by Jenna Dobson
Assistant Editor
Over the years, the trend of family vlogging has taken the media by storm. The idea of a perfect family has enthralled viewers for years, but with recent scandals and controversy, the hype around family vlogging has dramatically decreased.
The fall of family vlogs was most notably seen during COVID times. As the lockdown kept people in their homes, YouTube was streamed more than ever. As views increased, concerns increased, and questions began– should everything be posted online? The privacy aspect of family vlogging has always been iffy, but as these families gained increasingly more fame and money, all privacy was thrown out the window. From filming intimate moments through adolescence to posting questionable disciplinary tactics, it almost seemed as if they would air anything for content and especially for a check.
In the beginning, family vlogging used to be a fun hobby that some families indulged in, but now it has turned into a monopoly. Once the family vlogging scene became popular, it almost became a “flexing” fest. Who has a mansion? Who has three Teslas? Who can afford a regulation-sized basketball court in their front yard? It was like it lost that down-to-earth family touch that many viewers enjoyed.
Within the past few years, scandals have polluted the family vlogging world. From the Labrant family homeschooling their eldest daughter solely for her to take care of the youngest children to the Ace family getting caught objectifying their children for clout, the likability of this once beloved genre has gone downhill. A huge scandal involving family vloggers comes from the YouTube family, 8 Passengers. In their prime, the 8 Passengers were a happy family from Utah who filmed their daily adventures. But recently, Ruby Franke, the mother of six children and the sole owner of the channel, was caught in a legal issue involving her children and their safety. It’s almost as if most of the scandals regarding family vlogging are rooted in child neglect.
It wasn’t always like this, though. At the start of family vlogging, families used to be genuine, which is why many people fell in love with this genre of videos. Family vlogging offered viewers a sense of comfort and connection when they saw an authentic family filming their daily routine. This trend of filming has always been around for decades and decades. For as long as video cameras have been around, parents have filmed important milestones in their kids’ and their lives; these videos were pure; they weren’t influenced by trends or money. All things considered, family vlogging itself isn’t the problem; it’s more the person behind the camera. Children of these vlogging parents usually do not share any part of the monetary value profited from their in-home videos, causing an unfairness within the entertainment field. While many viewers continue to watch their favorite vloggers, we must examine the behind-the-scenes actions to recognize the many dysfunctions.