Today, Explained - Little influencers, big business

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Parents are turning their kids into influencers on social media. What could go wrong? This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram, who also edited. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The holidays are finally here. Time to get together with family, maybe hang out with the little kids in your life. Just don't be surprised if some of them are now influencers. Survey says more and more kids want to be influencers. A recent study found about 1 in 3 American kids between the ages of 8 and 12 aspire to be either a vlogger or a YouTuber. More and more kids consider themselves influencers. Hi guys, welcome back to our channel. And parents are doing a lot of the legwork when it comes to curation. There's even a name for the practice. Charenting. Don't know if the term is going to stand the test of time, but there's a

lot to consider here. Kids are too young often to understand what is happening to them when they are being sharented. Even if they do understand, they have no legal recourse to give consent or not give consent. The perils of parenting while sharenting coming up on Today Explained. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page

with our new favorite and recently played games tabs? And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Explained. Today, Explained, we're going to spend some time this episode trying to wrap our heads around some of the moral quandaries at play when you turn your child into a social media celebrity.

It's very much a thing, as you will soon see. But first, let's just define an essential term. Leah Plunkett is the author of... Sharenthood? Which is all about... Sharenting. All the ways that parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches, and other trusted adults share children's private information digitally. Kids are too young often to understand what is happening to them when they are being sharented. Even if they do understand, they have no legal recourse to give consent or not give consent.

For parents who may over-sharent, their children don't have any means of giving feedback to their parents, let alone putting up any boundaries around the extent to which their private experiences may be shared and in some instances monetized. We're going to hear more from Leah later on the show, but we wanted to start with a case study. So I reached out to a mom who's raising a little influencer. My name is Mai Nguyen and I'm known as Mai Sassy Girl, like M-A-I Sassy Girl on Instagram. And I guess across the board. Mai's got a decent sized following, but it pales in comparison to her daughters. My daughter, Zoe in the City,

her Instagram's more like monetized than business. How old's your daughter Zoe? She's 10. She's been on Instagram since three. Wow. Yeah, we started her Instagram when she was three, but like she was kind of on mine as a baby hi guys welcome back to the zoe show so today i'm going to interview my little sister amelie

and yeah so i was late to the gram i was a blackberry user like forever you and obama come on man so is it safe to assume that when you got Zoe on the gram at three years of age, she didn't really know what Instagram was? Yeah, she didn't know what it was. She just she was just herself. Like we didn't, you know, make her do anything. And we noticed that like when she took pictures that she had this like vibe to her. Like she was just like really like serious face and we thought it was funny. So we're like, hey, so why don't we just like, you know, dress her in

her personal style clothes and like let her pose that way and like just post it for fun. But then I do have a background in influencers and things. So I kind of like went with their formula. And I guess that's when we started gaining followers because people were like, oh my gosh, who is this child? Oh my gosh, this is how I would totally wear that. So that's when we started gaining followers because people were like, oh, my gosh, who is this child? Oh, my gosh, this is how I would totally wear that. So that's how her Instagram kind of started. So would you rather be a pen or a pencil? A pen or a pencil?

That's a really good question. I prefer to write in pens, but pencils seem to last longer. So I'm going to go with wood and lead pencil. Yeah, sometimes just like a feel of them is just really nice. So in 2015, you open up Zoe's account, Zoe in the City, with zero followers. In 2022, now that she's 10, seven years later, how many followers does she have? So I would say the most followers she's received is probably like 155,000. Wow. Today we are going to do a half-bent tutorial with my mom.

So here we go. She's in a movie now that released in the last few months. Oh? Yeah, she was in Bullet Train. Whoa, she's in Bullet Train? Your daughter's in Bullet Train? Yeah. Yeah. she has a very small part it's like 15 seconds but you know it's her it sounds like you've had

this incredible success and i'm sure a lot of parents in your community are probably a little jealous that your kid gets to do all these amazing fun things. And you're probably like, you know, building an incredible trust fund for. But was there ever a point where friends of yours or family members were like, hey, this is kind of weird that you're just like doing so much on social media with your daughter who has no idea what, you know, you're actually doing with the photos you take of her or the videos you take of her? Did anyone object to the sort of commercialization of your kid? I feel like, well, we've always been very communicative with Zoe.

