Family Channels Should Not Exist.

family vlogs have been a thing as far back as YouTube itself has existed the idea of family vlogging sounds good in theory right it's good-natured friendly content that can be watched by kids and parents alike the sort of content that you keep up with over a long period of time connecting to the family as if they were your neighbors or your friends but often times will intended theories have a funny habit of losing their way when put into practice I'm not going to hide the fact that I have a bias in this case and it will probably show as the video progresses in fact it probably shows in the title I don't like family channels granted I'm not exactly their target demographic but there's something about this type of content that has always rubbed me the wrong way I will say this though I am aware that there's certain aspects of Parenthood that I can relate to at this stage of my life because I don't have kids although having Wilfer is sometimes not that far off damn it will forget down from there but what I can relate to is having a youtube channel and everything that that comes with and when I see family channels and the sneaky little tricks that they pull all the way up to the full-blown scandals they more and more often find themselves in I feel like I should voice my perspective on it so today we're taking a look at family vlogging channels the problematic nature of the concept and all the relevant instances when exploiting children has been in full swing just want to take a quick moment Before we jump into things to thank our sponsor for today xB pen but we're gonna talk about it a little more towards the end of the video [Music] I read an interesting article recently on the psychology of social media which I will link below if you're interested in checking it out it was talking about how researchers found insecurity to be the main driving force behind posting on social media shocking right noting that sharing the good bits of their life often gives individuals an increase in self-esteem but a decrease in self-control and obvious as that may be to anybody with a little bit of self-awareness it's a trap that everybody can fall into now that's all fine and dandy when all you're posting is what you're eating and how hard you've been working out but when your content is based around your children things can very quickly take an unpleasant turn and to make a point here we're gonna go into storytime mode really quick so gather around kids we're talking about moms being predatory with their kids without even realizing it so a few years ago I was browsing Facebook back when that was still a thing that people under 40 years old did and I saw an old classmate of mine from middle school who had a recently given birth to a baby boy and she was posting a picture of her kid completely naked with a caption saying something like I don't understand why everyone has a problem with my child I don't care how many times you're reporting this picture I will continue to repost it because I'm proud of my child and you cannot take that away from me and I remember thinking lady people are reporting the picture to protect your child from online creeps because in your delusion and chase for validation you are endangering someone you are supposed to be protecting you see in this world of oversharing I think for some mothers in particular getting the endorphins from those likes and social engagement is directly incompatible with the responsibility to shield their child from harm this is something that's not being talked about enough in my opinion not only do parents slash older people generally not have a good grasp on how the Internet itself works but they are oftentimes oblivious to the dangers of sharing private and embarrassing information about their kids when they are too young to be able to even consent to it and so far we're talking about just posting to a bunch of Facebook friends imagine how much more perverse the dynamic becomes when sharing your children's information online becomes profitable [Music] now there's a family channel that has popped on my radar called the Norris nuts Brook and Justin are the parents and they currently have six children ranging from 15 years old down to six months old and this channel has a concerning amount of videos revolving around the mother trying to have more children with titles like are we having another baby exciting announcement trying to have a baby update the baby needs to come out due to pregnancy complications are the kids ready to deliver the baby we've had some bad news about Mama's pregnancy pregnancy complication for our baby and it goes on and on and on and if you look at some of these videos with a critical mind you can't escape the question how much of this comes from a genuine place and how much of it is straight up crossing a line because she's turning the entire process into a weird messed-up kids show if you catch this ball it means I'm pregnant if you miss it it means I'm not pregnant from fertilization to talking about it with the children trips to the doctor to straight-up documenting her mouth carriage I can't tell you that I'm I'm bleeding and I'm not pregnant it's not your home now I've blurred out the kids faces because I want no part in further exposing them to the public but I think there needs to be some attention drawn to this channel and