing. I know there is a difference. I'm making the comparison to illustrate that what people see as normal, and what they see as worrying, changes as technology changes. When photos were terribly expensive and formal, you didn't get random 'unfortunate' snaps that could be shown round the place. Then, later, you did.

I agree that children whose lives are posted on instagram in minute, intimate detail might find that difficult and intrusive later on. But mostly, I think there's a level of sharing that's just becoming quite usual, and I can't imagine that in 20 years time, young adults are going to be horrified because there are pictures of them on some long-defunct social media sight.

Another comparison is livejournal. I remember teachers telling us we'd all be horribly embarrassed if we shared anything personal on there, and it'd be there on the net forever. And ... well, I suppose it is, but it's become obsolete and I don't think many people bother to go back and delete those pages of witterings about their love for Leo DiCaprio.

*site. Social media site. Goodness, my brain is dribbling out of my ears.

I’ve never heard of livejournal.

It’s Instagram mainly where every tiny detail of a child’s life is filmed and posted, every single day.
Time will tell how harmful that may be once the children are able to give their opinion.

There a few I would be very interested to know how they are going to feel.

The family channels on YouTube are utterly appalling. I don't watch them but just looking at the thumbnails of their videos you can see what the content is and the amount of money the parents are making. There's some really dark, abusive, fucked up stuff going on. It's the 'me too' of the next generation. People are so busy cancelling stuff from the past they haven't noticed what's going on now, right under their noses!

My son is 13. When he was around 6 or 7 he wanted to make nerf gun reviews. He had great fun filming them but we didn't post them anywhere. I found them on my phone recently and he watched a couple. He was absolutely mortified by them (and they're actually very sweet) and thanked us for not letting him put them on YouTube. Can you imagine how the kids of these 'influencers' are going to feel in a few years time. It's vile, vile stuff and I dont know why something isn't being done about it. There's laws to protect children in the workplace, they need to be extended to social media too.

@Sparklingbrook

I’ve never heard of livejournal.

It’s Instagram mainly where every tiny detail of a child’s life is filmed and posted, every single day.
Time will tell how harmful that may be once the children are able to give their opinion.

There a few I would be very interested to know how they are going to feel.

Well, quite. My point proved.

I strongly suspect these kids will have 'never heard of' instagram by the time they're grown up, and won't be in the least interested in digging out age-old photos on an obsolete forum.

How is it your point proved @SarahAndQuack?

You seem to be comparing different things.

The ones that I am interested in will become adults in the next couple of years and Instagram will still be there.

I think the ones I find very difficult to understand are the accounts for children with medical issues, or SEN etc. There are huge communities, which I can see in some ways is really helpful and beneficial to families who may otherwise feel alone in what they go through with their child's needs, but at the same time, when you see all the detail that is shared about these kids, on public accounts, info about every appointment, photos in hospital beds, every difficult tantrum photographed and written about, all the happy milestones needing to be captured in an "insta-worthty" picture, rather than just celebrated with family...

It's a LOT of exposure, and I do worry how children will feel in future about it all. Like their medical history has been documented and paraded online. I totally see how parents need to connect with other parents going through similar things, but I really don't think this is the way to do it.

There have also been a lot of slebs who have been in trouble due to their Twitter opinions from years ago resurfacing. This stuff doesn’t just go away.

SarahAndQuack I think you're missing a very important element and that is consent. What you decided to post about yourself on live journal was up to you. We're talking about parents photographing and filming their children and posting them on huge social media platforms, without a child's consent or at least informed consent for monetary gain. What a parent might think is cute and endearing, a child may be mortified by when they're an adult. The OP is also talking about these children then becoming famous and having a following in their own right, not for any given talent but because their parents are turning their lives into the Trueman show. Also, you're comparing Instagram to 'live journal'. Instagram is a huge platform, it's not going anywhere. It's not going to become defunct anytime soon it's far more established than LJ ever was.

It makes me so uncomfortable .. there is one 'cleaning' influencer who posts her son who appears to present with some needs and she cackles at him and he doesn't respond. It is so sad to watch. Or when you see things like the influncers setting up something manipulating the kids .. one used to have her dog and child run in the kitchen door each morning and you could see her hubby holding the child in the background to time his run correctly.

