In the rise of social media and content creators, family vlogging channels are becoming as popular as ever. Some that might ring a bell and are the most infamous include The Norris Nuts, The LaBrant Fam, 8 Passengers, The ACE Family and the Dougherty Dozen.

      The Norris Nuts have covered almost their entire lives on film much like many family channels and includes six children. According to newuniversity.org, they “have made sure to film every birthday, Christmas, hospitalization and emotional conversation.” This family in particular has had many occurrences where they have had to break emotional news to their viewers regarding their pets.

      One of their biggest controversies discusses the death of their puppy. According to the the-sun.com, the father, Justin, said in the video, “What happened was the puppy got hurt, and then since the puppy was so little, the puppy died.” He continues with saying “Yeah, like, it was super traumatic for everyone,” to which [the mother], Brooke, cuts in and says, “everyone was there…we saw the whole thing. Basically, the kids just saw the puppy die. They were holding the puppy.” This was a result of the father accidently stepping on the dog. This is not the first pet of theirs that has died, and they also had a $100,000 guard dog for a short amount of time before she was shortly rehomed.  All these events have been filmed for content where the children are seen crying or getting emotional.

     In videos discussing the children’s medical needs, they are seen showing personal information that is not blurred, and the children – who were all minors during the majority of this medical content – were sharing very vulnerable information regarding their medical conditions and mental health. The mother, Brooke, would also be making many sexual remarks about her young daughter.

       8 Passengers have been in the media recently for all the information coming out about the mother, Ruby Franke. According to usatoday.com, “Franke appeared in court [on Dec. 18, 2023] donning jail clothes and pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse as part of a plea agreement. When submitting her final plea, Franke reportedly said, “With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty.” The article continues, “The pushback intensified when Franke co-founded parenting advice and support program “ConneXions” with [Jodi] Hildebrandt, which has been called a “cult” by some online. Many found the parenting style promoted by the pair to be extreme and harsh. The frequent inclusion of what has been called homophobic, racist, and transphobic comments did not help their popularity.”

     Usatoday.com explains, “Police were called to the home of Hildebrandt after one of Franke’s children climbed out a window and went to a neighbor’s house asking for food and water. Noticing duct tape wrapped around the child’s wrists and ankles, the neighbor called authorities, who arrived to find one child who was “severely emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds,” and another Franke child in the home, who was also malnourished, according to court documents.    

      While serving a search warrant, police found evidence in the home “consistent with the markings found on the juvenile.” The documents also said that Franke had been seen filming in the home days before, meaning she was aware of the condition of the children. Franke was likewise accused of mistreating her own kids and is facing six felony child abuse charges.”

     The dailymail.co.uk reports, “Shari [the eldest daughter of Ruby Franke] claimed in September that relatives have been ‘trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this’, adding that she was ‘so glad they finally decided to step up’ and the kids were safe. She posted the message to Instagram with a photo of police outside the home captioned ‘finally’.”

      Much of their content focused on the family and many of Ruby’s ridiculous comments. “In one clip, Ruby warned her younger son that he was ‘going to lose the privilege to eat dinner’ for roughhousing with his big brother.” In another much-circulated video, she talked about her decision to not bring her then-six-year-old daughter her school lunch, even though the child’s teacher was “‘uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch,” because it had been her daughter’s responsibility to pack the food and bring it with her. Ruby said in another excerpted clip, “My kids are not welcome to come live with me after they’re 18. I am very straightforward about that,” says the eonline.com. This article states in one Christmas video posted, “Ruby said that her two youngest children had been “displaying long patterns of selfishness,” and she and Kevin [her husband] would be giving “the gift of truth to them this year for Christmas.” The kids were told they’d be receiving “boundaries” and “repentance” for the holidays, Ruby said, instead of a visit from Santa.

      Finally, there’s the Dougherty Dozen. Mother Alicia Doughtery has gained around 6.2 million followers on TikTok. According to realitysnark.com, “One of the major reasons that the Doughtery Dozen have come under scrutiny, is concerns about Alicia’s failure to protect her children’s privacy. Especially concerning in the number of times that Alicia has disclosed her childrens diagnoses, medical conditions, or behaviors to her millions upon millions of followers. In one shocking video, she disclosed one of her adopted son’s list of diagnoses, creating a list to shock viewers with its extensions. The list included extremely private information, all the way down to the traumatic homes he lived in.”

      Alicia has been accused by her biological daughter in an interview of bribing the children to be in videos with her, along with more concerning behaviors such as being drunk in many of her TikToks, seemingly offering one of her young children alcohol and having to hide her drinks in her room; it is widely known that many of her adopted children suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

      When looking at the surface of these family channels, you see rich families that support and buy their kids anything they want without much thought and use their children’s reactions and experiences for clicks and views. However, behind closed doors, many of these children are suffering from some sort of abuse. We need to stop supporting these channels and allowing these parents to display this information online before more kids are exploited and abused.