In the past decade, a certain genre of social media “influencer” has risen to unforeseen fame. Family vlogging is a somewhat recent trend that is dominating the online video content scene, specifically on Youtube. The main content focus of these channels is the daily lives and activities of the family that runs the account. The children take center stage, with their entire lives being put on full-blast for millions on the internet to see and any trace of privacy being completely eliminated. Family vlogs, which are disguised as a fun, harmless family-friendly form of entertainment, create a psychologically damaging childhood that forces children into the toxic “influencer culture” (and a life of unwanted fame) before they are given the choice to partake in it.

The culture of family vlogging is harmful for many reasons. From an extremely young age, children are exploited without consent for their parent’s profit. The daily struggles and misbehaviors of these children are manipulated and exaggerated to be used as clickbait and increase views. While once upon a time family vlogs depicted average everyday life, the increasing amount of revenue that was coming to YouTubers in the mid-2010s forcefully raised the bar. The daily activities of everyday individuals were no longer cutting it, and the pursuit for extravagance, perfection, and arrogance began to take hold, at the expense of the families’ most vulnerable members.

A family vlogging channel cannot be successful without the presence of children. And the central focus on children does not come without detrimental cost. From the time they wake up until the time they go to bed, these children have every element of their life recorded and uploaded to the Internet for anyone to see. Since these children are not considered to be employed, they are not subject to child labor laws and are therefore expected to be camera-ready and “perform” for an audience at all times of the day. Parents are not required to pay their children or ask their children for permission to post their private business on the internet. Instead, temper tantrums are used as clickbait and personal problems are put on blast for the entire world to see. These factors make family vlogging a modern, unmonitored form of child labor.

Being raised as an “influencer” is not only psychologically damaging to children, but also fosters a parent-child relationship in which children are trained that in order to please and be loved by their parents they must perform for the camera in just the right way. Many children become confused as to why their parents treat them differently when the camera is on versus when it is off, and these children grow up feeling like their parents view them as an employee, or worse, a commodity to be sold for personal gain. More often than not, the parents will choose to make money over providing basic human decency to their offspring. When parents are making millions off of their children, it is not a surprise that parents tend to act in the best interest of themselves over the best interest of their kids. 

Between the lack of legal protections for kids, the competitive environment of the vlogging community, and the permanent psychological damage faced by children of family vloggers, it is clear that this is not a healthy form of income for families. The borderline abusive environment of toxic influencer families is no place for a child to grow up. Until laws are put in place to prevent children from being exploited on the internet by their very own parents, internet users should be more conscious of what video content they are choosing to consume. As more people stay away from “family vlogger” content, the allure of becoming a family lifestyle influencer will hopefully begin to fade and the innocence of childhood can be preserved for more children.