With one click, what used to be a camera quickly recording a family’s laughter soon turned out to be an illusion for the lens. Two documentaries recently uploaded onto the internet show the truth from beyond: Bad Influence and The Devil in the Family. They follow a group of young children and a family that uncover the unsettling truth behind their YouTube vlog channel, which quickly turns from family-oriented to hungry for fame.
The series draws attention to the lack of oversight in digital content creation and has quickly raised concerns surrounding kid-influencing.
At first, family vlogs became a full-on trend on YouTube from mid-2014 to 2016. Multiple people participated in family vlogging; some occasionally producing serious amounts of money due to advertising and views.
Some of these channels, like The Squad, started in 2016 following Piper Rockelle and her friends, and 8 Passengers, created in 2015, following Ruby Franke’s adventures she took with her family of eight. However, over time, multiple viewers began to ask serious questions about what was going on behind the scenes.
Many viewers began to ask: Are these kids being exploited for views? Do they have privacy? Are the parents putting content before their children’s well-being? These concerns grew over the internet in the 2020s after multiple allegations came out surrounding the two channels.
In 2023, Franke was arrested and convicted of four counts of child abuse after her son, Russel Franke, escaped from his own home and sought help from a neighbor to call the police to send him to his house and provide him food.
After a police investigation at Franke’s home, the police discovered children tied to their beds, and seeming as if they hadn’t eaten. This incident led to the arrest of both Franke and Jodi Hildebrant, Franke’s business partner, who had been a part of the child abuse.
Around the same time in 2023, Rockelle became a top subject of a lawsuit, alleging emotional and sexual abuse behind the scenes, as well as forcing children to overwork. This happened after multiple former members of Rockelle’s “Squad” accused Tiffany Smith, Rockelle’s mother, of creating a toxic and abusive environment.
Tragically, the children in these YouTube channels suffered from stress and identity loss. Fergi, a former Squad member, described the filming schedule, stating, “We would often shoot content over 12 hours a day.” This created intense pressure on her and other members and left little personal time or rest, ultimately contributing to her stress.
Along with stress, all the children suffered through a mass identification loss; the Franke children and some Squad members felt their identities were overshadowed by their roles in the group, leading to them being unable to express themselves as they liked.
Shari Franke, Franke’s eldest daughter, has openly discussed the long-term emotional impact of growing up as well in the public: “Family vlogging ruined my innocence long before Ruby committed a crime,” continuing, “If I could go back and do it all again [I wouldn’t]. No amount of money I received has made what I’ve experienced worth it.”
After the truth was revealed about these two channels, many viewers were left speechless and in pity for what had happened. Alyssa Salmon, a Pembroke Pines Charter High School (PPCHS) freshman, explains, “[Rockelle] seemed to be a huge role model for [most] children around my age. After the recent releases, it’s clear that [the channel] is quite the opposite.”
Audiences have discussed how they were attached to those families and grew to be immediately shocked after discovering the truth beyond what people thought to be a “perfect family or home.” Noah Mercado, a freshman, says, “After watching different family vloggers when I was younger, finding out the truth of these two major channels has me wondering what exactly might be happening with other channels.”
The ultimate question now arising after the release of these two documentaries is whether children should be exposed to online content. People often argue that it is a huge parental responsibility to keep children off the internet’s publications to avoid having continuous situations like this.
With the growing concerns due to the two documentaries, both express the truth about how people view family vloggers and that there are more things behind what is seen. Both series explained not only the emotional and physical damage the kids went through but also the damage that is being brought after the exploitation.
