65: The Dark Underside of Family Vlogging, Part 1

If you have much experience with family vlogs, chances are that today’s topic has crossed your mind. My guest, Cam, is here to share her personal experience growing up as the child of one of the first well-known “Mommy bloggers.” Cam is an international advocate for children of influencers and family vloggers. She takes a stand against child exploitation, going as far as speaking to lawmakers and appearing in documentaries. Her perspective will give us all something to think about. Join us to learn more!

 Show Highlights:

●      How to understand what family vlogging is

●      Cam’s take on two high-profile cases involving family vlogs that have been in the headlines

●      Cam’s experience as a child when her life was on display through her mom’s blog

●      What happens to a child when a parent overshares about their lives

●      How controversy always causes people to “click”--and more clicks mean more money!

●      The effect of growing up with a lack of privacy that caused embarrassment and vulnerability in Cam

●      Why consent is at the heart of this issue for kids

●      Can family vlogging be done ethically?

●      Why it can be devastating to feel exposed by the people who should protect you the most

●      Cam’s advocacy efforts to keep children from being exploited online

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello, you sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today we are talking about the dark underbelly of family vlogging. We have a couple of salacious stories to talk to you about. We're also going to talk about some personal experience. And then we're going to wrap up talking about some things that really apply to everybody. So I have with me in studio today, Cam, who is an international advocate for children of influencers and family vloggers. She stands up against child exploitation, she has spoken to lawmakers, she has been in documentaries, and she's going to share her personal experience with us today about being the child of one of the kind of first big mommy bloggers back when that became a thing and how that affected her. So cam, thank you for being here.

  Unknown Speaker 0:53

  Thank you for having me. Hello.

  KC 0:56

  Okay, Cam, I want to start we're gonna get into your personal story. But I first want to start talking about like, what family vlogging is because I think not everyone listening might know that there's this whole niche of the internet of what's now called family vlogging. Yeah, so, I mean, how would you define family vlogging first of all,

  Cam 1:20

  family vlogging is where a parent will create their own social media account, whether it's, you know, like on YouTube, or Tik Tok, or even Instagram, and they make their child the focal point of their social media posts. So, essentially, the child is a child actor, right? But unfortunately, it's their day to day life. So you can compare it to like child reality stars, except, you know, it's they don't have any regulation of like when they stop. So like, you know, their parents could be recording them from sunup to sundown, you know, so, yeah, it's just kind of like a social media account, curated around somebody's child. And

  KC 2:04

  I see a lot of them out there that are like parents will start one for a child. And then I also see a lot of ones out there, where it's like about their family. It's almost like documentary style, about their family, right? I'm thinking of people that make videos about, you know, their van life and other kids in the van, or, you know, it's almost like the Duggars, right, like they have their TLC show, or they had their TLC show before all of their controversy. It's almost like people doing that. But instead of having like, deal with a network, they're just making their own videos and uploading them to YouTube or Tik Tok, or they're doing pictures on Instagram. And so the issue, of course, is numerous. We're going to get into it. But I wanted to kind of start by talking about one of the big headlines that came out recently about one of these blogging families. So some of you might have seen the headlines about the Ruby Frankie case. So Ruby, Frankie was one of the people behind a family vlogging channel was a YouTube channel called eight passengers. And it documented her and her husband and their six kids life. It was really popular in 2020, it had like 2.5 million subscribers and had a billion views. And I mean, they only did it for a year and a half or so. And then she moved on to do like life coaching or something with this other counselor. But the reason that she's been in the news recently is because one of her children showed up at a neighbor's house, begging for them to call the police. He had wounds on his body. He had been duct taped his hands together, and he was emaciated. And the police were called. And they came and found him and another one of those children at this woman's house, not rubies, but her like business partner, and it has launched this huge investigation into child abuse. And apparently, there's been quite a bit of it happening in their family. So that's kind of like rocked the headlines. I'm curious, like, what your take on, on that whole situation is,

  Cam 4:03

  yeah, so honestly, I am just shocked that the authorities hadn't gotten involved sooner because I remember seeing their videos like in 2018 2019 when they were kind of like, first starting out. And I vividly remember like, you know, her sending her son to a troubled teen institution, like, you know, out in the wilderness like, he's camping. He's sleeping like outside, like in the cold and stuff in a sleeping bag, rationing their food and stuff. And then I remember another video, she sent her like preschooler to school and the kid forgot her lunch. And the teacher had texted Ruby and she said, hey, you know, so and so forgot their lunch. Do you want to maybe bring that up so she can eat? You know, she's really hungry. And Ruby texted her back and said, Nope, you know, that's her responsibility you can tell her that she's just not going to eat for today. And just kind of like she would always brag about how she would use food as like a punishment and like literally starve her children. And so I think that's one thing that I always was just kind of like, I don't know, like even the teachers knew. So I just am confused why nobody ducked in for those kids. You know what I mean? Like, there's so many situations that are documented in her vlogs that are just like outright child abuse, but because she kind of positioned it in like a glamorous light for you to, you know, I don't think people really took it seriously. So I'm just like,

