Read/Watch Pairing: Kids in the glare of the spotlight
A dark YouTube family memoir & a child actor documentary
This week’s reading and watching made me feel all the Gen X-ness of my Xennial microgeneration (which runs 1977-1983, if you’re curious.)
A Book
When I picked The House of My Mother by Shari Franke as one of my Book of the Month selections, I hadn’t heard of her or her family. I’m just old enough that I’ve never watched a YouTube reality series. I’d been a fan of The Real World, Laguna Beach, The Hills, Big Brother, etc. but by the time much of the reality content had moved to YouTube, I was busy starting a career, becoming a mom, all that jazz. So I went into this book mostly blind.
However, what compelled me to select it was that I’m endlessly curious about how technology and, in particular, social media has changed (and continues to change) society. We went into so many things blind as new technologies came on board, basically with the thought, “oh this could be cool! Let’s try it.”
For many things, that was fine. I mean, I met my husband in an AOL chatroom. That tech advance worked out well for me. But for other things, we (the royal we) didn’t consider what the new way’s consequences could be. For instance, a parent documenting their family’s day-to-day life on YouTube or a blog sounded fun and interesting. But what does it mean for the kids whose parents broadcast and monetized their lives (without the ability to truly give consent)? How does that change the family when that becomes the main source of income? What does it mean to parent with follower count in mind?
So that’s what made me pick up The House of My Mother by Shari Franke (Amazon | Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Shari was the oldest child of six in a family that had a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers. The channel started out innocently enough. Shari’s mother, Ruby Franke, documented the day-to-day life of the family. But as time went on, Ruby’s parenting methods got more and more intense. Then she met a relationship coach (*cough* cult leader *cough*) who took the already problematic parenting practices Ruby was employing and amplified them by a thousand. Eventually, both Ruby and Jody were arrested for aggravated child abuse.
This book is Shari’s memoir of her experience growing up in her mother’s household and what happened after she left for college and things got increasingly more dangerous for her siblings.
This was a compelling read and made my heart hurt for these kids. The extremes of the abuse aren’t described on the page, a choice the author explains, but the emotional abuse is hard enough to read about. Also, Shari has a situation outside the family that was tough to read. (Please read trigger warnings if you have concerns.)
And as difficult as it is to read about some of this stuff, I think it’s important that we hear from people like Shari. That we pay closer attention to what it means to put children online, to monetize family life, and to the issue of consent for those underage who didn’t ask to be online. I have no doubt that her mother had mental health issues that were already present before she started a YouTube channel, but I think the shift to “performance” amped up things to a dangerous level.
Overall, I’m glad I read this book. Part of me wishes she would’ve let more time elapse between the events (her mom was arrested in 2023) and the book. You could tell this was still fresh and that she is still early in the processing of it all (understandably so), so this was more a recounting of events and didn’t have the added insight you get from time/distance from something. However, I hope writing it offered her a way to start her healing and to make money on her own.
A Documentary
Child Star (Hulu)
Last night, I wanted to put something on in the background while I worked on a few things. I needed something that I could play that didn’t require my full attention. So when I opened up Hulu and it suggested Demi Lovato’s documentary Child Star to me, I figured, sure, it’d be like having a Dateline episode on in the background.
Well, one, I was wrong. I ended up watching this fully and putting aside what I was working on. And two, it serendipitously paired up with the themes of the book above.
The concept of this documentary is straightforward: Demi Lovato, who was a child star herself, interviews other child stars about their experiences with fame and the issues with being famous so young. But despite the simple concept, there was real depth to some of the things brought up in these interviews, and it really made me think about how growing up in the public eye must change the experience of childhood and adolescence.
Demi interviews a number of fellow child stars from her generation (Jojo Siwa, Kenan Thompson, Alyson Stoner), but also includes a few my Gen X self recognized (Drew Barrymore, Christina Ricci, Raven Symone). I think because they were being interviewed by someone who’d been through it herself, there was a lot of candidness there.
Even though I wasn’t familiar with all the shows and projects some of the actors had done, I still found their stories interesting and insightful—and often sad. I also was impressed that Demi interviewed a few people whom she’d been rude to along the way (when she was in the depths of her own addictions and issues) and she didn’t shy away from talking about it.
She also discussed the laws, particularly the Coogan law which puts money aside for the child performer that they can access at 18 and how that didn’t/doesn’t exist for online child performers in all states. So, for instance, Shari Franke above had no access to the money her mother made on the content Shari was in. She had to be on camera but got no compensation for it. So I think the book and this documentary paired together well for that reason.
Overall, I thought the documentary was well done and offered a glimpse behind the scenes and a dive into issues that we don’t always think about when we see a child on TV (or on YouTube.)
Alright, that’s all I have for you today!
Have you read this one or watched this documentary? What are you reading and watching this week?
*book links are affiliate links
I'll have to check out Child Star.