Note: I’m back with a new episode in what seems like forever. Sorry, you’re stuck with just me this week. As a thank you for your patience and for having compassion for my mouth-breathing thanks to this awesome cold I’ve had since 100 AD, I’m making this episode free for all subscribers. Enjoy :)
Hello and welcome to the YM audio companion. I’m back with another episode after a pretty significant hiatus, and I’m excited to dive into a topic I’m passionate about—one that was prompted by a very disturbing NYT article that came out recently.
This week’s episode is called [NAME], but before we get into it, I want to apologize for my voice. It’s a little wonky because I’ve had a cold for what seems like all of eternity. Our little family visited a daycare several weeks ago, and after spending approximately 20 minutes around a hoard of adorable little cesspools, we’ve been passing the same cold back and forth ever since. All that is to say, I hope my scratchy voice isn’t too distracting. Thanks for listening.
Today we’re talking about a New York Times article called: “A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men: Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more.”
I want to give credit to the authors: Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, and the work they did for this piece: For this investigation, the reporters analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, monitored months of online chats of professed pedophiles and interviewed over 100 people, including parents and children.
What we are talking about: parent, mostly mom, managed Instagram accounts for children under 13, who are prohibited from the platform. Once a child, usually a girl, turns 13, she could conceivably take over the account from her parent or parents.
Why do parents do this? Because they want to help their child become a model or influencer, sometimes earing a legit income or free swag from brands in the process. Unfortunately, there are plenty of creeps out there, usually adult men, who admit to being sexually attracted to children, who make lude comments and requests of the mom and child. The article mentioned children as young as five.
Here's a quote to haunt your nightmares: “Thousands of accounts examined by The Times offer disturbing insights into how social media is reshaping childhood, especially for girls, with direct parental encouragement and involvement. Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos, exclusive chat sessions and even the girls’ worn leotards and cheer outfits to mostly unknown followers. The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing the underage relationships.”
Gross. But then there’s this quote to make matters worse: “Interacting with the men opens the door to abuse. Some flatter, bully and blackmail girls and their parents to get racier and racier images. The Times monitored separate exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app, where men openly fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily available. ‘It’s like a candy store 😍😍😍,’ one of them wrote. ‘God bless instamoms 🙌,’ wrote another.”
Now, to be clear, most parents who put photos of their kids on the internet aren’t trying to turn them into the next Kim Kardashian, who, it should be said, is an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe. You may argue that she’s actually functioning without a brain, but Kim is a smart as fuck business woman who knows how to make her looks and brand work for her. I’m not a fan, but I respect her for what she’s been able to create from a leaked sex tape with a B-list celebrity. I would not feel the same if we were talking about an 11 year old whose mom was dressing her up in leotards and asking her to make kissy faces for the camera.
But like I said, most parents who share pics of their children are doing it to show their friends and family how cute their kids are. Instagram often encourages us to document and share our lives. Our kids are a big part of that. The problem is that unless you have maximized your privacy settings and keep your follower count to people you know intimately and limit the ability for others, such as grandparents and other relatives, to share the photos on their accounts, you quickly lose control over who gets to look at pictures of your littles.
That’s the primary reason I don’t share identifiable pictures of my daughter online. Even ones where you can’t see her face or anything that would enable you to recognize her in the real world, I’ve limited to a handful. I am a bit of a hard ass about this because I don’t want just anyone looking at my daughter online. I also happened to be a journalist at a parenting magazine at a time when the so-called mommy bloggers were putting EVERYTHING about their children on the internet. If you haven’t seen any coverage recently, the impacts of that nonsense have been seriously harmful to some of those kids.
In my mind, sharing pics and videos of your kid on Instagram can have a similar effect. And some of it is so fucking cringe. Like when parents create videos based on idiotic trends like telling their kids they ate all their Halloween candy and then film them crying. Maybe you find that funny, but I find it stupid and pointless. Why are you purposely trying to upset your child? So Jimmy Fallon will play your stupid video on his show and you might get some likes and attention? Maybe get a hobby that doesn’t involve mocking your child for the Gram.
Even innocuous content that features adorable kids being adorable is something I avoid. When I was on Instagram, I actually loved seeing other people’s kids at pumpkin patches and beaches and petting dogs. But I also knew that I would never do the same with my child because I want to give the Bean the option to be online in any way she wants (or not at all). We don’t always give our kids a lot of choices, especially when they’re babies. We feed them, dress them, take them places, and that’s that. How they exist online and whether they want to be there in the first place is one choice we can let them make when they are old enough to make it. And given how harmful we know social media is for kids, especially girls, something that the Times article even points out, I think keeping our kids off the Gram for as long as possible is a good thing.
Now, I also want to say that despite my strong feelings about keeping my kid offline, I do not judge other people for sharing cute content of their kids. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel this way because the Bean is a riot, and I think seeing her run around our house, throwing her head back and cackling at herself, would probably brighten some days. I get the appeal.
I am, however, judging the fuck out of the moms in this Times article. I hate that this is my truth because as I have written previously, I think parent shaming has gotten ridiculously out of control, but I really am judging the adults in this article. They should have known better. Some admit that they do know what’s up and are doing it anyway. They are OK with low-level pimping their kids out for money and free clothes.