  KC 5:38

  shocked. Okay, there's this other one that I found and I feel like with the rise of Tik Tok, I've seen it a lot on tick tock of people making accounts. And they're just like, kind of making it as if it's like their little personal social media, but then it kind of blows up. And it's like, oh, this is something I can monetize. And then they become these like, family vlogging channels. And there was another controversy that happened a little while back with a really popular tech talker. And I'm going to play you the video. So basically, like she released this video, where she's talking about how her son's dog died. And she forgets to edit out this piece in the middle where she's like, directing him on what to do. It's about a play that can act like you're crying, like

  look at me, look at me. Look at me. Look at me, look at me. Don't look at me. And then some parents in the wondering why. So, and she literally in the video goes from like, this normal face of like, Okay, put your hand here, put your hand here and he's crying. He's like maybe seven or eight. And then she makes this like fake cry face. And it was like, how horrible would it be to be that child? Right? So I wanted that's like a couple of the more salacious ones I want to kind of back up, I want to ask about your background and your experience. Your mom was a mom, like before we had YouTube before we had like these family vlogging channels, one of the first things that kind of blew up on the internet was this idea of being a mommy blogger, where mothers would have these public blogs where they would do these like long written sort of journal entries. And they will talk about motherhood. And one of the things that was so new to the world at that time was that there weren't a lot of moms talking publicly about like how difficult motherhood was, and sort of the nitty gritty behind the scenes of the ins and outs of being that primary parent. And so a lot of people flocked to these pages, because they had never really had that kind of insight. They've never really had that kind of community before. But because it was like the first generation of mothers doing this, nobody really thought about the effect that this was going to have on their children, as these pages amassed 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of followers, and one of the things that we're seeing, and you're I think such an example of this is that those children have now grown up, and we have insight into what it is like to realize that your mother has basically documented your childhood for 1000s of strangers. So can you tell me just a little bit about how your mom started mommy blogging and what that was like. So

  Cam 8:32

  my mom started off with, you know, the mommy blogging thing on MySpace, she had her own personal account, but then she made me my own account and kind of like, you know, attached the two together, like, you know, people on your top eight and stuff like that. And so on MySpace, it was more so just kind of like, you know, like you mentioned, like, documenting, like, what motherhood was about, especially because I'm adopted. And so a lot of her posts were like about my adoption story, because it was an open adoption. And my birth mom was very active in my life. And so, on my Facebook account, it was kind of just like, I don't know, I guess so people could get to know me. And I honestly couldn't really tell you I but I had free rein of it. It was kind of just like, imagine giving a seven year old like free rein of social media, like, you know, ridiculous pictures and like, seven year old bots on social media, right? And so as my space kind of like died down, we transferred over to Facebook and on Facebook, you can like directly link like who your mom is, who your daughter is, like, who your family is, whatever, you can have your family tree. And so that's what my mom did again. And this was like, I think two years after the MySpace accounts were created. So my house kind of started to not decline but like I was constantly having broken bones and so I had to go like I had to undergo a lot of tests. so they can figure out what's going on. And so that was kind of like, a gold pot for my mom to start posting on social media. And so she would always post like, you know, here's what happened with Cam today, here's what the doctors are saying about her, or we're in the ER again, and she would like tag the location in real time. And so like, literally sometimes, like a friend of hers, or like a super distant relative, like, literally come up to the hospital, and it was just like, I don't know, you, why are you here. And, you know, it kind of started to really revolve around my disabilities. And so when I was 14, I ended up getting Mersa. And it was really severe because it didn't catch up until pretty late. And I was hospitalized for like three months. And my mom just like, was constantly posting pictures of me like, just incapacitated, like in the hospital bed, like, you know, going through treatments and stuff, or posting pictures of me like when I'm literally struggling to drink, like a nasty barium drink before I undergo like a CT scan and stuff. And yeah, so it was just really heavily revolving around a lot of like, my medical trauma. And then it really escalated when I ended up getting hit by a drunk driver. It was like, she knew it was clickbait, you know, like, she knew that there would be like, a lot of sympathy. And so, you know, like, pictures of me in the ambulance were posted pictures of me in the hospital, like right after it happened were posted. And it's like, in that moment, instead of being comforted when I'm going through literally something just so traumatic. It's just like, there's a camera put in my face and said, just kind of like that kid when his dog died. And you know, the mom is just trying to get a video for her to post, you know, instead of just comforting the child. So it was very similar in that sense.

  KC 11:53

  So at that point, how many people were reading your mom's posts? Honestly, probably

  Cam 11:58

  close to 10,000 people, and it was a public page. So she had at least 10,000 people who were like, following, right. So but like, I don't know, how many other people outside of that, you know?

  KC 12:17

  And did she make it? Was it like her personal account? Or did she make like a page that people were following?

  Cam 12:23

  It was her personal account, she just like, on Facebook, you can have things like where you can have the setting where you can post it to outside of your circle of friends. And that's kind of like what she had.

  KC 12:37

  Okay. So we sort of talked off camera about like, the issues that come up, when your parent is over sharing these things online, right? Whether there's, you know, 100 people watching, or whether there's 10,000 people watching. And you talked about the issue of being sexualized on your mom's Facebook channel. We talk about that some? Yeah.