channels like this that have made a profitable business from using their kids in a way that would make any rational person feel uncomfortable and to make one thing very clear I do think that sometimes it's important to share certain details about the challenges of a pregnancy or perhaps how to deal with the psychological effects of a mouth carriage these are medical realities that other women in similar circumstances might find solace in but where I think Brooke Norris crosses a line is the way she involves her kids in the process I mean for Christ's sake she's filming her ten-year-old son as he bursts into tears thinking it was his fault that she lost the pregnancy the video has since been taken down but it had millions of views and it was monetized and I know at this point there may be hardcore fans of their channel arguing that the kids want to be part of this you may say they're just concern because they love their mother and in most cases they're excited to film videos for the channel so if the kids are having fun making these YouTube videos what's the harm in that well to answer the question we have to get one thing clear right away what a child likes or what they think they like is based on an immature understanding with a brain that has not yet fully developed that's why legally the parent is responsible for every major decision in the child's life until they've reached the age of 18 they alone are responsible to choose what's right for the kids but when the parent finds purpose and profit in the image of the children what's right for the kids gets muddled by what's right for the business and that is a dangerous territory return on investment or ROI it's a term used in business to determine whether an investment generates enough revenue to turn a profit for example if you have a Golden Goose and you make a living off selling its golden eggs as long as what you're feeding the goose putting the roof over its head and keeping it happy so that it lays more eggs as long as all of those expenses add up to less than what you're earning per golden egg the whole operation is ROI positive but if the goose bites you if it only lays eggs when it feels like it or in other words if the goose is named Wilfer who I don't even know do you even lay eggs because you're like a boy goose well if that's the case then the whole thing is our way negative for you and you should probably start looking into getting a regular job with that in mind let's talk about Micah Stouffer some of you may have already heard about her because she was recently involved in a very public scandal Micah along with her husband James are the parents of three children and you guessed it they have a family vlogging channel the Stouffer's adopted an autistic boy from China in 2017 and because of the novelty factor of having an adopted Chinese boy with special needs their channels skyrocketed I have so many viewers that found me through my adoption journey and they are here to kind of live through those adoption updates and kind of see how he is doing and watch him progress if you are one of those people that are here for that give this video a thumbs up well apparently two years after the adoption with the boy being prominently featured on their YouTube and Instagram ringing a lot of revenue for them the Stouffer is all of a sudden decided in 2019 to return the boy this of course blew up in their face they're currently losing a lot of subscribers and getting a lot of backlash in my opinion rightfully so because the problem here isn't that a family has returned an adopted child that they weren't qualified to raise that apparently happens one to five percent of all adoption cases but it usually happens within a relatively short timeframe the Stouffer's channel benefited immensely from keeping the adopted Boyd for two years before sending him back making it more difficult for him to fit in with a new family because he is now older the overall public impression right now is that micah Stouffer would not have adopted the boy if she didn't expect in some way to enrich her brand and I kind of get the same feeling watching her videos by all accounts it looks like the adoption was a calculated move that had to be reverted when it stopped being ROI positive [Music] eight passengers is another case of a couple of blogging parents mistreating their children multiple times like in many other similar cases the mother Ruby runs the channel and it looks like the overarching theme of her videos is the strict discipline measures she imposes on her six children a lot of the videos on the channel are now deleted but in many cases you could hear the kids tell their mother they don't want to be on camera they also often joke about how many lashes they deserve for various actions so what do you think is a reasonable outcome in order to fix the behavior of her oldest son Ruby and her husband decided to send him away to live for months at a place called Anasazi camp now I've looked into this place and they claim to be a troubled teens wilderness treatment center where teenagers discover a profound sense of self-worth and responsibility for the choices that govern the course of their lives and they do that among other things by allegedly having the kids wipe their butts with rocks we were told setting bear traps is the language we're gonna use for it so toilet paper and so I told Kevin this is