Like, everything we do, we, like, we tell her where it goes. We show her where it goes or what she's shooting for she's very she yeah but she doesn't have a lot of agency like she doesn't understand it she's like a child yeah i guess so and i i guess i would say like for instance the first time we took her to coachella like we got a lot of comments from people like how could you take your kid there there's like people use drugs there or people don't dress appropriate there like why are you exposing your kid to like like that environment but it's like wasn't Coachella always like a family kind of music festival like I don't know but like this is a different thing I'm asking about I think which is sort of the monetization of your child because one day Zoe's

going to be 20 and maybe then something happens in her life where she thinks, oh, man, I wish my whole childhood wasn't, you know, a journey that everyone can go pull up whenever they want because the Internet is forever. Well, I think that's the misconception because I don't share everything. People might think that I share everything, but we don't because she has a completely normal life at home. I feel like from age seven on, she understood. You know, she understood that this is like sort of work. People always ask me, Zoe, how are you growing so fast? Well, it's simple. I drink milk. The California Milk Processor Board, also known as the creators of the iconic Got milk by partnering up with no get hungry to help provide up to 1 million meals to kids in need and it created opportunities for her and she became privileged in a way that she got invited to things and she received a lot of gifts

and like i think people just don't understand and so they will just kind of assume like oh you're forcing your child to do this but it's like for us we didn't force her just kind of assume like, oh, you're forcing your child to do this. But it's like for us, we didn't force her. She kind of fell into it. I don't know if you can tell the difference. Yeah. Help us understand the difference, because when she's three years old, you know, a three year old does what his or her parents tells them to do. If they're not enjoying it and they just like act out and they're just not cooperative in the situation, like we don't do it there. You know, if we were needed to shoot for a campaign and she just was not feeling it that day, we're not going to shoot it. We're not going to force her to like wear the clothes that she doesn't want to.

If something's uncomfortable, we're not going to do it. So we do leave things in her court for us. Like our intention to do this was not for Zoe to make money. Like we were just doing this for fun. And I thought it was an amazing stepping stone for her to open opportunities for her, which it has, right? Because I mean, how many kids can you say have become Instagram famous and then are now getting to be actors?

Of course, now it's like more and more, right? I don't know. She's not a diva or anything. If you meet her, she's like the sweetest kid. She's so grounded at home. She's like super nerdy. It's just so funny. It's like Hannah Montana.

And I hope it stays that way. But I guess there is the potential that it doesn't, right? I'm sure you're aware of that. You know, a lot of child actors, for example, have had really tough periods once they come of age. Are you at all worried about that? No, I'm not worried because I feel that I'm a good enough parent to tell when things are not okay. So I do everything I can to make sure that we're not forcing Zoe into anything.

And that everything she does is because, you you know she's cool with it and she wants to do it and there's been some research that you know instagram is bad for girls especially their their self-esteem their self-image are you at all worried about that like so zoe doesn't look at my phone and supervise i let her look at reels once in a while but she's always looking at like aesthetically cute things or like animals or you know so that's what I love about her because she's not into like those TikTok dances or like, like pranks and stuff. Like I make it very clear that I don't like when they look at the prank stuff because it's not like nice, you know, it's not like it shouldn't be funny. She doesn't even like want a phone yet. And so I feel very grateful that she doesn't want a phone yet.