  Cam 13:04

  So there's, I mean, one of the main reasons that I don't even legally go by my name, like on any form of social media is because if you Google my legal name, there's photos of me as a very young child in bikinis, there's a photo of me, as a nine year old, I'm trying to remember how old a fourth grader is. There's a photo of me as a nine year old with, like, you know, a hot pink cast on my leg, like, in a bath towel, like wrapped up in toilet paper. Like, I really don't know why, like, my memory has totally blocked that out. Because I don't know. But it's just like, there's photo evidence of it. Right? And that's just, like, terrifying for me to think about people finding that. And, you know, even going back to the MySpace days, like the beginning, when I was like, in second grade, there's like, questions on MySpace. And one of the questions is, I'll never forget this, it asked What color is the color of your underwear that you're wearing right now? And I'm like, seven. And I'm like, I don't know, it's like, pink with flowers, or whatever. I said to my mom, and she was like, that's not sexy enough. I'm just gonna put black and I just like, sat there. Like, I didn't even know what the word sexy meant. You know, I just was like, what? So yeah, there's a lot of instances where parents will hyper sexualized their children because they know that, like, it'll pull in an audience, whether there'll be like, Why are you posting stuff like that? Or it'll pull in an audience where it's just like, I hate to say normal people trying to defend it, but like, people just trying to be like, well, you have a weird messed up mind. You know, does that make sense? Like, yeah,

  KC 14:44

  it does. And I see this too, where parents will post these videos and it really specifically happens in the ones where it's like, the account is just about this, like seven year old or this eight year old and there'll be in a bikini or there'll be in a little dress. they'll be in. Like, one time, there was one where the little girl, it was the video of the girl. And she's like falling backwards. But they specifically made the thumbnail of it when she was like in mid fall, where it looks like her skirts coming up. And you think to yourself, like, obvious in the comment sections that there are like grown men in the comment sections being like, Ooh, how sexy Oh, you're so beautiful. And I mean, like, nobody ever wants to think that parents are purposefully trying to entice sexual predators to like, look at their children. But I think for sure happens. And I think probably what happens more likely or more often is what you're talking about where it's like, I know that this is going to be controversial, because I know that people are going to come in to the comments, and leave comments about how awful this is. And then I know other people are going to defend it. She's just a little girl. Why would you think that way. And what a lot of people don't appreciate is that the way that social media works these days, is all through an algorithm. So like, the more engagement you get on a post, the more that post gets pushed out to more people, and the more views you get, and a lot of these channels, whether they're YouTube channels, or tiktoks, or Instagram reels or pictures, like they're all monetized. So like the family is making money off of those views. And so anything they can do to make it more likely someone's going to watch or more likely someone's going to comment. And I think that you're right, that a lot of parents are sort of thinking they can toe the line and create controversy in that way. Yeah,

  Cam 16:38

  you honestly worded it exactly how I was trying to say that. But yeah, it's yeah, of course, they know that, like, controversy causes people to click, you know, so it just is like, it's the whole clickbait thing. It's just, it's gross.

  KC 16:53

  So these places aren't monetized? And what kind of issues like, you mentioned that child actors have a lot of legal protections. And I think this is one of those areas, like what is happening to all of this money that's being generated by these family channels that these children are participating in? Well,

  Cam 17:15

  you know, I can tell you firsthand that a majority 99% of these kids, and I mean, 99% of these kids don't ever see a single penny from what they have put in the work for for the entirety of their life. Like the Ruby, Frankie kids, you know, for example, the two older ones, they didn't get any money from what they put in for the entirety of their life. I have children who have DM to me, and they are inactive situations where they are literally products of family channels making money for their parents, and they have literally told me, you know, I told my parents, I don't want to do this anymore. And then they've said, Okay, well, we're gonna, like your mom and I are gonna have to get like a day job. And you know, we're gonna have to move out of our nice house, because this is the money that pays the bills. And so these kids know that they're ultimately paying the bills. And you know, they don't want to be the one that ruins the family, they don't want to be the one that makes their family have to move out of their house, they don't want to be the one that causes their family not to be able to pay the bills. So they ultimately suck it up and stick it out until they're 18. And a lot of times, they can't even do anything when they're 18. Because they don't have anything like their parents will allow them to get a job because their job is the vlogs. And they don't get paid from that. And so it just is like it spirals into financial abuse at the end of the day.

  KC 18:42

  And the amount of stuff that gets posted about kids on the internet is shocking, like I have seen no, I mean, obviously, this is an issue with like family vloggers. They talk about like their child's intimate moments and their embarrassing moments, but even just like run of the mill parents, right, like you see videos of children sitting on the toilet, you see videos of children having meltdowns, you see videos of kids, you know, in really vulnerable, I don't mean vulnerable in the sense of like, ooh, someone's going to take advantage of them. I mean, vulnerable, like emotionally vulnerable stages, like, I'm crying about my dog dying. What was the effect that that kind of lack of privacy had on your life?

