Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Kivutar » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:15 pm

Even if everything was staged and the kids are really okay with the whole thing, that doesn't make it okay. They're kids, have no real power over the situation, and can't possibly have a full understanding of what they are doing. Those kids are going to have to live for the rest of their lives with videos of them getting humiliated online, and those comments cheering the abuse (simulated or no) on aren't going anywhere either. What kind of parent exposes their kids to the worst side of the internet for the entertainment of the dregs of humanity?

Sure "they" are getting rich, meaning that the parents are getting rich from humiliating their kids in public, and the kids get some toys to keep them doing it. It's not like using kids for public entertainment hasn't been done before, and it didn't generally end too well for them. Even in the best-case scenario, it's gross exploitation.

Whether the kids agree to it or not, that's no way to treat any child, and the fact that their family makes money from it doesn't make it better.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Tesseracts » Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:35 pm

ghijkmnop wrote:I'm not being clear, and I have made a bad analogy on top of it. Please ignore the ball-stomping thing-- I was looking for a more extreme version of skateboard face-plant videos, and that was the first abhorrent (to me) thing that came to mind. I'm sorry, and FTR, No--people who enjoy pain and seek it out are not assholes, IMO.

My problem is with the audience for this stuff--or more to the point, that there is an audience for it at all-- that people are cruel enough to enjoy watching other people be cruel, just for the lulz-- you know, the same people who tell others to kill themselves in social media, or scream "jump" at a person on a ledge because they think it's funny. Regardless of whether it's real (which I don't think it is), people think it is-- and they enjoy it enough to pay for it. It is barbaric to me, and I wish it just didn't exist.

Yes, I know it's my problem.

I think there's a huge difference between a fetish video done with consent, and a skateboarding accident. People who watch fetish videos aren't assholes. There is a difference between being an asshole and being a sadist. Most people who watch those videos are also probably not sadists but masochists.

Obviously children aren't capable of meaningful consent to harmful activities. Especially when the person asking them to participate is someone they are completely dependent on, AKA a parent.

I suppose you are wishing the audience for DaddyOfFive didn't exist, rather than the people who create this content. I guess the solution here would be for YouTube to demonetize their content. Just like they have demonetized a lot of other people's content for much worse reasons, like discussing depression. Or maybe the solution is for everyone who is currently watching DaddyOfFive to just stop, which seems unlikely.

By the way, I use adblock so this channel isn't getting any revenue from my views.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Crimson847 » Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:06 pm

So, I watched the more serious apology and confession video here, where they say the videos are staged and that they're changing their style to avoid further problems. I also watched the KeemStar interview with the parents, and the original DeFranco video.

First up: in the first video, they do apologize to the people who thought they were being abusive, and after disclosing that the videos are faked and they'll be changing their style, they apologize to their fans. What's kind of bothersome here is that the second apology comes off noticeably more genuine than the first--they take full responsibility for deceiving people and possibly disappointing their fans, but never quite take full responsibility for putting videos of what looks for all the world like child abuse on YouTube to make money. That wasn't an accident; according to them the videos were deliberately edited and staged to look the way they do. They say it was the kids' idea in the first place, I say it doesn't matter--they acted on the idea, and that is their responsibility. They never take that responsibility; instead, they muster brief apologies to anyone who was offended (not quite their words, but pretty close), say unconvincingly that they're sure most of the people angered had good intentions, and then consistently divert to blaming DeFranco for "taking all the worst moments and putting them together to make us look bad".

This is potentially understandable in light of their situation. It's hard enough to apologize for doing something wrong; it's harder when it involves something intensely personal like parenting, and it's massively harder when the people you're apologizing to keep sending you death threats and doing things like following the mother home while yelling at her. Their fans have stood by them, offering "love and support" in a time of extreme pain, while their detractors (not all of them, but some individuals within that group) have been causing that extreme pain through massive dickotry. In this context it's harder to think of them as awful people for being more willing to apologize to their fans than to their critics.


