Honey, I Sold the Kids
April 7, 2023 8:36 PM Subscribe
We have laws to protect children from factory work.
errrrr.......
posted by lalochezia at 8:52 PM on April 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
errrrr.......
posted by lalochezia at 8:52 PM on April 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
Yes, creatrixtiara, that was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
posted by NotLost at 9:24 PM on April 7, 2023
posted by NotLost at 9:24 PM on April 7, 2023
[T]he boundaries of childhood keep expanding: the 2017 US Census showed that more than a third of young adults (aged 18-34) live with their parents. We have fetishised this period of our lives and made it so cosy and devoid of real responsibility that we want to remain cocooned in it for as long as possible.
I don't think that's usually why young adults in the US live with their parents? Where is "can't afford to move out" in this?
posted by inexorably_forward at 9:30 PM on April 7, 2023 [82 favorites]
I don't think that's usually why young adults in the US live with their parents? Where is "can't afford to move out" in this?
posted by inexorably_forward at 9:30 PM on April 7, 2023 [82 favorites]
What’s the difference between this sort of childhood monetisation and childhood athletic training? Mommy blogging etcetera might seem invasive and terrible, but junior athletic training has enabled institutional abuse time and time again.
I’m not saying that the things mentioned in the article aren’t bad, but it seems unfair to point a finger at a new, often female-led business area as ‘the problem’, when the meat grinder of commercial sport is just sitting there.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:41 AM on April 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
I’m not saying that the things mentioned in the article aren’t bad, but it seems unfair to point a finger at a new, often female-led business area as ‘the problem’, when the meat grinder of commercial sport is just sitting there.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:41 AM on April 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
Two things can be bad.
posted by Lorc at 4:03 AM on April 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by Lorc at 4:03 AM on April 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
My brother has zero photos of his child online. Zero. We are not allowed to mention the child's name online, so I refer to him as "your son" or "the boy" when I need to EMAIL, as in PRIVATE EMAIL, regarding the child. You cannot say his name, not in text, not on email, not on facebook or blog. The child has no online existence whatsoever. He is a ghost. He's also homeschooled so no pictures from school or school sports. You literally cannot find a photograph of this child anywhere online, ever. I can only hope they're' not raising him to be some sort of assassin. He's six, so it'll be a few years until we know about the assassin thing.
posted by which_chick at 4:34 AM on April 8, 2023 [47 favorites]
posted by which_chick at 4:34 AM on April 8, 2023 [47 favorites]
He's six, so it'll be a few years until we know about the assassin thing
if you even see him coming
posted by wellifyouinsist at 5:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [61 favorites]
if you even see him coming
posted by wellifyouinsist at 5:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [61 favorites]
Maybe they're raising him to run for president.
posted by box at 6:16 AM on April 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by box at 6:16 AM on April 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
In 2016, the burgeoning US industry of influencer marketing was worth $1.7 billion. By 2021, this had ballooned to $13.8 billion.
Dang. I don't think I have the personality or the looks for this, but with that much money on the table I can understand why people are using their cute kids to attract viewers, regardless of the potential harm.
The top 1 per cent make six-figure salaries, charging $125,000-plus for a single post.
I'd hope that if you were charging over $100k per post, your salary would end up in the seven figures at least.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:26 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Dang. I don't think I have the personality or the looks for this, but with that much money on the table I can understand why people are using their cute kids to attract viewers, regardless of the potential harm.
The top 1 per cent make six-figure salaries, charging $125,000-plus for a single post.
I'd hope that if you were charging over $100k per post, your salary would end up in the seven figures at least.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:26 AM on April 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Ok, I just hit the "ick" part of the article:
More disturbing is a notable focus on little girls channelling beauty pageant vibes, who twirl for the camera in frilly smocks, suck on lollies, and flutter mascaraed lashes. ... When mothers put little girls at the centre of their feeds,’ Bailey of BSM Media tells me, ‘I get uncomfortable … because we will look at the followers and there is a slightly higher amount of male followers.’
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
More disturbing is a notable focus on little girls channelling beauty pageant vibes, who twirl for the camera in frilly smocks, suck on lollies, and flutter mascaraed lashes. ... When mothers put little girls at the centre of their feeds,’ Bailey of BSM Media tells me, ‘I get uncomfortable … because we will look at the followers and there is a slightly higher amount of male followers.’
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on April 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
The whole thing is very blurry, and a continuum rather than a binary on/off. We have no online existence for the grandchild, and I don't mention his name online, but like the author of the piece we have a shared family photo album for the grandparents who live in another state. On the days I watch him, I always text a photo or two to my own kid, his parent, so they can see that he's still alive. I do cherish photos of my kid from infancy, and have albums of scanned photos in Google Photos. The point is the love I feel for them, and the memories.