  Cam 19:20

  You know, it's something that I am literally trying to figure out in therapy right now, because I still struggle so much with just such intense paranoia of like, being watched, you know, because when I was younger, I was like, 12, and I was out riding my bikes with my friends. And I got home and I go on Facebook, and I get a message and it's from a random account, and they're like, I saw you riding your bikes today and I followed you like into your neighborhood. I know what neighborhood you live in. And that scared the ever living daylights out of me. You know, and I think that has followed me into adulthood because I have a very hard time holding friendships. It's like I get it. embarrassed almost because like, I get embarrassed. And I also get paranoid because I'm like, oh my god, they could like, just type my name in and like, see so much of me that like I never wanted to be posted online in the first place. And so I have a very hard time, like, actually making genuine connections with people or allowing myself to because I get so in my head about, like, there's so much on mine that I can't take off, like, it's impossible for me to get removed. And I don't know, just like the thought of that is just like, so terrifying to me. And so it just has definitely affected like relationships I've

  KC 20:38

  had with people. Do you think that it sounds like having such a lack of privacy as a child, where anything that took place between you and the person that you were supposed to be closest to your mother, like might be put online, really kind of messes with that sense of safety within a relationship, like this new person you meet, or this new person you date or this new friend, you make, like the idea that you've had so little privacy that like, the only way for you to have privacy is to literally not share anything with anyone? Yeah, that's Do you think that that's affected, like your ability to like, start to be vulnerable with people? Absolutely.

  Cam 21:17

  And I can honestly say that, like, I'm not the only one, like I've mentioned, like, I've talked to kids who are in current situations where they are in family channels, and they literally have said the same thing. Like, I feel like I can't trust anybody, I feel like I can't talk to anybody, because like, you look up my name, even my classmates look at my name. And there's a whole YouTube channel, or there's articles that my parents have done talking about such embarrassing things, or acknowledging the sexualization that is coming to the channel by continuing to make videos in the same style. And so it puts you in, it's like, you want to make these connections, because you want to know that they're so good in the world, you want to know that, like, there's not people that are going to exploit you for literally like your most vulnerable moments, but it's just like that fear of being like, Okay, well, the people who were supposed to protect me from this type of stuff failed to do that. It's just kind of like, sometimes it feels like it's worth it to just like, not even try because like I've had quote unquote friends in the past who have literally weaponized what was posted on social media against me, like, even in my adult life, like they would Google my name or go on the Facebook page. And then like, literally send me these embarrassing or traumatic things like in a group chat. And I'm just like, What the hell is going on? Like, you know, and so it's very, like, I don't know, it's very hard. It's a very hard mental hurdle to get over.

  KC 22:49

  But it's something I think about a lot, where, when we talk about like, posting embarrassing moments, I think that as parents, what we think is embarrassing, is completely different than what a child feels is embarrassing, because when I think about, oh, I've never posted anything that like would embarrass my child. But like, I also think we don't remember how cruel children are like something as simple as you crying about your dog. Right? Like, you might not think it's embarrassing that a toddler is sitting on the toilet training, because that's normal, and there are no bits showing. And it's, you know, they made a funny face during it like, like, I've seen those where it's like, oh, it's funny, because this 18 month old was trying to potty train, like, made a funny face or said something really funny. But like, the first time a 10 year old gets a hold of that video of you, like, it will be so embarrassing, and it will get weaponized and it will be used as bullying. I mean, you yourself went through some bullying. Oh,

  Cam 23:47

  yeah. I mean, it caused me to literally drop out of high school. Like I not only was I bullied by my peers, but I also had teachers who would literally see my mom's Facebook posts and stuff. And so like, one teacher was like, so empathetic towards me and like, just very kind because I think not only did she feel bad about me, just with my health issues, I think she felt bad that it was last on such a public platform. But I had my math teacher, just relentlessly antagonize me. I mean, when I was finally cleared to go back to school, because you know, you have to be cleared from Mercer and stuff before you can go back. I walked in the class and he just is like, he's like, Oh, hey, look, who decided to show up to school today. And then he's just like, hang on a second. And he like literally takes a desk out of a group of desks because you know, teachers usually have them in like groups of twos or fours, whatever. He takes it and completely moves it to the other side of the room to isolate me and he's like, Guys, just don't talk to the infected girl. Just don't go over there. And I'm just like, I literally, that was like the first time I ever had such a severe anxiety attack. I just like completely shut down like I ran out of the room. I just I went downstairs to my English tea. just sobbing. And she like marched up there. And she, it was it was a whole thing. I mean, like, it just was so traumatizing I couldn't get myself up in the morning to go back to school, I literally would like, throw up with anxiety. Like I was making myself sick with anxiety because I just like, I was like, oh my god, like, This man has seen everything like he's gonna just make my life a living hell, I can't do it. I can't go back. And so I didn't. And you

  KC 25:24

  are getting messages from men in their, like 40s and 50s. How old were you in that started? Like Middle

  Cam 25:32

  School? I think I was like, Well, I had to event well, because I think that's when I started to really like, be more on social media, because that's when like, my friends had started to get social media. And so like, I would get messages from men being like, hey, like, I'm a friend of your mom's or like, hey, like, I saw what your mom posted. And you look good in these pictures, like, hope you're doing good. And I'm just like, I don't know, you. You know, it just is like, it's so awkward for a child that age to be receiving messages from men that they literally do not know. Like, not someone in the family, not a family friend. Just like, I don't know, if someone who thinks they're a friend of my mom's because they're on her Facebook page.

  KC 26:15

  It's almost like your mom had like digital Munchausen by proxy.

