Performing for profit:  Family vlogging channels never end well 

Family channels often show the perfectly staged clips of their lives, but behind the smiles and perfect moments are lies and unfair treatment of kids that rarely end well.  

Family vlogging has been popular since the creation of YouTube in 2005.  However, more awareness needs to be raised regarding the consequences of a family deciding to put their lives on social media.

It seems like everyone assumes they can tell a person's whole life story after watching a 20-minute video about families pulling dumb pranks every day, like “Starting An Argument With My Husband Then Taking The Baby" from Jatie Vlogs. But in reality, they’re showing a prank that was staged, or a highly edited glimpse in a vlogger's life. 

Social media influencer Emilie Kiser shared her day-to-day life through TikTok. Her life looked perfect — a loving husband, two young boys and a beautiful new home they’d just built. But when her son Trigg passed away in May of 2025, according to NBC News, her life took a complete turn.

The public took to blaming Emilie's husband, Brady Kiser, for Trigg’s death, as he was the only one home when it happened. 

All I could think about was how bad I felt for Emilie. I loved watching her TikToks every day as she seemed so genuine. I could never go through a loss like that and then have the whole internet be a part of it. 

This is what I hate about family channels. When personal tragedy strikes, influencers must continue their job and cope, all while being watched by millions. 

When it comes to times like this, the internet doesn’t know how to respect one's privacy. People forget influencers are still humans, not TV characters.  

Being on the internet comes with baggage, no matter what content is put out to the world, whether it's good or bad. When something happens out of script, there's no way to control what the public says or how they react, and that's what I hate about it. 

Family vlogging channels are known for being performative, which is precisely what happened with the ACE family. The ACE family had been vlogging since 2016, when, unexpectedly, Catheine McBroom and Austin McBroom filed for divorce due to Austin cheating on his wife.They have three kids and have vlogged since their firstborn. Just from watching their videos, I would never have guessed there was any infidelity in their marriage..

This is a prime example of how family channels are not showing their true sides as a week before they filed for divorce, the ACE family posted videos like "Surprising my wife with a new Range Rover.”

Another popular family vlogging channel is the Labrant Family. They’ve been vlogging since 2017 and have 12.8 million subscribers on YouTube. They have five kids and often discuss adopting more. But the public hates them, always leaving comments assuming they neglect their oldest daughter, Everleigh. 

While the rest of the interest is busy leaving mean comments, I wonder what Everleigh thinks when she reads those comments. A 12-year-old girl hearing people say your parents don't care about you when all they see is a weekly 10-minute video.

There was considerable controversy over taking Everleigh out of school to homeschool her so she could help around the house with the younger kids. I can see how people make these accusations, but the problem with the internet is that no one seems to understand that she's a young girl who will read those comments.

Then, there are the 8passengers. They were on YouTube since 2015, then randomly stopped filming. Then on the news it came out that she abused her two youngest kids for months on end, not feeding them, making them work outside in the Utah heat for hours without water and food and physically and mentally abusing the children.

Ruby Franke will spend up to 1-15 years in jail, according to ABC News. This is a prime example that family channels are all lies. The channels never show the true side of a family.

I disagree with the concept of family vlogging channels, as the kids usually aren’t old enough to give their consent regarding whether they want to be on camera or not. The parents put their kids' entire lives on camera, using them for financial gain, all in the pursuit of fame. I think it’s time to start boycotting family channels and stop feeding into their lies.