And so I feel like when she gets to middle school, maybe she might need one because I don't want her being left out and not having one. But that's what I'm afraid of when middle school comes around and it's like the freedom of having a device. I mean, you just have to deal with it. And I guess building the trust with your child and like trusting that they will come to you if they're not like okay with something or how they feel is like the key. The other side of this is the money. And it sounds like you're making lots of money. How do you avoid getting into sticky territory with you know money that your child is making you but making because of you and who does that money belong to it's separate because if it's on zoe's account it's her money right so basically everything goes to her but the expenses from

that campaign like the photographer or like the editing and like those little things like comes from that money. Like it's like a commission taken out. So we take out those expenses, but the rest of it goes to her. Everything goes into her, her account. Do you have haters? Do you have people who talk smack about like the influencer world you've created for your family in the comments or is it all posi vibes? We don't have people sending us weird stuff in the dms or anything and that's another thing is like the creepy pedophiles and things right aha so we're very we're very private what do you mean you're very private you have a public instagram for your kid we don't share where we live we don't share our house we don't share i hope not yeah we don't

post things like where we are live you know like, unless it's a place that's like private and people can't get in. But like, we don't share her school stuff. We don't share where she goes to school. Of course, in the beginning, she was wearing sunglasses all the time. That's been her signature. But people didn't realize that it was intentional because I read somewhere that, you know, pedophiles, they connect to you through your eyes. So when you're posting headshots of your kids that are looking straight at like, you know, like straight ahead, like those accounts are the ones that the pedophiles are following because they feel like the kid is connecting with them. But like for us, this is so dark.

I mean, it's stuff you have to think about, right? You might think like posting a picture of your kid in a bathtub is innocent, but no, like you should not be sharing your naked child on any, even if it of your daughter in five years, in 10 years. Here's a question apart from all of those things, and then I won't challenge this anymore, I promise. Do you ever feel like all the time Zoe spends taking photos for the gram and for the brands and even making cameos in bullet train which sounds so fun i have to say takes away from the time she could have spent on like a seesaw or hanging out with her friends playing pokemon or something like that no if she wants to have a

play date with her friends she can we go to disney like every week every week yes we go weekly i like love my kids and i want them to have a childhood, right? Zoe takes martial arts every week and, you know, we do private lessons at a park and I take my little one and we go to the park after, you know, we go to Boba after. Like we do everything that a normal kid would do. I don't know. Like what else is there? Like what does it mean to like let your kid be a kid? Like to send them outside and play with rocks? Like, I mean, I don't know. If Zoe in the City is going to Disneyland every week, I stand down. Mai, you've done it.

People say that. They're like, let your kid be like a kid. And then when I post them at Disneyland, you spoil your kids. I can never do it right, you know? Today is the greatest day I've ever known. I can never do it right, you know? Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Go back to the Zodiac show. I just went grocery shopping and I want to show you what I got. Today explained we've had the case study. Things are going well for Zoe in the city and her mother Mai, at least for now. But what happens when this goes wrong? When it goes wrong, it can look like a lot of misery. Sharenton author Leah Plunkett is back. And that misery can take different forms. So one very public example of commercial

Sharenton going wrong was the Daddy05 YouTube channel, which was a so-called family prank channel. I got a prank for Cody. I bought this here invisible ink, and I'm going to squirt it all over his carpet and start flipping out. And viewers began to notice that one of the children was pranked. I don't think it was actually at all funny. And neither did a lot of viewers because they noticed that this one young boy was on the receiving end of his family's behavior more than others. And that his reactions were showing real emotional distress. Yes, you did! Yes, they did. They did it.

We didn't do this. Make sure it doesn't stop recording. You two did this. You did it. We didn't do this. We didn't do this. Make sure it doesn't stop recording. You two did this. You did well. And so viewers of this pretty popular, I think least half a million viewers at its peak, maybe more, give or take, they actually alerted that Child Protective Services and the jurisdiction this family lived in and Child Protective Services did get involved. Unfortunately, that misery doesn't have an expiration date, because even if a channel is taken down, once digital content winds up anywhere online, you need to assume that it is never going to go away. You lose control