  Cam 26:20

  Yeah, that's honestly a lot. So many people. I mean, would comment that like, I'm not the digital part. But they would call it the Munchausen by proxy part. And I mean, I recently went back because I was getting like a few screenshots that I was like, Yeah, I don't really care if those are in the documentary. That's fine. And I was just scrolling through the comments. And so many people were commenting that and it just was like, because, you know, at the end of the day, did my mom make things more clickable? Of course, she did. You know, she would kind of fabricate the severity of things. And I think a lot of people could tell that. And so they would just be like, I don't really know if you know, this girl is even sick, like what's going on, like, type of thing. And, you know, also reading that as a kid is just like, it started to make me get in my head about my own disability, which I had to unlearn as an adult. So yeah, it just, I don't know, not only do those comments, like, would they ultimately like affect her, but like, they affected me as well, because I started to think as well, like, Am I crazy? Or like what's going on? I don't know. Like, I had to really unlearn a lot of internalized ableism, I think because of things being fabricated. And then obviously, because they were so clearly fabricated. They weren't believed. And so like, I didn't know what to believe it just was like, it's very confusing.

  KC 27:42

  And I think sometimes when we hear these stories about the Ruby Frankie case, or we see video clips of the mom, that's like coaching her kid, like, it seems like there's this whole category of like, bad people that engage in this. And like, we could never be like that. Or you know what, as long as we don't do it like that, but like when I don't know your mom, obviously, but like, I can totally see how a parent would start with I just, I'm talking about what it's like to be a mom of like babies, right linen, and you're not thinking it matters, and how like, because being a mom is so isolating in our society, like all of a sudden you have connections to people, and all of a sudden you have a tension. And all of a sudden you have a purpose. And all of a sudden, you're helping people with your experience being a mom and all of a sudden you have an audience and like I remember sitting alone covered in vomit and being like, what is this I feel so purposeful as I feel so you know, all this stuff. And what starts as sort of finding community and finding meaning, like really evolves into this dark thing where we start putting our kids in danger. And I can see that happening in degrees to where somebody maybe wouldn't be aware that it was happening. Yeah, I mean, like

  Cam 28:56

  it literally snow, it can snowball into an addiction to social media, which I think so many people don't think exists. But at the end of the day, it does. I mean, the notifications, the attention, the conversations, it gives you a dopamine rush, which you literally can get addicted to. And it goes from talking about like, you know, your personal experiences where you are getting support from other parents who are going through the same thing or who have gone through the same thing to making your child your content because you can't get enough of those conversations or like you think you have a bigger purpose in this situation. Like there's a lot of parents who, when So, in my advocacy with doing this, there's been so many people with who have millions of followers and I mean, millions of followers who I've had conversations with personally and they've been like, Okay, wait, yeah, like I realized that I am literally like making my kid work or I realized that like, I am using my kid to have these calm rotations with people like I'm exploiting what they're going through whether it's like, an emotional thing or like something that happened at school or medical trauma. And once they've kind of realized and like have been called in instead of being called out where we can actually have like these conversations and like, voice actual concerns, instead of being like, You're a bad parent, you don't deserve to have a child or platform type of thing. They've come to understand that like, Okay, I don't want to do this to my child, I want to continue to have these conversations, but like, as my own person instead of using my child as the talking point, and I think that you can have conversations about parenthood without posting your child, for one, I think you can do it without exploiting like, such vulnerable moments. And it's been proven that palatable to an audience because people have maintained platforms of millions of followers and have gained even hundreds of 1000s of more after they stopped posting their child. But then there's also like, so many people who are just so like, sucked into like, the social media addiction, where they just like, don't really care, or they don't really care to, like, try to have a conversation because they are like, Well, I'm not doing I'm not doing this to my kid. I'm not doing that to my kids. So I'm not like them, kind of like what you were saying. So yeah, those people are just like, kind of impossible to have a conversation about it with.

  KC 31:25

  So that kind of brings me to the next thing that I wanted to talk about, which is this question of, okay. You talked about your experience and all the negative impacts, we talked about the issues of sexualizing children and monetary exploitation and privacy. And, you know, it really, we didn't even touch on the fact that like, children can't consent to being on the internet. We talked about the bullying and the safety. And really consent is kind of at the heart of this. And so it kind of brings up this question for some people, which is, well, what if I'm not doing any of that? Like, what if I'm doing it ethically? Like, can you put your kids online, ethically, like a family vlogging channel that's ethical, and so I want to play this video and get your reaction to it. This is a family vlogging channel, they're on YouTube and Tiktok. And also, we've been really hammering, we've been really saying moms, but it's not just moms, this is actually a dad, and I want to play this video for you, and get your thoughts.

  Cam 32:19

  In the beginning of 2023, my son's asked me to delete 300 videos on our YouTube channel. And I did, we used to have over 700 videos, and now we have just over 400 The reason why I honored them is because I understand the importance of them having autonomy and consent overall, a lot of people have been spoken up this conversation about family channels in YouTube, vloggers are whatever, exploiting their children for their own profit and no gain. And that children can't give consent. I think there's a difference when children are saying, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore. And it shows and the parents are saying, Hey, we don't care, we're going to do this because this was making us money. I view this channel as a family business since 2015. We've been making videos, and I'm proud to say that my children have 1000s of dollars in their accounts, because we pay them for being a part of many of the productions that we do. But once my sons were like, Yo, I don't want to be a part of this in 2023. We had a deficit, you know, I mean, and I honestly believe that we're doing this for a reason that is noble, right. And it's honorable, not just to our family, but to the world. Because I've never wanted to be a dad until I saw proof of good fatherhood. So I want it to be proof for other people. But that doesn't go without my children's permission. So 2023 We barely posted any videos of the oldest to do on your Raya, the youngest two were definitely cool with being in the videos. And that may change at some point. So we took down those videos, and I still wanted to tell those stories in a very creative way. So I hit up my homie RJ and his wife, Emily, and we wrote these books together. These are the schematics of some of the images that we we did here.