Second, if the parents are lying and these are candid videos, instead of scenes staged with the childrens' prior knowledge and consent, that's a big goddamn problem. I find that unlikely, given how reticent most genuinely abusive parents are to publicize their abuse or otherwise attract public attention to their parenting, but it's plausible and not to be discounted. Contrarywise, I don't really buy the argument that this is child abuse even if it is all staged. Wrong, maybe, but if so it's a wrong we're all complicit in. For instance, here is another video of a child being humiliated on camera, that was broadcast to the world in the name of making money.



Here's another:



Here's another, this time of a kid being apparently traumatized:



And another:



And another:




Is there anyone here who isn't a fan of any of these movies?


The difference from the perspective of the audience, of course, is that these movies all have a disclaimer somewhere in the credits specifying that the film is a work of fiction, they're made by companies that we know are in the business of staging videos, and some have supernatural elements that ram it home even harder that these are not candid videos of things that really happened. And that brings me to the part of this whole situation that disturbs me most: the parents, according to they themselves, were trying to present these videos as real and unfiltered. They say they were hesitant to admit this because they feared that admitting that their videos were fake would disappoint their viewers, the way websites that do pornographic "candid" videos would probably disappoint some viewers if they admitted that they actually staged that video where a pizza guy gets a woman to suck his dick just by making a pun about sausage and dropping his pants.

Thing is, looking at some of these "pranks", I get why someone could enjoy watching these videos with the full knowledge that they're fake, but what the fuck sort of person would enjoy them more thinking that they're real, and would potentially have their enjoyment ruined by the awareness that the kids are just pretending to be upset rather than actually being upset? That just reads like they were trying to appeal to genuine prolapsed assholes for the sake of views and money, which one might think is a victimless crime except that it gives said assholes the impression that this is okay behavior. If you treat your kids like this at home for real and then see a bunch of people liking a guy who appears to be doing the same thing, that's bound to create a sense of validation. I don't know how many of DaddyoFive's viewers would fit that description, but the notion that they were deliberately trying to appeal to that sort of person and were afraid of losing the coveted psychopath demographic is confusing and repellent. There's a Biblical proverb about lying down with dogs that would seem to apply there.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby JamishT » Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:42 pm

If ANY of their "best hits" (pun fully and sadly intended) are completely faked or even over-acted, then those kids deserve an Oscar, Golden Globe, and every other acting award out there. I don't see how you can compare those videos to Hollywood films, and it's kinda disgusting that you did. When you go to see a movie, unless it's labeled a documentary, it's assumed that it's all fakery and stunts. When you watch vloggers, it's assumed that they're showing pieces of their real life. Now, I haven't gone and looked at any of DO5's videos, because I have YouTube Red, and I don't want to give them any money or views, but I'm betting the comments haven't been full of people celebrating the acting and fakery. I have as much proof that their fans believe it's all real as you have that they've believed it was fake all along.

What I see are "parents" who believe they way they treat their kids to be normal and simply don't believe that it's harming the kids. They've convinced themselves that because the kids say it''s not abuse (most kids will lie to their parents about that, especially when there's a camera in their face or they believe that it could take their parents away, that's fucking common knowledge) and because the kids get cool stuff to make up for the hitting, screaming, and other "pranks", that they aren't doing a single thing wrong. It doesn't seem to register to them where the people who don't believe any of it to be fakery are coming from. They seem to have the mindset that their actions are normal, and everyone who is criticizing them simply don't know what it's like to have a large family/be their situation in general, and that their fans believe all they do is normal.

So no, I don't believe they were afraid of losing the "coveted psychopath demographic", I believe they didn't want to lose the audience of people who are just like them and support their decisions. I have seen (and am related to) too many parents like these two.

I don't think death threats are the right response, but I don't think justice has happened in this situation yet.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Delta Jim » Wed Apr 19, 2017 11:10 pm

JamishT wrote:If ANY of their "best hits" (pun fully and sadly intended) are completely faked or even over-acted, then those kids deserve an Oscar, Golden Globe, and every other acting award out there.


Exactly. Acting is my one natural talent, the one thing I needed no training to excel at. If those kids are acting then I have no right to claim I have any acting talent because I suck compared to these kids.