a terrible wiping Rock is smooth I think that would work and here's the mind-boggling thing multiple kids have died at these types of wilderness camps due to barbaric punishment by the camp instructors there's articles about this online and I'm gonna link some below if you're interested to find out more Ruby came under fire when the oldest son openly talked in a vlog about how he hadn't been sleeping on a bed for seven months my bedroom was taken away for seven months and give it back like a couple weeks ago Thibodeaux Nadine Merrimack thank you this sparked outrage in the comments and has put a spotlight on Ruby and her excessive discipline methods and I think what we see here is how as years go by and the kids in the vlogs grow up to be teenagers they start to realize the messed up dynamic of being used for entertainment I think there's an expiration date on any family channel when we see this pattern of kids starting to rebel and not want to be a character in their parents reality show anymore that should in my opinion be an indicator of the almost abusive nature of family vlogging [Music] I think whatever example we choose to look at when children become a business the parents predominant role is no longer that of a guardian the child is now an asset for the parent and it goes back to that study I mentioned early on in the video that increase in self-esteem and decrease in self-control which gets pushed even more off balance when large amounts of money get thrown in the equation now are there family channels that managed to keep a relatively balanced dynamic yeah I'm sure there are in fact most family channels probably start off with good intentions but it's the high probability of the parents morals getting skewed as time progresses and the channel gets bigger that puts the entire genre in a dangerous zone and for that reason I strongly believe there should be regulation and guidelines in place when it comes to online content involving children whether the mother is trading in the child's privacy for a dozen likes on Facebook or she creates a disturbing storyline of doctor visits and bad news monetizing her children's reactions whether we're talking about a mother adopting a child for financial gain and discarding him when he becomes an inconvenience or a mother using inhumane treatments and shoving a camera in the kids faces despite visible discomfort in all of these examples one connecting thread is the replacement of parenting with self-serving irresponsibility and that is why in my opinion family channels should not exist now this is obviously a topic that's much larger than what I could sum up in one video so please let me know your opinions in great detail because this is a topic that I think can spark a lot of debate and I'm interested in reading all of the well argumented comments down below now on a lighter note I want to take a moment to talk about our sponsor the XP pen artist displayed 24 pro tablet I've used the XP pen tablets in the past and I have to say they're up there in my good books so when they reached out offering to sponsor this video I was genuinely excited they've got a new display tablet coming out the artists 24 pro this product looks really promising it connects through a USBC cable to any computer whether that's a macbook pro a Mac or Windows computer supporting all of the up-to-date operating systems it's also compatible with all the popular digital art software Photoshop Illustrator 3ds max created a blender you name it the display comes in 2k qHD resolution thus offering a lot of creative control over the line work and level of detail which is fantastic for a display tablet in this price range the stylus works battery free you don't have to charge it which is a major plus for me because it's always annoying when you have to charge a pen but not this one and it also supports 60 degrees of tilt function and here's something really simple but something that I like a lot it's the nifty little pin slot up here that can hold your stylus whenever you're not using it it's stuff like this or the touch sensitive keys which are designed to avoid sticking it's all of this stuff that when you look at it you realize that they put a lot of thought into the user experience during the design process now again this is not a portable tablet but if you're a professional it's a great addition to your desk especially if you're looking for an alternative to the Cintiq at like half the price so if you're considering purchasing one for yourself remember to use my custom link in the description you'll get a pretty nice discount and you're helping out the channel so once again thank you to xB pen for sponsoring us thank you for watching and we'll see you again very soon [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Andrei Terbea

Views: 8,578,664

Keywords: @andreiterbea, andrei terbea, andrei terbea animation, myka stauffer, 8 passengers, 8passengers, myka stauffer adoption, norris nuts, family vlogging, family vlogs, family channels, problem with family channels, family friendly, thenorrisnuts, the norris nuts

Id: HvQfekq5tic

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Anagreysays]

Omg andrea!! Love this guy

[u/abba1115]

Reminds me of Shrads and the flying beast guy.

[u/Stage_Anxious]

Really need to stop exploiting the children.period

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