Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing

[BertieBottsEveryFlavourBeans]

Anyone else watched this on Netflix? I'm half way through the second episode with my jaw on the floor.

For people who haven't watched, it's centred around a "kidfluencer" called Piper Rochelle and her mum, Tiffany. Basically exposing how this mother has exploited her daughter, sexualised her and her "squad" for social media likes, views, followers and money. I feel so sorry for the poor daughter who has spent her entire life being exploited by someone who should be protecting her, going as far as to send grown men her daughter's used underwear.

You also hear from the parents of other children in the squad speaking out about what they experienced, although I'm struggling to sympathise with them when to me it seems they clearly knew what was happening to their children and they voluntarily put them forward for it.

It's a really interesting but uncomfortable watch, makes me even more determined that DD will not be allowed social media for as long as we can keep her away from it.

I think this should be required watching for any parent, really.

Even when there’s no sexual element children I feel so uncomfortable seeing children being exploited.
There’s one child with ARFID (an eating disorder) who pops up on my timeline and there are some cruel comments relating to her eating manners. Another child whose parents regularly post because she’s ‘sassy’ has many cruel comments because of her weight.

It’s so unhealthy for these children to be exposed and then criticised - the parents justify it being for the greater good, body positivity or exposure of a condition but really they are being exploited for financial gain and an ego boost.

My young teen moans almost weekly for social media, to make their own account. Because he's ND it's harder to deal with as the nagging is repetitive. I hate this culture so very much. It's becoming harder for parents I believe to fight against it.

@Pigeonqueen highlights the normalisation of things, particularly in America. And it feels this is what's happening with children having their own SM platforms.

I agree ref the pageants. They are so awful imo. The make up, the sexualisation. It seems normalised in America. It kind of sets the stage for these SM platforms.

I had a look at her Instagram page, a lot of people commenting after seeing the documentary. I think it's clear that it's all her mum behind the profile.

It also made me feel much better about being strict with social media. Our oldest is 11 and the only thing she had was WhatsApp which we ended up deleting because of the multiple group chats that just encouraged bullying and bitching. She cried at first until I explained that her phone did this amazingly weird thing called "texting" and "calling" which meant that she could STILL contact her friends 😱 she just couldn't participate in the huge group chats. She was much calmer when she realised this, I think I'd blow her mind if I told her it used to cost 10p per text.

We're not planning on letting her get any type of social media, tiktok, Snapchat for as long as we can possibly hold out. Her phone is set up so she cannot download apps without parental permission so hoping there's no workaround for that.

I also watched this documentary, I think it was on Netflix, about a paedophile who used the internet and social media to catfish young girls, blackmail them and abuse them. This eventually led to one girl sadly committing suicide. I wish I could remember what it was called, I feel that every parent of a pre-teen/teen needs to watch these 2 documentaries - I feel it would cause a drastic uptake in parents limiting screen time/social media.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002523t/teen-predatoronline-killer-series-1-1-uncovering-a-predator

I think it must have been this that I watched on BBC iplayer. It was heartbreaking and sickening to watch but so important to make parents aware of the risks of social media.

@BertieBottsEveryFlavourBeans yes I saw that devastating documentary too. I believe the girls father later also killed himself.

We trialled TikTok for about 2 weeks and I lost my mind. I never ever want teen to have any of it. It's hideous.

Piper's mum, Tiffany, is clearly extremely unwell and lacking any kind of morals. There is another documentary about Instagram mum who tortured her kids - which makes me think you have to have a few screws loose to be pimping your kids online. On top of that, Tiffany sounds like she is probably a pervert herself so maybe she gets off on doing this to Piper (who seems really sweet).

We’ve held out on Snapchat, TikTok and insta with DD14 too. She hasn’t asked about Facebook or twitter or discord or any of those. Fortunately she’s not shown much desperate desire for any of them, but we’ve also discussed it a lot so she understands why we’re not keen on her using them. Weirdly I’ve found friends of ours who are very protective of their teens in real life seem to allow them free rein online which blows my mind a bit - in the past I’ve had to ask them not to post my DD on TikTok and felt like I was being a bit of a killjoy!

Ds1 watched Ryan and was desperately to be like him when younger. You just can't make a 6 year old understand that it is a bad thing for a small child to be the family breadwinner. And that they then can't stop even if they want to or the house gets repossessed. The kidfluencer parents "work" on the content and often appear in the videos, which is a great way to make sure they can justify how much of a cut they take. I would points out
That the "friends" are only there because they are paid to be and what a lonely life that must be.

I didn't realise I had acted under estimated how bad things could be. The kids didn't even get paid and the sexual abuse. What a depressing saga.

Just finished this tonight. If you put your children online for profit you are the lowest of the low. I don’t care if you were in Piper’s squad or an “aspirational” middle-class British mum doing brand deals on instagram featuring your children.

A parent’s job is to protect their children not exploit them online for money.