  Yes. So when he's saying that, you know, the youngest two want to be in the videos and stuff and everything, I believe right at that moment in that video. The oldest two are literally behind the scenes watching dad have like the time of their lives with younger brother on camera with like this puppet and they go to him and the oldest two are like visibly watching what's happening behind the scenes. They're watching your little brother get all the attention with their dad. And it's just like they're not like they're, I don't know, it just feels like it's like dangling a carrot in front of like a rabbit right? Because it's just like, you are making them because they don't want to participate in the family business. You're making them sit behind the scenes and watch you like just interact with your children, like your younger children. And that just like, it feels so isolating to be the kid that's like not able to participate in like a family activity. I think that's something that maybe he doesn't realize or just won't realize, because, you know, he doesn't want to have a conversation about it. But then he pulls out like this book where he's saying that he wrote it with his kids, because he wants to have proof of their stories, right. And he wants to have these videos documented, because he wants to prove to other people that, you know, you can be a good father and like, if you want kids is like a man. Like, it's not like, you know, anything bad like you. It's cool to be a dad and stuff, which I think he's also putting in the book. So it's just like, I don't really understand why there's such a need to make not to make, because I guess he's saying they're coming to him. But I guess I just don't understand the need to put the other kids back on camera, because they want to, you know, they're saying they're coming to you saying that they want to interact with you and like, do this puppet thing that their little brother is doing? Because like, I don't know, he's showing that it's in the video, he's contradicting himself, because you don't have to make these videos to prove to people that you can be like, a good father, there's like, he literally showed it in another way, in the same video that he's trying to make an excuse of exploiting his kids on social media for a family business. Like he could make videos himself sharing stories about how you know about fatherhood, like he could continue this book series and like, had his children, like, continue to write them with him, which I think would be so much more beneficial than putting your kid in front of a camera and like, you know, just be a silly little prop for your channel, you know, yeah.

  KC 36:50

  What struck me was, he was like, you know, my kids don't want to be on camera, but I still wanted to tell their story. So I found a different way to tell their stories. And it's kind of like, it's still their story. Like, that really hit me of like, okay, and I'm sure that you asked permission. And I'm sure that they said it was okay. But like, how much of this? I guess, like this video, I think kind of gets lauded as like, oh, look, he's doing it the right way. Right. And I do agree that like, there are some things he's doing that are certainly better than others, like the fact that he's putting money in his children's account, the fact that he is honoring their request, but there are still real concerns, right. And one of the things that that you brought up to me when we were talking before we started recording is that like, he has these two older boys that have said, Hey, I was into this. I thought this was okay, now that I'm this age, I actually realized I don't want to be on camera. And he was like, okay, great, we'll take it off. But what's interesting is like he hasn't retroactively, like learned from that experience, and applied it to his younger kids.

  Cam 37:52

  Yeah. And I think that that was a really good opportunity for him to be like, Okay, well, maybe I should, like, start rolling this back, maybe I should tone it down a little bit. I'm not trying to tell anybody what to do. Because at the end of the day, parents are going to do whatever they want. But, you know, if he still wanted to feature his kids here and there, whatever. But you know, he didn't, you know, he listened to his kids deleted the videos or private to them, whatever he did, and then continued to kind of dangling in front of their face, because, okay, you're not going to participate. You're just going to sit behind the scenes, literally behind the scenes behind the camera, and watch us do all of these things with your

  KC 38:32

  little brother while I do good dad stuff with the youngest one. Yeah. And

  Speaker 1 38:38

  it's just like, and they're sitting there. And I think in the video, he even says, well, they came up to me, and they said, well, that I want to participate in these things again, well, yeah, they want to participate in having a family like function, they want to like participate in family things that you're doing with your other two, but they ultimately don't want to be on camera. They told you that, you know, and it's just like, it feels like, yes,

  KC 39:01

  their children also like so when he goes on to say like, and then my older two came back and said that they wanted it and it's like, okay, so they don't want to be they don't want their life on camera. But there is something about watching you do these videos with the younger ones that they are wanting. Like, that's a child. That's I don't want to have a tummy ache, but I do want to eat all this candy. I don't want to be sleepy in the morning. But I do want to stay up all night. It's like that's a child. And it's our job as a parent to go, Well, I can't let you make certain decisions that like are going to harm you or that you know, you don't want like I have to help you with that. And I think that you bring up a really good point, which is like he's not retroactively thinking oh my gosh, like they didn't like my younger kids might think this one day too. Like should I stop? Should I not be putting them on camera because they didn't really like children cannot grasp the concept of being broadcast to millions of people and I think that even when you're trying to not engage in some of the more obvious exploitation like you're not abusing your kids, you're not starving them. You're not like making them do retakes. You're not taking all the money like you're honoring when they say they don't want to film anymore. Like I do give him props for that. But also, like, there's got to be this feeling of betrayal. When you get to the age of being able to conceptualize, like, so many millions of people.