It should be noted that several of their videos, ones which have been highlighted as examples of their mistreatment of their son (and presumably being used when people report the channel), are now set to "private", unlisted, or outright deleted.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby sunglasses » Wed Apr 19, 2017 11:47 pm

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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Crimson847 » Wed Apr 19, 2017 11:57 pm

JamishT wrote:If ANY of their "best hits" (pun fully and sadly intended) are completely faked or even over-acted, then those kids deserve an Oscar, Golden Globe, and every other acting award out there.


Okay, and what specifics do you base that on? Any half decent child actor can yell "leave me alone" or screw up their eyes and wail. What exactly did these kids do that a child actor couldn't plausibly fake?

I don't see how you can compare those videos to Hollywood films, and it's kinda disgusting that you did. When you go to see a movie, unless it's labeled a documentary, it's assumed that it's all fakery and stunts. When you watch vloggers, it's assumed that they're showing pieces of their real life.


Is there an echo in here? This is exactly what I said was the difference between the two: that Hollywood is clearly fake, but these parents (in the most charitable scenario) deliberately gave the impression that what was happening in their videos was real.

Now, I haven't gone and looked at any of DO5's videos, because I have YouTube Red, and I don't want to give them any money or views, but I'm betting the comments haven't been full of people celebrating the acting and fakery. I have as much proof that their fans believe it's all real as you have that they've believed it was fake all along.


I have no idea what their fans believe, and said as much.

What I see are "parents" who believe they way they treat their kids to be normal and simply don't believe that it's harming the kids. They've convinced themselves that because the kids say it''s not abuse (most kids will lie to their parents about that, especially when there's a camera in their face or they believe that it could take their parents away, that's fucking common knowledge) and because the kids get cool stuff to make up for the hitting, screaming, and other "pranks", that they aren't doing a single thing wrong. It doesn't seem to register to them where the people who don't believe any of it to be fakery are coming from. They seem to have the mindset that their actions are normal, and everyone who is criticizing them simply don't know what it's like to have a large family/be their situation in general, and that their fans believe all they do is normal.


Also a valid interpretation. It's not mine, for various reasons, some of which I've already provided. But it's a plausible reading of the situation that I do not discount.

So no, I don't believe they were afraid of losing the "coveted psychopath demographic", I believe they didn't want to lose the audience of people who are just like them and support their decisions. I have seen (and am related to) too many parents like these two.


I've been abused before, but I've also been falsely accused of a horrible crime before, so I have a somewhat different perspective on matters like this. If that makes me "disgusting", fine by me.

I don't think death threats are the right response, but I don't think justice has happened in this situation yet.


I think that's for CPS and the courts to decide with more evidence in hand, not for us to decide based on contextless YouTube clips.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby sunglasses » Thu Apr 20, 2017 12:14 am

Not sure why you're arguing with Jams since he was pretty much agreeing with you?
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Apr 20, 2017 12:45 am

sunglasses wrote:Not sure why you're arguing with Jams since he was pretty much agreeing with you?


What makes you think he was agreeing with me? I dunno about you, but when I agree with someone I don't normally call them "disgusting" and dismiss the plausibility of their position.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby JamishT » Thu Apr 20, 2017 1:43 am

Crimson847 wrote:
I don't see how you can compare those videos to Hollywood films, and it's kinda disgusting that you did. When you go to see a movie, unless it's labeled a documentary, it's assumed that it's all fakery and stunts. When you watch vloggers, it's assumed that they're showing pieces of their real life.


Is there an echo in here? This is exactly what I said was the difference between the two: that Hollywood is clearly fake, but these parents (in the most charitable scenario) deliberately gave the impression that what was happening in their videos was real.


I misread your post, and I do apologize for that. I did not intend to call you disgusting, but the comparison to Hollywood films disgusting. I could have worded that better, or I should have realized that's not what you were doing to start with.

Now, I haven't gone and looked at any of DO5's videos, because I have YouTube Red, and I don't want to give them any money or views, but I'm betting the comments haven't been full of people celebrating the acting and fakery. I have as much proof that their fans believe it's all real as you have that they've believed it was fake all along.


I have no idea what their fans believe, and said as much.