Worse is when the influencer has a new baby who then appear to shelf all their other children. And all of this is documented for their children to see when they grow up.

I really think there should be laws to protect children from what their parents share.

I think this too. When dd watches the Norris Nuts and they’re upset I say to dd 10 how awful it is that the parents film and show it. She defends them and say they don’t mind. They haven’t got the emotional intelligence to mind at 6/7/8 years old but I’d be very surprised if they didn’t resent it all in adulthood.

PesosBandage they film it all for money and attention. Its sickening.

Yes the cleaning influencer and the mummy who doesn't work full time and has patchwork connections are the worst for exploiting their kids.

These are quite small spotlights though tbf. Macaulay Culkin was a household name, but I've never heard of any of the kids or families mentioned in this thread.

I really liked the cleaning one at first. There were some good tips (and some awful ones) but it was quite interesting on the whole.
Since the babies arrived there’s no cleaning but day after day of the DC doing nothing remotely of note. And mr cleaning seems to be posting similar.
I’m not sure where it can go from here really. A range of tat in Tesco has appeared.

The woman who was in a girlband, now a TV presenter with her ex-boyband husband - they used to hide their children’s faces, now they plaster them all over Instagram. Why?

@Sparklingbrook

How is it your point proved *@SarahAndQuack*?

You seem to be comparing different things.

The ones that I am interested in will become adults in the next couple of years and Instagram will still be there.

Yes, I am comparing different things, which illustrate that people's ideas about what's socially appropriate often change as technology changes.

My point is proved because you've never heard of Livejournal! It is (or was, I'm not sure) a pretty early internet forum, very popular with teens/young adults in its day, where people shared all sorts of personal info.

At the time we were all told this was very foolish and we'd all feel terrible shame in years to come, when we were responsible adults and all the livejournal users of the year 2021 would be able to access our silly teenage diaries at the click of a mouse.

Of course, what actually happened is that livejournal dropped out of use, just as instagram will, and although most of that content is still perfectly accessible, it might as well not exist for all the attention anyone pays to it.

I do see that there is a difference between a 13 year old posting for herself, and a 13 year old whose mum has put pictures of her up on social media, btw - they're not the same situations, but they're comparable for what they illustrate about humans and technology.

@wheresmyhairytoe

Yes the cleaning influencer and the mummy who doesn't work full time and has patchwork connections are the worst for exploiting their kids.

She’s just awful. We know where her oldest child sleeps - there are terrible people in this world. I would be terrified.

So many influencers use their children as cash cows. It’s hideous.

Yes, I am comparing different things, which illustrate that people's ideas about what's socially appropriate often change as technology changes That doesn't make it right! People are caught up in SM, we're in the thick of it but there will be a moment of clarity, probably not until this used generation are adults and are living with the consequence of their parents actions. The adults who advised you not to post on live journal were absolutely correct to do so. You were just lucky that that particular platform didn't take off or that for you personally it didn't have any repercussions but we have seen celebrities cancelled for things they wrote on twitter pre fame. We also know that employers check social media accounts of potential employees before hiring them. Imagine being the child of a family YouTube, going for your first professional job and your interviewer can go away and watch you potty training, having tantrums, using sanitary protection for the first time etc.

It's parental abuse.

@YoungBritishPissArtist

The woman who was in a girlband, now a TV presenter with her ex-boyband husband - they used to hide their children’s faces, now they plaster them all over Instagram. Why?

Engagement and money from sponsorship deals.

Siriisatwat I saw an interview with her when they made the decision to show their DC faces. She said as the girls were getting older they didn't understand why their cousins and friends could be on SM and they couldn't. Obviously their parents don't have a following of hundreds of thousands of people so surely the answer to this would be to have a separate, private account for friends and family but no, they went public.

@Dragonfire282 yes, why not share them on the accounts that just family and friends see?

Or, just putting this out there, explain to your children that every family does things differently. Or shock horror, tell the children no

Bit of a lame excuse, that one.

I don't think the occasional thing was a problem — you'd get a Hello article of a celeb family, and I bet most people would think "lovely house, sweet children, I bet she tore that party dress off two seconds after that picture was taken", then the magazine was recycled a couple of weeks later. You'd remember that X and Y had three children, and the youngest had beautiful blonde ringlets (or whatever) but the new trend of showing the children every day is very different.