Upon seeing someone crying, ill or hurt, is your first thought always “QUICK, GET THE CAMERA!”? If so, you may be suffering from family vlogging fever, a severe, incurable strain of psychopathy in which empathy is replaced by an insatiable drive for social media attention, regardless of the cost on your loved ones. In comparison to all sorts evil you could find online, from terrifying horror to Colleen Hoover, ‘family vlogging,’ seems harmless. Aside from the bullying, stalking and plain embarrassment caused by this, really, what could go wrong? Let’s take a look.
The name Ruby Franke has circulated across all forms of social media over the past year, the allegations of child abuse and the name of her family vlogging channel following closely behind her. Which is worse- that these allegations turned out to be true, or that it was all right under our noses the whole time? The channel ‘eight passengers’ ran for nearly 7 years, with over 2.5 million subscribers and Franke often boasting about the extreme ways in which her children were treated. In one video, she recalls taking her son’s bed away for several months. In another, she can be seen telling her sons that they would soon lose the “privilege” of eating dinner. Franke’s eldest child claims she repeatedly attempted to raise concerns about her estranged family.
Millions tuned in to watch this channel, which was regularly updated, yet no one believed that something might be wrong? Instead, people were simply attracted to the extremism of it all, with videos compiling Franke’s worst moments with funny filters or sarcastic commentary gaining thousands of views. This raises another question- how many others are getting away with it? In nearly every other family vlogging channel, you can find footage of children experiencing grief, going through painful or frightening medical procedures, throwing tantrums, and so on. What are the odds, realistically, that they want people seeing that? That they’re okay with being recorded in some of their worst moments for millions to watch? Here’s something that I firmly believe- Franke’s case is not unique, and oftentimes what goes on behind the camera to keep the views (and therefore the money) coming falls nothing short of abusive.