I was going off of this from you:
Thing is, looking at some of these "pranks", I get why someone could enjoy watching these videos with the full knowledge that they're fake, but what the fuck sort of person would enjoy them more thinking that they're real, and would potentially have their enjoyment ruined by the awareness that the kids are just pretending to be upset rather than actually being upset?

Which seems to say that you believe that it's logical that none of their fans (besides the psychopaths) thought it was real. That's what I got from that, but if you can clarify your point, I'd read it.

So no, I don't believe they were afraid of losing the "coveted psychopath demographic", I believe they didn't want to lose the audience of people who are just like them and support their decisions. I have seen (and am related to) too many parents like these two.


I've been abused before, but I've also been falsely accused of a horrible crime before, so I have a somewhat different perspective on matters like this.


So have I (well, a lesser degree of abuse), and yet I still have a different perspective.

I don't think death threats are the right response, but I don't think justice has happened in this situation yet.


I think that's for CPS and the courts to decide with more evidence in hand, not for us to decide based on contextless YouTube clips.


I agree that the judicial system and CPS are the ones to decide this.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Kate » Thu Apr 20, 2017 3:56 pm

My first question upon hearing about this was, "Who the hell does that to their kids?"

My second question was, "Who the hell enjoys watching this?" so count me in on being disgusted with the audience.

I don't think it's staged, I think there are a lot of families that cross the line between teasing/joking and emotional abuse and they are way over it.

I'm also side-eyeing the hell out of the ink on carpet video because it indicates that the response to those kids legitimately doing something wrong, even accidentally I'd bet, is to yell at them like that and raise holy hell. Because otherwise it'd be obvious right off the bat that this is a prank.

I'm also going to side-eye the mom breaking down into tears with her kids around her and then uploading that to twitter. Maybe I've seen too many parents who do the thing where one parent reacts like that in response to the kid doing something wrong and the other parent says, "Look, you're breaking your mother's heart! Look at how much you're hurting your mother!" They're making it clear to these kids that they're in trouble - and it's because of those kids! People are getting angry at the parents, on behalf of those kids! Their lives are being ruined, because of how people are reacting to those kids! That kind of manipulation is gross. Get some self-respect.

If this was really, genuinely not an abusive situation, I'd expect that those kids wouldn't have a clue what kinds of hateful things were being said online. I'd expect the parents to shelter those kids as much as they could from the negative and harmful influences of the general public. But those kids aren't staging it, it is super clear that this is not staged. It's probably two parents who think they're not abusive and really do believe it's just pranks, who are passing those values on to their kids. I bet they have recently become horrified to find that they really could be held accountable for this and the PC liberal hippy pussies who make the laws have erred and decided that these things are abusive when they're clearly not, but isn't that just PC liberal hippy pussies for you, so now they're walking everything back. The fact that the one kid seems to think that "most" parents hit their kids is just, no. Nope. No. CPS cannot come soon enough.

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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Kivutar » Thu Apr 20, 2017 8:14 pm

There is an absolutely terrifying number of people who think that "family" means "the people you are allowed to treat like shit, and they have to put up with it because FAMILY". Of course they brainwash the kids into thinking this too - what else do they know?

These guys have little enough self-awareness to put their behaviour on YouTube, but there are a whole lot of parents who think that their emotional abuse is completely fine, because their kids are their property.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Apr 21, 2017 2:53 am

18056379_1321584671255626_1831008440705022036_o.jpg
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Bromo » Fri Apr 21, 2017 3:26 am

Tesseracts wrote:
18056379_1321584671255626_1831008440705022036_o.jpg


That's a bit unfair to the people who don't like kids at all and have the decency to not have any. Daddyofive and his wife seem like the type of people who like kids enough to have them, but only as human punching bags.
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Re: Vlogger monetizes the abuse of his children

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Apr 21, 2017 3:30 am

Bromo wrote:
Tesseracts wrote:
The attachment 18056379_1321584671255626_1831008440705022036_o.jpg is no longer available


That's a bit unfair to the people who don't like kids at all and have the decency to not have any. Daddyofive and his wife seem like the type of people who like kids enough to have them, but only as human punching bags.

Your input has been noted.

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