Trigger Warning: This blog discusses sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including family abuse and unethical treatment. Reader discretion is advised.
When the idea of family comes to people’s minds what is the first thing they think of? Is it the image of a nuclear family, a family consisting of one or more parents and children, or could it be of an extended family, which includes the family of kin such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins? Do people think of their family of orientation, the family that one is raised and socialized with, and does it include close friends and pets? Families can be diverse for different people; they can consist of people of various origins and can be socialized differently depending on the family structure. However, in general, when families are discussed, they are seen as a personal topic that people share private memories with or, at the very least, do not often share with strangers. With this concept in mind, one must wonder how families who are a part of family vlogs keep their lives not so private from the world.
Family vlogging channels are a type of video blog used to record an individual’s family moments. Essentially, in these types of vlogs content viewers see the “average” everyday lives of these families. They are allegedly as real as possible and document every single moment of their lives with unscripted scenes. The types of families shown in these vlogs can be diverse; however, most of the families shown are nuclear families. Through these blogs, parents present an image of what type of relationships they have with their children. They show things like daily struggles, the children’s friends, and their current interests and goals — anything that will make viewers feel included as a part of their family.
Family vlogs have become a source of entertainment for viewers and a source of income for influencer families. As exposure for these content creators rises so does the uncertainty of how children in these vlogs are treated. Recently, numerous cases of child abuse, the physical, emotional, or sexual harm or mistreatment of a child, have been made public. An infamous example is that of the 8 Passengers case, which was a channel run by Ruby Franke, the primary vlogger and mother of the six children featured in the channel. Ruby Franke was known to raise her children in an authoritarian parenting style, when parents attempt to maintain strict control over their children’s lives, and in this case, it was controlling how the children present themselves online and in public. Ruby was prosecuted for abusing her children in ways such as not allowing them to eat and not allowing them to sleep in their rooms in order to maintain their channel’s image. As part of this image Ruby was seen as a great mother who offered parenting advice to her viewers so the viewers’ children could behave as well as her children.