of where it goes, who can see it, and how long it will live. So sadly, the misery doesn't have an end date, even when the kids grow up. Someone who grew up on the first phase of the internet and whose mother shared all of their private moments on the internet, 100% exploiting your kids if you're making content with them. 100%. And what are the ethics of this? Do parents have their kids sign contracts? Do the kids always know that it's a business? How does it work? There is wide, wide range. Because this is essentially an unregulated industry, there are not comprehensive, meaningful, enforced legal requirements for parents to get any sort of buy-in from their children. Unlike the context when a child is a performer in a more traditional

media platform, for instance, on the Broadway stage or on the silver screen or even, it sounds almost quaint now, but even a 20th century style reality TV show, there are labor laws that will speak to the protection of child performers. But because commercial sharenting falls into this gray area, is it a business or is it just your private life? And you as a parent are talking about your private life on a publicly available social media platform. And if you happen to pick up a little money, that's great. But it's your home and it's your kid and you get to decide what you say or don't say about them online. Because we don't have regulation, parents have to really

examine their own ethical framework. I think a lot of people have heard allusions to child actors going through some of this stuff that we're talking about here with regard to parents stealing their earnings and laws that were set up in place to protect those earnings and protect the rights of child actors. Has any of that translated over to kids who are creating stuff on social media? This is still the Wild West, but there are some heartening trends. For instance, there has been some great youth-led activism out of Washington state in the last legislative cycle, where a wonderful youth activist was trying to get the Washington state legislature to pass a version of these child performer laws to specifically include kids who are appearing in these kinds

of commercial sharenting enterprises. So what House Bill 2032 does, the account has to be monetized, first of all. So the text says that the number of views received per video segment on any internet platform or network meets the platform or network's threshold for generation of compensation, or the vlogger receives actual compensation for video content equal to or greater than 10 cents per view. There is growing awareness by all stakeholders, lawmakers, regulators, educators, parents, teens, and youth as they are getting older and looking around maybe at their own past experiences, maybe at their friends' experiences, or just at the experiences of others in their generation and going,

wait a second, these devices that we think of as being just part of our everyday surroundings, our laptops, our tablets, our phones, and we can do cool stuff on them and maybe we make a little money. Forbes has published a list of the highest earning YouTubers and on top is, get this, an eight-year-old boy who reviews toys. And we should not stay in a Wild West space where children's labor,

because even if you're just a baby sitting there eating your cereal and your parents are getting a hefty sponsorship deal from the cereal company, that is labor. You are performing an act. The set may be your high chair and the producer director team may be mom and dad, but that's still labor. And some of that money should be going into a trust for you the same way that it would if you were sitting in that high chair on a Broadway stage or a Hollywood All of us as parents are under so much pressure every day to do our best, to be our best, to do our best job raising our kids. I have so much empathy for myself and all the parents out there just trying to navigate this wild west. So I would hope that parents who are listening, who are engaged in commercial sharing,

parents or others who are listening, who are not engaged in it, but are curious about it, really take the time to educate themselves before sharing any content, but also to give themselves a lot of compassion and understanding, because this is a tough space for all of Sharenton and a faculty member at Harvard Law School.

Our show today was produced by Victoria Chamberlain, fact-checked by Matthew Collette and Laura Bullard, and mixed by Paul Robert Mounsey. I'm Sean Ramos for him. I edited the rest of the team at Today Explained includes Siona Petros, Hadi Mawagdi, Amanda Llewellyn, Halima Shah, Abishai Artsy, Miles Bryan, and my co-host, Noel King. Our supervising producers, Amina Alsadi, Efim Shapiro is our director of sound. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. We're on the radio in partnership with WNYC. And Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Happy Thanksgiving. Back in the feed, Black Friday. Today we're making shimmy ramen soup. Step one, water in the pot. Can someone open this for me? Curly like my hair? Does it look good enough? Next, boil the water.

Teeth break. Mommy, I have to go pee in the pool now. Ball at the feet. And there you have sherry ramen.