But I taught in a K-12 school for many years, and for 5th grade "graduation" (don't get me started on the idea of graduations for ten-year-olds) the parents were asked to send in a baby photo for a slide show at the end of the ceremony. The shrieking, mocking laughter that came from the other fifth graders when the photos came up was beyond offensive, and yet the adults were all laughing fondly. I love kids, don't get me wrong, and they can be loving and kind, but by definition they are not yet socialized to be kind consistently and they often think cruelty is funny.
posted by Peach at 6:30 AM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
But I taught in a K-12 school for many years, and for 5th grade "graduation" (don't get me started on the idea of graduations for ten-year-olds) the parents were asked to send in a baby photo for a slide show at the end of the ceremony. The shrieking, mocking laughter that came from the other fifth graders when the photos came up was beyond offensive, and yet the adults were all laughing fondly. I love kids, don't get me wrong, and they can be loving and kind, but by definition they are not yet socialized to be kind consistently and they often think cruelty is funny.
posted by Peach at 6:30 AM on April 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I don't think that's usually why young adults in the US live with their parents? Where is "can't afford to move out" in this?
Also, parents get sick sometimes.
posted by Selena777 at 7:05 AM on April 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Also, parents get sick sometimes.
posted by Selena777 at 7:05 AM on April 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
This article is the story, from a mom's point of view, of her kid getting involved with a major teen influencer. It's not heartwarming: Crushed, by Nile Cappello, at The Atavist.
posted by Well I never at 7:23 AM on April 8, 2023
posted by Well I never at 7:23 AM on April 8, 2023
When I started blogging, back in the early blog days, and when I eventually joined Facebook, I used my kids' real names in writing about them. Then I switched to aliases. Then I stopped posting just about anything without their explicit permission. One of my kids is a teenage TikToker with 40,000 followers; his most-viewed posts have millions of view. Him, I'm pretty well able to talk about on Facebook. My other kids? Not so much. Very, very anodyne stuff like, "Visited with A. and her girlfriend today. Nice visit." In 2018, I deleted my old Facebook account and opened a new one, as it was the only way I could see to come close to extending our 2018 agreements about privacy into the past.
It felt, to me, like a natural progression as my kids got older, but social media was maturing, as well, and becoming a place I wanted them to be able to choose to be on, or not. Two out of four of my kids, ages 15-28, are not on social media at all that I know of. The youngest and eldest are, but the youngest is the only one who is a performer there. I appreciate that he is sensible enough that he doesn't want to try to monetize his TikTok; he's not interested in being sponsored or doing ads, even though there are definitely opportunities for that, as one of his major outputs is TikToks about his incredible trick-trained, agility-doing, other-dog-sports-doing, dogs, and there are a lot of sponsorship opportunities there. He pays attention to algorithmic things, like what the best time of day to post is, but he doesn't want his TikTok to become a job. He just wants it to be fun.
posted by Well I never at 7:41 AM on April 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
It felt, to me, like a natural progression as my kids got older, but social media was maturing, as well, and becoming a place I wanted them to be able to choose to be on, or not. Two out of four of my kids, ages 15-28, are not on social media at all that I know of. The youngest and eldest are, but the youngest is the only one who is a performer there. I appreciate that he is sensible enough that he doesn't want to try to monetize his TikTok; he's not interested in being sponsored or doing ads, even though there are definitely opportunities for that, as one of his major outputs is TikToks about his incredible trick-trained, agility-doing, other-dog-sports-doing, dogs, and there are a lot of sponsorship opportunities there. He pays attention to algorithmic things, like what the best time of day to post is, but he doesn't want his TikTok to become a job. He just wants it to be fun.
posted by Well I never at 7:41 AM on April 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?
I dunno... Surely there's a spectrum between "look at my cute kid" and "send barefoot Timmy to the diamond mines".
Instagram, YouTube and TikTok have heralded an era of gauche personal branding
I think this really highlights the problem with this kind of article and argument. It's primarily an argument over how the tasteless masses are using the internet in ways the writer doesn't approve. And shore it up with "It can be abused, you know. Just look at what took place when this shitty thing happened."
Look, the profession of "influencer" in my opinion is beyond stupid, and only exceeded by the people who follow said influencers. But that's my problem. Not theirs. So I'm not terribly willing to compare such low impact monitization of children with factory work.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:33 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I dunno... Surely there's a spectrum between "look at my cute kid" and "send barefoot Timmy to the diamond mines".
Instagram, YouTube and TikTok have heralded an era of gauche personal branding
I think this really highlights the problem with this kind of article and argument. It's primarily an argument over how the tasteless masses are using the internet in ways the writer doesn't approve. And shore it up with "It can be abused, you know. Just look at what took place when this shitty thing happened."
Look, the profession of "influencer" in my opinion is beyond stupid, and only exceeded by the people who follow said influencers. But that's my problem. Not theirs. So I'm not terribly willing to compare such low impact monitization of children with factory work.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:33 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by NotLost at 8:36 PM on April 7, 2023