Look, I love money. I tell everyone I know this. I would be an amazing rich person. Having money is so fun. But what I would never do is sexualize my daughter to pedophiles so I can make $14k a month on the high end, but probably a lot less. And some people are doing this for free clothes. Are you kidding me? That’s completely unhinged. Don’t believe me, here’s another vomit-inducing quote from the article:
“’I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet,’ said Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia, who like Elissa and many other parents interviewed by The Times agreed to be identified only by a middle name to protect the privacy of her child. ‘But she’s been doing this so long now,’ she said. ‘Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?’”
Yes, Kaelyin! Jesus. Yes, you absolutely walk away. Make your money in a manner that doesn’t rely on your kid posing for pictures that arouse pedophiles! Abandon your followers, which I shouldn’t have to point out, aren’t actually yours. Stop living vicariously through your kid, assuming attention for her is for you, that money you make through the account is actually benefitting her in a way that isn’t also harming her. Be a mom for God’s sake.
And also, do we not find it hilarious that she’s using a middle name to protect her child? Like, while she’s also exploiting that same child on Instagram? Because the only person benefitting from anonymity here is you, Kaelyn. Your daughter doesn’t have that luxury.
See? I’m judging. I stand by it, but maybe you’re not convinced yet. Is this really so bad, you ask? Maybe these kids are getting modeling gigs out of it. Maybe the money they make is going to their future college funds. Is it really so wrong to share pictures of my kid in her dance uniform, especially if that’s just what she wears when she competes, and she wants to be an influencer or become a professional in the dance space?
Fair questions, dear listener. To find out if these potential perks are worth what’s being put at stake, let us return to the article for another a-plus quote, one that once again features our friend Middle Name Kaelyn.
“In interviews and online comments, parents said that their children enjoyed being on social media or that it was important for a future career. But some expressed misgivings. Kaelyn, whose daughter is now 17, said she worried that a childhood spent sporting bikinis online for adult men had scarred her.
‘She’s written herself off and decided that the only way she’s going to have a future is to make a mint on OnlyFans,’ she said, referring to a website that allows users to sell adult content to subscribers. ‘She has way more than that to offer.’
She warned mothers not to make their children social media influencers. ‘With the wisdom and knowledge I have now, if I could go back, I definitely wouldn’t do it,’ she said. ‘I’ve been stupidly, naïvely, feeding a pack of monsters, and the regret is huge.’”
Look, she said it. I also said it, but she agrees. Turns out it wasn’t worth it. And in case you were wondering how all these pedophiles are allowed to be disgusting in the comments section of photos featuring underage wannabe models, you’ll be happy to know that Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram, could not give less of a fuck that this is happening. The Times article gave many examples of this.
For one, there is a limit to how many accounts you can block in a day, so if you’re a mom who is diligent about blacklisting creeps, you can’t get them all in one go, even if you wanted to spend all day culling the herd. Secondly, even a dick pic sent to a mom-run kid account that the mom then reported to Instagram was not considered explicit enough to warrant being kicked off the platform. Many users noticed that blocked accounts would disappear only to return later. Meta has said that convicted sex offenders are prohibited from using the platform, but they clearly slip through the cracks. The Times found two clear examples, and the pervs were only booted after they pointed it out. One of the men was using the moniker jizzquizz, so yes, there is no limit to the ick.
And if you’re a person who uses Instagram to share pole dance videos like I used to do, this nonsense with Meta is especially annoying. Adult pole dancers are very often shadow banned on Instagram, meaning that the algorithm essentially blocks the user, making their content impossible to find, even if someone were to search for it. I’ve also seen more videos taken down for misuse of music on these platforms than for harassment. I’m not saying copyright infringement isn’t serious, but if we have to choose between being the music police, hiding adult dance videos and protecting children from predators, I think we should be putting more effort into the latter.
It's been a while since we heard a stomach-turning quote from the article to help emphasize my point, so here’s a good one for you:
“In monitoring multiple Telegram chat rooms, The Times found men who treat children’s Instagram pages and subscription services as menus to satisfy their fantasies. They trade information about parents considered receptive to producing and selling ‘private sets’ of images.
“A group with more than 4,000 members was highly organized, with an F.A.Q. page and a Google sheet that tracked nearly 700 children, identifying them by hashtags to help members find them within the long chat history. The group’s logo showed a child’s hand in an adult hand.”
Gross! And you want to know what the FBI told moms who reported a blackmailer who was trying to get nude photos of their children and even went so far as to ask a mom to sexually abuse her daughter and make content of the act for him? They told the moms to get off Instagram because they were in over their heads. While that is unsatisfying as a response and these platforms need to be held to great accountability, those moms should be getting off social media. This shit is disturbing. How are you not making moves to better protect your child. It doesn’t make sense!
At this point, I think you get the idea. I’m linking to the full article in the post. If you really want the full picture of how bad things are on these internet streets, read every word. I highly recommend the article for parents who are considering turning their little cutie into an online star, but if you currently put your kid online, it might be good to see whether that’s a choice you want to continue making. This is a very extreme example of what can happen, and as I said previously, most parents are not creating this type of content when they post about their children. I’m still not going to put any photos of my Bean online. Whatever you decide, it’s best to have all the facts, so you can make the best choice for your family.
Thanks so much for listening. Talk soon. Bye for now.
I Refuse to Put Photos of My Daughter on the Internet