It seems like I’m always hearing about family vloggers getting put away for child abuse. I’m not into family vlogging, so maybe I’m wrong, but people always make it sound like these two channels were popular.

But then they go on to describe their videos, and it’s always parents doing insane shit to make the kids cry on purpose, or announcing on camera that they’re withholding necessities from the kids or something. I’ve never heard anyone say they like these videos, and I can’t imagine why they would, so then how were they supposedly popular?

  •  WeirdGoesPro   ( @WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
    9•20 days ago

    I used to manage a team of low income women who were primarily first generation Americans. Many of them had tough moms who never hesitated to use “la chancla” on their many children.

    Their sense of humor ended up pretty warped, and it was always my impression that it was a self defense thing to normalize the abuse they grew up with. By seeing that behavior as funny, it excuses similar things that were done to them.

    I usually tried to ignore it without judging, but I always put a stop to it once they started sharing online videos at work. People are entitled to their own interpretation of their history, but there is no context where a video of a kid sobbing is funny to me.

    •  Alice   ( @Alice@beehaw.org ) OP
      3•20 days ago

      I wonder if the video essayists exaggerate how popular the channels were before becoming controversial, because you’re not missing much.

      DaddyOFive pretty much constantly screamed at his kids and made them cry for views, and while the worst of 8 Passengers happened off-camera, in the videos they still openly talked about shit like taking their teenage son’s bed away.

      Even setting aside the justified outrage, I can’t imagine who enjoys it. It’s just unpleasant and sad.