Just watched it. Absolutely sickening. These children - and they are really were children, aged 10, 11, 12 - have been sold, their childhoods stolen, served up online for millions of creeps and paedophiles around the world to gawp at. The children were relentlessly coerced into performing stupid video stunts and sexualised performances that they wouldn't even understand. The child Piper at the centre of it all was not in school, so presumably she has had no education. Don't they have social workers in America? Where was child protection? I don't understand how Piper's mother is not facing criminal charges. The worst part was seeing the children's desperate desire to please, and how cynically this was exploited.

I can see why people do this for money, there are lots of YouTube channels where families must be millionaires. I don't see this different from people wanting their children to be famous models, actors, singers etc (not saying it's a good thing, but just that it's no different from exploiting your children)

No I agree. Pipers mother did the same weird beauty pageant nonsense the JonBenet Ramseys parents did. It just seems so obviously wild west, where if you child is an actor or model there are rules to stop other people exploiting your children, but where you are actually doing it yourself and curating their entire lives into one massive photoshoot, surely something must kick in at some point? I suppose they are millionaires because millions of people like watching children online. The statistics on this show that 92% of the engagement comes from m8ddle aged men is worrying to say the least.

The whole thing is awful, I do also think think the other parents need to take responsibility.

So many UK accounts too which document every minute of their child's lives too, albeit in a way they would consider to be way more wholesome and less exploitative way but it's still making money from your child.

I know the argument is that some kids want to do it, and I am sure they do but it needs to be so much more closely regulated and no child should ever be the family's main breadwinner.

How anyone can think that these “influencers” can come out of all of that without any issues is completely deluded.
The parents who were all having a whinge saying they couldn’t do anything about it are weak and complicit in the exploitation of their child.
They sit there and have a cry and say we didn’t know.
Who leaves a child with an adult filming them? Stupid people.
And also why are people surprised that it’s mainly disgusting men who view them.
We live in a sick world.

I am sure there are lots of UK influencers who are looking at this documentary and shaking their heads at the Mums lack of ethics but I think anyone who puts their children front and centre and makes money from them in a completely unregulated industry is the same.

I remember my sister telling me she recognised a teen girl in the supermarket and assumed she knew her because it was one of her daughters friends and then realised it was someone from their influencer parent’s instagram account and she didn’t just recognise her she also knew this girls medical condition from her parents account .

Current laws on DC working on stage and film are super strict but don’t cover this type of work. This could be changed.

The current situation puts DC at unacceptable risk at the hands of their parents. Economic exploitation, working long hours, loss of privacy, risk of physical harm.

I have very strict personal rules about social media. I don't agree with even putting pics of myself out there, let alone my child. But people get sucked up in things they really don't fully understand. There were some mum's in the programme who I felt were more vulnerable than others and easy to manipulate. I think it was Corinne's mum who stood out as a clear victim of coercion.

I'm being very forgiving here. People are often just stupid and don't think. How many people put their half naked babies all over FB?
People seem to just not think about the overwhelming numbers of paedophiles who would view that, people don't generally think about the right their children have to privacy and some control over their own life when they plaster them over the internet as anything to even ponder. That alone blows my mind.

I feel that society as a whole needs support and guidance on all this stuff.

I also get really uncomfortable when I hear parents saying how much their kids wanted to and enjoyed performing. They don't understand what they're signing up to.

If you ever watched ' Finding Neverland ' you see how utterly stupid parents can be sometimes and how easily manipulated. They were both ' stage mum' nightmares also.

The other parents completely lost me when they pulled their kids out of 'the squad' and then were primarily worried about their kids' youtube channel views dropping.

FFS, stop your kids' access to youtube altogether and get them in school!

Yes that was really weird. Sawyer I think was an example. His parents were sat in the kitchen with their YouTube agent 🤦. Yes, that was quite grotesque.

No awareness there to even contemplate how that looks, let alone how it is.

Absolutely this.

Sophie’s mum has developed that stupid American gravelly whine now. Her “anxiety” will be something that Sophie has to put up with forever now when in fact it’s just to make herself a victim. She lived there throughout lockdowns, are we meant to believe she had no idea? Give me strength

I initially cringed. I'm now horrified. And I have no sympathy whatsoever for those mums, they ignored all the giant red flags to monetise their children and were more concerned about their kid's youtube views than their wellbeing.

I was utterly agog through most of it.

ive said for years that internet kids should have the same protections as child actors.
The platforms need to step in and enforce rules on anyone who wants to monitise kids. But of course they won’t.

Sophie’s mother was really annoying. She portrays herself as an absolute victim and doesn’t seem prepared to hold herself accountable for any of it.

However, Tiffany clearly has an effect on people. They brought in a boy’s father to help him leave didn’t they? But after one conversation with Tiffany he actually got involved with the whole thing! (Didn’t he move into the house?!)

The documentary about Miranda Hart was a similar story, except all the dancers in that one are adults and there is a religious element. She is still estranged from her family and it was heartbreaking to see how painful it is for them.