  Cam 40:32

  Yeah, there's a reason social media platforms have a role where you have to be 13, in order to sign up Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok Twitter for making big ones have that rule. But these parents just like, have a digital footprint from birth. And then when these kids get to the age of like, okay, Mom, I'm gonna make my own account, because all my friends have their own account done another da. And then it's just like, at that age, I think you can kind of start to conceptualize like, a large audience. I'm not saying fully, but I'm saying like, that's kind of the age when kids start to, like, really get into like, their own personal interests. And like, whether it be YouTubers or like artists or something, they can kind of conceptualize an audience when like, they're watching, like, like, I don't know, like videos where like, people are just like, Oh, my God, I'm going to VidCon and I'm gonna meet like, some of my fans, and then there's like, 1000s of people there that are only just like a fraction of their audience. I think that's kind of like, I don't know if that makes sense. Like, when they start to, like, get to that age to like, where they comprehend like, what they I think you can comprehend more than just what I'm saying, like you can comprehend like, more of like, what you're taking in? Yeah, and

  KC 41:45

  even then, I mean, how many of us, I mean, I'm in my 30s. And I'm so grateful that social media wasn't around when I was in my early teens, because like, the things that I might have said, or done, that I was just an idiot, and like, I'm so glad that every stupid thought I had ignorant thought I had at that age wasn't like, put on the internet for the world to see. Like, we still see young kids doing things on the internet and going, Oh, God like that the internet is for ever. And so like, the idea that you can expect a child to conceptualize, I mean, when we talk about consent, like the actual term in the medical field is informed consent. Consent is not really consent unless it's informed. And it's hard to believe that a child 678-910-1112 can fully be informed about the scope of what they're putting out there about the effects of what they're putting out there about how they're going to feel later about the effect that's going to have on their life. I mean, there are parents talking about their kids getting their periods online talking about their kids melting down, me

  Cam 42:57

  my first period was posted. Oh, God cam,

  KC 43:01

  I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's

  Cam 43:04

  literally like, fourth grade to like, Oh, my God, Jesus. And it's like, I don't know, like, there's so many other people who relate as well. Like, it's just insane. There's like a handful of kids who like have reached out to me because of the videos that I make on tick tock, and like, have shared, like, almost verbatim, like, what I've gone through, but like, in more of a digital sense, because there's just like, videos like for YouTube and stuff like that. And it just like, it's such like a, I don't know, it makes me sometimes dissociate, like after reading them, because not in a bad way. Like, I just kind of I'm like, oh my god, like, how is this able to, like, repeat, like, how it's just, I don't know, like, so many kids have fallen through the cracks of just like shit like this, you know, like, there's no regulations. There's no laws for this while but like, you know, all of the other kids before, even kids who are like 14 years old now and like, are still currently having to go through this. It just is like, insane. It's like talking about how they've had their periods posted or talking about like, how they're, they don't, they're having like a really bad mental health day, but their parent is still forcing them to film and it just is like, Jesus Christ like these poor kids. Just, I don't know how I spiraled into that.

  KC 44:22

  Let me ask you this. What would you have to say to regular parents and by regular I mean, they don't have a family vlogging channel, they don't have a big audience. Maybe they just have a Facebook that's public, or maybe it's not public. Maybe you just have 700 friends and who knows how close usually, you know, some of those people like what do you want parents to know? When they think about how they share about their kids online? Something

  Cam 44:47

  that I always say is like, put yourself in your child's shoes, which I know might sound ridiculous, but like if your mom for example, if you is like an adult like in Your 20s 30s 40s whatever if your parent currently was going to make a Facebook post saying exactly what you're about to post about your child, whether it be like, my kid had an accident for the first time in X amount of years, or my kid got diagnosed with XYZ done another day, and then you make a seven paragraph posts about it or whatever, or even just like casually sharing, like, my kid got diagnosed with XYZ and then like making it a post or whatever. It's like, Would you feel comfortable with your parent at your current age posting your personal information on a public platform of 700 people or 500 people or 1000? People? And the answer is probably going to be no, you probably wouldn't want your parent to do that, you probably would want to share your story yourself, you probably would want to share that personal thing yourself with people. And I think, yeah, the answer is going to be no, then you shouldn't post about your child. And I'm not saying that you can't post anything about your child, like parents are gonna post their children, they love their kids, whether it's privately publicly, whatever, but I don't think that like personal things like, you know, vulnerable moments, or like medical diagnoses, or like, you know, embarrassing, like, Oh, my God, my kid, like something at school happened today. And it was like funny to the parent, but probably not funny to the kid.

  KC 46:18

  I think that's a really great rule of thumb. Because like, so I personally made the decision to not post about any pictures of my kids or things on Facebook, because I do have 700 friends or something. And I don't really know any of them. I know lots of them really well. But a lot of them are just like those people that you met when you work that one place like whatever. So I use my Instagram. Yeah, exactly. I use my Instagram to share photos of my kids to my family and close friends. And it's private. But I think that your question is a really helpful one. Because when I think about what would I not mind my mom sharing right now in my age, like if I went to a pumpkin patch with my mom, it wouldn't bother me for her to be like Katie and I went to a pumpkin patch today. Here's a picture of us sitting in the pumpkins. And like, yeah, sure we did this today. Exactly. Right. But like, I wouldn't want my mom to share, like, Casey couldn't get out of bed today because she's struggling with health problem, and she doesn't know what's going on with it. And then she screamed at her kids like, Oh, thanks, Mom. Like

  Cam 47:20

  even like another example of like, something goofy is like, you know, here's a video of my child, like farting or something like I think even like that is something like that shouldn't be posted. Also,

  KC 47:31

  like, there are so many things that we do. Like there are a lot of mistakes that kids make, that are really cute to us as adults. Like they say something wrong, they do something wrong, and it's just like adorable. But when you're that child, all you're really experiencing, are people laughing at you not knowing what you're doing. You end up as a punchline. Yeah, exactly. And that can be really hurtful. I can enter memorialize that moment, in a way where when they grow up, they can see everybody laughing at that is can be really

  Cam 48:04

  devastating. I think I just was gonna say I think it really, it can turn into a lot of internal self harm, because reading so much of that, or being the punch line so often is kind of just like you end up making yourself the punch line too often, you end up saying really cynical things to yourself or about yourself and like trying to laugh it off. But like I don't know, it's not good for a child's mental health either. Yeah, like you

  KC 48:26

  look to your parents to be your protectors. And it can be really devastating to reach an age and realize that you feel un are so exposed and that it happened without your knowledge or consent. Let me ask you this, I want to end by asking you about some of your advocacy about some of the things that you've been able to do to start to get lawmakers to pay more attention to start to get more regulations and protections for children from being exploited online in this way. Can you talk for a bit about that?

  Cam 49:00

  Yeah. So very late last year, I was asked if I wanted to testify for a house bill 1627 In Washington State, which that was the first bill ever introduced in the country that has laws and regulations to not only protect like the monetary likeness, that are the monetary gain whenever that a child makes on social media. It also has the right to forget though, which when a child turns 18 They not only the parents who operate the channel would not only have to delete the videos, but the child could then go to platforms like YouTube or tic tock to ensure that videos like those videos are wiped from the platform like just wiped like almost like kind of like a copyright thing. Like you know, like for example, like you know, those that like monkey spinning monkey audio and tick tock that sometimes gets like an odd like a copyright strike and then those videos like go silent or whatever it would. It's kind of similar to that. And so that unfortunately I testified for that as well. I assume but that Bill unfortunately is like stuck in Washington right now. However, it was basically like copy and pasted here in Illinois in my home state of Illinois. And actually, a 16 year old was actually the one who introduced it. She was doing a school project name Shreya Shreya, was doing a school project. And she ended up seeing Chris McCarthy's belt, Chris McCarty, who runs the quick thicken kids account they've been incredible with they were the one who first introduced the bill in Washington State. And so that's kind of how I got involved was through Chris. And so anyway, the bill here in Illinois, ended up unanimously passing through the house and then ended up unanimously passing through the Senate, which was like, amazing, it's just like, it's crazy to me that like my home state, where like all of this happened to me was like the first day in the country to ever pass this bill. And then Governor Pritzker signed it, and it will officially be in effect come the first of the year, which is crazy. And then there's Maryland currently is really, really pushing for the same bill to be passed. They're in Maryland, but they are not taking the right to forget out like they are heavily keeping the right to forget and like they're speaking to lobbyists, like from speaking to lobbyists from like Google and Tik Tok and stuff like that tick tock, surprisingly, was completely on board. But you know, Google was not Google, actually, like Facebook and YouTube, they actually lobbied like against the bill in Washington, and here in Illinois, which luckily, they did not, they were not strong enough to get in the heads of senators and stuff or whatever in Illinois. So that pass. But yeah, Maryland is trying to really make sure that part of the bill is like stays because we've had multiple meetings with myself and Chris McCarty and Katie from the Tick Tock advocate account on Tiktok, just kind of like sharing our knowledge and also sharing our personal experiences to make sure that this bill that's going to be passed in Maryland protects more than just kind of like the 1% of very large family accounts. And then there's states like Texas and Pennsylvania, and California, that want to follow California is really the big one, which we're getting into their next session. So after the holidays, I imagine that it's going to be a little bit harder in California, but really, really going to try. And you

  KC 52:30

  said that a lot of these states are basically taking the wording from the bills and other states and using that, is that something that we could provide a link to for anyone listening if they wanted to kind of get these efforts going in their state?

  Cam 52:40

  Absolutely, I have, I can send you several like articles. And I can also send you the quick clicking kids account that Chris run

  KC 52:49

  perfect, we will have all that linked in the show notes here as well as a copy of the bill, if you want to take that to your lawmakers. Kim, thank you so much for doing this. I can't imagine what it's like to have your childhood so exposed and to be I think I know that sounds strong, but I think it's accurately to be betrayed in this way. And find yourself in a place where in order to protect other children, you have to continue to be vulnerable online. And I think that takes a lot of strength. Thank

  Cam 53:21

  you. I really appreciate you saying that. It's sometimes it gets really hard and it can, you know, I can get to myself very easily. So hearing that means a lie.

  KC 53:29

  I appreciate that. Well, you have a great day. And if anyone is listening, this is a great thing to get onboard with to find your local state authorities start pushing this information, start asking them to go to bat for children so that they can't be exploited by their families in this way. And so thank you for listening and Cam thank you again. Thank you

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai