Under the Influence

Summary

Left to Their Own Devices: “Under the Influence”

Podcast: Left To Their Own Devices
Host: Toronto Star
Episode: Under the Influence (Ep. 8)
Date: November 7, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores how social media and influencer culture have radically transformed childhood and adolescence for Generation Z. Ava Smithing, who experienced firsthand the dangers of an unfiltered digital world, investigates how children’s lives and identities are shaped—often dramatically—by their online presence. Through in-depth interviews and personal stories, “Under the Influence” examines the complex dynamics of public childhoods, influencer aspirations, beauty standards, online abuse, and the evolution of digital empowerment, particularly for marginalized voices.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Accident to Algorithm: Early Viral Fame

• Story of Ghislaine Raza (“Star Wars Kid”)
  • In 2002, teenager Ghislaine Raza’s private video was uploaded without his consent, rapidly turning him into an Internet meme and subjecting him to relentless bullying, ultimately forcing him to drop out ([00:06]-[01:46]).
  • Ava: “We’re all a little bit like Ghislaine Raza now, growing up online, one post away from being in full view of the public.” ([01:46])
  • Emphasizes the shift from accidental virality to algorithm-driven curation and the inherent vulnerabilities.

2. The Rise of the Influencer Generation

• Desire for Influence

  • 57% of Gen Z report wanting to be influencers—a role that requires transforming everyday life into content ([03:42]-[04:11]).
  • Ava: “The idea of posting the most intimate moments of my life online gives me hives. But I think I might be in the minority.” ([03:59])

• Sophie Fergie’s Story

  • Began posting at 9-10 years old; now has 5.9 million TikTok followers ([04:01]).
  • Finds both community and validation online, especially after facing bullying offline ([06:34]).
  • Sophie: “It was cool that like, strangers I didn’t know liked me… We’re all friends.” ([06:34])
  • Living publicly brought both opportunity and pain: “I was bullied in school, so not a lot of people liked me. So it was cool that… all of you guys like me.” ([06:34])
  • Sophie's popularity is not for performance, but for being relatable: “I like to, you know, consider myself a person who posts, I guess, a person who’s active on social media.” ([04:51])

3. The Double-Edged Sword of Visibility

• Online Hate and Its Impact

  • Sophie experienced significant online bullying, particularly about her appearance, which affected her self-esteem and choices such as getting lip fillers at 18 ([08:18]-[08:56]).
  • Sophie: “With the comments that got me the most were mainly about my lips… But those definitely made me think twice and made me like really question, like, oh, maybe if I changed, I’d be cuter.” ([08:18])
  • Ava points out the cycle: Influencers respond to online criticism with appearance changes, setting new standards for younger audiences ([08:59]).

• Cultural Spread

  • Younger children emulate influencers: “This may be why we now have sephora tweens. 11 year old girls who spend hundreds of dollars on skincare and makeup.” ([09:32])
  • Boys are similarly pressured by trends like “looks maxing” and “smell maxing” ([09:54]-[10:16]).

4. Beyond Vanity: Deeper Drivers & Dilemmas

• Are Kids Becoming More Self-Obsessed?
  • Psychologist Jean Twenge, cited by journalist Taylor Lorenz, questions whether influencer culture is increasing narcissism, or simply shifting the locus of adolescent anxiety from “attention seeking” to “not measuring up” ([10:49]-[11:14]).
  • Ava recognizes that social media amplifies and accelerates long-standing beauty pressures, exposing kids to them earlier than ever ([11:14]).

5. The Democratic Side of Social Media

• Voices Unheard

  • Taylor Lorenz contextualizes influencer culture as an outgrowth of the quest for self-representation, especially for marginalized communities ([12:33]-[15:44]).
  • Early bloggers and mommy bloggers provided outlets for women and LGBTQ people when mainstream media didn’t reflect their realities.
  • Taylor Lorenz: “People like to push this idea to young people that, oh, before the Internet… it was great. No, it wasn’t. It was actual hell for so many people, especially women and marginalized people.” ([16:08])
  • Influencer culture democratizes speech, allowing anyone to bypass old media restrictions.

• Notable Example: Monica Lewinsky

  • Ava and Taylor discuss how the media vilified Lewinsky in the ‘90s, preventing her from telling her own story—a situation unimaginable in today’s social media era ([16:37]-[17:48]).
  • Taylor Lorenz: “[Lewinsky] had no voice to speak out, no voice to tell her story. Now she’s been… vindicated and through really using the Internet to take back her voice.” ([17:37])

• Activists & Influencer Overlap

  • Young influencers use their platforms to push for change: examples include Little Miss Flint, Ukrainian influencer Valerish, and Palestinian activist Yaqeen Haman ([18:06]-[18:15]).
  • Ava: “The line between activist and lifestyle influencer may be blurrier than we think.” ([19:12])

6. Empowerment vs. Toxicity: The Paradox

• Sophie’s Own Experience with Abuse and Using Her Voice

  • Sophie describes opening up about personal abuse through her podcast, spurring others to share their stories ([19:38]-[21:20]).
  • Sophie: “I had people DMing me, like, wow, I’m very inspired by you. And I’m gonna go speak out about what’s been happening at home…” ([20:54])
  • This illustrates both the reach and power of influencer platforms in supporting mental health and resilience.

• Unresolvable Tension?

  • Ava frames the conflict: social media can be “deeply empowering and incredibly toxic” at the same time ([21:29]).
  • Taylor Lorenz challenges the notion that these issues are unique to social media: “The Internet is downstream from culture, and so it sort of holds a mirror to culture, and our culture is regressing.” ([22:13])

7. The Roots of Influence: Security over Fame

• Why Do Kids Really Want to Be Influencers?
  • Taylor Lorenz asserts it’s less about fame, more about control and stability:
    • “Most of them actually are very uncomfortable with fame… When you talk to them, they want security.” ([22:50]-[22:59])
    • Sophie: “I think I am so blessed to be where I am.” ([23:02]-[23:16])
  • The influencer economy is a product of economic forces:
    • Taylor Lorenz: “They want economic security, and they’ve seen that that can be had through the Internet… I think it’s dystopian… What is more capitalist than commodifying your very self and every aspect of your life?” ([23:16])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ava Smithing on the universality of online vulnerability:
  • “I think we’re all a little bit like Ghislaine Raza now, growing up online, one post away from being in full view of the public.” ([01:46])
• Sophie Fergie, on why kids share online:
  • “It was cool that like, strangers I didn’t know liked me… We’re all friends.” ([06:34])
  • “If you’re putting yourself on social media, you have to realize that you are putting yourself out there…” ([07:38])
• Taylor Lorenz on media gatekeeping and the Internet’s potential:
  • “The Internet is downstream from culture, and so it sort of holds a mirror to culture, and our culture is regressing.” ([22:13])
• Sophie Fergie on using her influence for good:
  • “That’s so important to me, that, like, if you’re going through something, that I could help you kind of feel more comfortable to talk about it.” ([21:20])
• Taylor Lorenz on the reality behind influencer dreams:
  • “What is more capitalist than commodifying your very self and every aspect of your life?” ([23:16])

---

Important Timestamps

• [00:06] – Ava recounts “Star Wars Kid” and the first viral video
• [03:42] – Poll statistic: 57% of Gen Zs want to be influencers
• [04:01]-[06:05] – Sophie Fergie’s rise as a child influencer
• [08:18]-[08:59] – Sophie’s experience with online bullying and resulting self-image issues
• [09:32]-[10:16] – The impact of influencer culture on “Sephora tweens” and boys’ looksmaxing
• [12:33]-[15:44] – Interview with Taylor Lorenz on the democratization of media
• [16:37]-[17:48] – Discussion on Monica Lewinsky and the power of self-narration
• [19:38]-[21:20] – Sophie Fergie uses her platform to discuss abuse and receive support from fans
• [22:50]-[23:16] – Why Gen Z wants influence: security vs. fame
• [23:46]-[24:49] – Episode conclusion, previewing next episode topics (digital addiction)

---

Tone and Style

The episode blends investigative journalism with personal vulnerability and empathy. Ava’s tone is reflective, often caught between concern and admiration for teens’ ability to create meaning in a confusing digital world. Sophie’s voice is candid and relatable, emblematic of the generation trying to find community and self-worth online. Taylor Lorenz brings critical context, challenging easy criticisms of influencer culture and foregrounding broader societal drivers.

---

Takeaways

• Social media has rewritten the rules of adolescence: Kids are navigating new (often public) terrains, with far-reaching implications for identity, self-esteem, and community.
• Influencer culture is both an opportunity and a hazard: While it democratizes speech and offers marginalized teens a platform, it also commodifies personal life and distributes toxic pressures.
• The conversation is nuanced: Problems attributed to the “evils” of social media are, in fact, reflections of preexisting societal values; the line between empowerment and exploitation remains blurred.
• Real change won’t come from attacking platforms alone: It requires broader cultural shifts and new frameworks for understanding what children need from both technology and society.

---

For further episodes and detailed investigations, follow “Left to Their Own Devices” via the Toronto Star.

Transcript

[Ava Smithing]

In 2002, a 14 year old named Ghislaine Raza went to the basement of his high school in Trois Revere, Quebec, and turned on a camera. He had been tasked with making a video for the school's graduating class. A year in review kind of thing. The older students wanted to do a send up of some of the big movies of the early 2000s, like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Ghislaine was in charge of the special effects, and if they wanted to spoof Star wars, they'd need lightsabers. But Ghislaine couldn't figure out the lightsaber effect. Every time he tried it, the camera would glitch out. After hours of trial and error, he decided to call it quits. But not before blowing off a little steam. He picked up a pole and started swinging it around enthusiastically huffing and puffing as he fought off imaginary enemies. He wasn't even a Star wars nerd. He was just exasperated. And then he turned off the camera and went. A few months later, another student found the tape and put it online without Ghislaine's permission. The video tore through the Internet. People added sound effects and made remixes. Stephen Colbert and South park parodied the video on national television.

[Sophie Fergie]

How do they come up with this stuff?

[Ava Smithing]

Star Wars Kid was the Internet's first viral video. It's been seen more than a billion times. As for Ghislaine Raza, he was bullied so badly that he dropped out of school. In some ways, the Star Wars Kid is a relic from a bygone era of the Internet, before the web was curated by algorithms and social media feeds. But in other ways, it foreshadowed what was to come. Because I think we're all a little bit like Jisleen Raza now, growing up online, one post away from being in full view of the public.

[Sophie Fergie]

What are you gonna do? I'll disrespect. Get the fuck out of my fucking face, dude.

[Ava Smithing]

Every fight, every breakup. There is no easy way to say this, but me and Morgan have broken up. Every romantic misstep.

[Sophie Fergie]

She just got.

[Ava Smithing]

She just got reject. Now playing out in public on the Internet, our most embarrassing moments have become content for other people to consume, to comment on, to laugh at. The strangest part of this is that unlike Ghislaine Raza, a lot of kids today are choosing to live this publicly. So I wanted to find out why. And if our adolescence is now fodder for public consumption, how does that change the experience of being a kid? I'm Ava Smithing from Paradigms and the Toronto Star. This is left to their own devices. Episode 8 Under the Influence. The idea of posting the most intimate moments of my life online gives me hives. But I think I might be in the minority. According to a report from a polling company called Morning Consult, 57% of Gen Zs say they want to be influencers. A job that literally revolves around turning your life into content. How many followers do you have now?

[Sophie Fergie]

Let's see on TikTok. I have 5.9 million.

[Ava Smithing]

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this.

[Sophie Fergie]

I'm fucking shook.

[Ava Smithing]

Part of my friend.

[Sophie Fergie]

No, you're good.

[Ava Smithing]

So I wanted to talk to someone who does it for a living to see if I could put myself in their shoes.

[Sophie Fergie]

I always get nervous though, kind of like talking on certain things.

[Ava Smithing]

While I was in Los Angeles, which might be the influencer capital of the world, I met up with an 18 year old named Sophie Fergie.

[Sophie Fergie]

I've never really loved the word influencer, but I would say that like I am considered an influencer. I just don't love the word influencer just because there's so much like negativity. And I think people, people, you know, think of influencers as jokes. I like to, you know, consider myself

[Ava Smithing]

a person who posts, I guess a person who posts.

[Sophie Fergie]

A person who's active on social media. We are going to Universal Horror Nights, guys. And I am so scared.

[Ava Smithing]

Sophie has basically spent half of her life online.

[Sophie Fergie]

In the first video I ever made, I wanna say I was 9 or 10. I'm really scared. Are you scared, Dan Boogidy.

[Ava Smithing]

Bookity. Bookity.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Bookity.

[Ava Smithing]

This video is from 20 Sophie's in that cute awkward phase when your adult teeth first start growing in.

[Sophie Fergie]

It was just really my mom kind of filming me going through Horror Night's mazes and kind of sharing that experience. And it was just fun for me, like little vlogs that I would do.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Sophie.

[Sophie Fergie]

How husband. Oh my God, that was so. That was so scary. I really liked at that age, like having a camera in my face. One day I just started to get the hang of it. Hey guys. So we did everything. We did the purge, we did the blump house. It was awesome. I hope you guys enjoyed watching me get terrified.

[Ava Smithing]

Kids did enjoy watching Sophie get terrified and apparently they also liked watching Sophie do pretty much anything.

[Sophie Fergie]

So today we are going to be doing My BFF reacts to my fashion. No hello.

[Ava Smithing]

Trying on clothes.

[Sophie Fergie]

I'm going to be reacting to her

[Ava Smithing]

fashion, describing her skincare routine.

[Sophie Fergie]

Once I'M done. Look at all that makeup, guys. Disgusting.

[Ava Smithing]

Talking through her breakups and I'm sorry

[Sophie Fergie]

that I didn't end up like this. I didn't want to say goodbye like this. I really didn't.

[Ava Smithing]

Sophie was 12 in that one. It got nearly 4 million views.

[Sophie Fergie]

I was bullied in school, so not a lot of people liked me. So it was cool that like, strangers I didn't know liked me. Like, oh, this is fun. Like all of you guys like me. We're all friends.

[Ava Smithing]

For older generations that grew up idolizing pop stars and Hollywood actors, Sophie's popularity might be kind of baffling. She doesn't dance or sing or tell jokes. She's just her. But for kids her age, Sophie is a pop star.

[Sophie Fergie]

Then I went to go put my shoes on. I opened my door, it was stopping.

[Ava Smithing]

This is not real.

[Sophie Fergie]

And then I saw her and I gave her biggest hug.

[Ava Smithing]

Posting videos of her life is now Sophie's full time job. Personally, I can't imagine living so publicly, but hearing her talk about it, I'm starting to see the appeal. She has financial independence, flexible hours, and a real sense that she's bringing joy into other people's lives.

[Sophie Fergie]

People are like, oh my God, like we can like relate to you. I'm like growing up with you and I think that's what makes it so special. And a lot of people have grown up with me since like 10.

[Ava Smithing]

But living your life in the public eye isn't always easy.

[Sophie Fergie]

If you're putting yourself on social media, you have to realize that you are putting yourself out there and you don't

[Ava Smithing]

need to be an influencer to know that the Internet can be vicious even when you're 12.

[Sophie Fergie]

I think it started to be non validating when I started to get hate because I was like, what? I just got away from the bullies and they're back already. Like what is happening?

[Ava Smithing]

Kids and adults began leaving nasty comments on Sophie's videos.

[Sophie Fergie]

I don't think people realize how much words can really affect somebody.

[Ava Smithing]

It's hard to imagine someone walking up to a 12 year old girl on the street and mocking her appearance. Yet somehow on social media it's become totally normal.

[Sophie Fergie]

I think with the comments that got me the most were mainly about my lips because I have like pretty paper thin lips. Whatever. What about it? I blame my parents, but it's fine. But I think those comments just got to me so, so, so much. I don't really know why because at the end of the day, my lips don't define who I am as a person. But those definitely made me think twice and made me like really question, like, oh, maybe if I changed, I'm like, I'd be cuter. Today's a big day.

[Ava Smithing]

It's Sophie Fergie turning 18. What's the first thing you do when you turn 18?

[Sophie Fergie]

Get lip filler. It's LA.

[Ava Smithing]

It's first thing you do. It's a vicious cycle. Sophie was mocked for her appearance online and then took steps to make herself more conventionally attractive. And I don't fault her for that. I think if I were in her shoes, I might do the exact same thing. But in turn, Sophie's fans, girls as young as seven or eight probably see Sophie and aspire to those same conventional beauty standards.

[Sophie Fergie]

Now, a lot of you guys have been asking me for a lip tutorial, so I decided why not?

[Ava Smithing]

This may be why we now have sephora tweens. 11 year old girls who spend hundreds of dollars on skincare and makeup. Because that's what the influencers are doing.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Hey girls, how much are you gonna

[Ava Smithing]

spend in Sephora today?

[Sophie Fergie]

$15, $90? 180. $888.

[Ava Smithing]

Boys aren't immune to these pressures either.

[Sophie Fergie]

Okay. This is a legendary video.

[Ava Smithing]

They've started looks maxing.

[Sophie Fergie]

I'm going to be showing you how to combine thumb pulling and chin tucking

[Ava Smithing]

to develop your maxilla, give you the

[Sophie Fergie]

best jaw you can get, train your

[Ava Smithing]

neck and change your entire face and smell Maxing.

[Sophie Fergie]

Here's how to be the best smelling

[Ava Smithing]

man in any room. Which basically just means buying expensive cologne for winter.

[Sophie Fergie]

I'd recommend cheap. One would be an Athena Revolutions per minute. Really nice and a little bit expensive. Not expensive. Like 82, like 130 bucks is our most want to perform.

[Ava Smithing]

They're both amazing for winter. Some people see these trends as a sign that young people are becoming more narcissistic, obsessed with their personal brand and the way they're perceived both on and offline. Social media was something that pulled for

[Taylor Lorenz]

that attention seeking and you got that narcissism there of, you know, look at

[Ava Smithing]

me, I have this many followers and

[Taylor Lorenz]

here's, here's all of my pictures and so on.

[Ava Smithing]

This is a psychologist named Jean Twenge in conversation with Jordan Peterson. But then when social media became more

[Taylor Lorenz]

mandatory and everybody's participating, well, not everybody can get attention. So then it becomes this competition. So it, I think at that point became less about narcissism for most people and more about not measuring up.

[Ava Smithing]

Look, I get it. I was never a Sephora kid. But I did lurk in the beauty section of Target, and I can remember obsessing over how I looked on social media. So I don't want to sound like a total boomer, but I don't know if I want to live in a world where 11 year old girls think they need a full face of makeup before they leave the house or want cosmetic surgery the moment they turn 18. Unrealistic beauty standards aren't new, but social media has turbocharged them and introduced them to kids at younger and younger ages. What is that doing to childhood? It's hard not to see the rise of Sephora kids in Looksmaxers as a sign of the end times. A depressing reminder that we live in a culture that is singularly preoccupied with the way we look, especially on the Internet. And it's easy to lay that at the feet of influencers. After all, they're the ones peddling products to these kids. But as I've spent more time in the world of influencers, I've started to realize there might be another side to the story.

[Taylor Lorenz]

I think there's a few reasons people are dismissive of the influencer industry. This is an industry that was built by women, LGBTQ people, marginalized people, and so it made it really easy to dismiss because people dismiss those voices all the time.

[Ava Smithing]

This is Taylor Lorenz. She's a journalist and the author of Extremely the Untold Story of Fame, Influence and Power on the Internet.

[Taylor Lorenz]

So I've covered the influencer industry for, gosh, a little over 15 years now. I started as a blogger and content creator myself, and I wanted to write about what I saw as the real digital media revolution.

[Ava Smithing]

Taylor doesn't think the influencer industry is built on vanity. She says the fact that we have influencers at all is actually kind of revolutionary.

[Taylor Lorenz]

So back at the turn of the millennium, you started to see the rise of blogs, and you started to see basically people with absolutely institutional power or access start to affect the real world.

[Ava Smithing]

In the early 2000s, few communities were as exclusive as the world of New York socialites. Think Paris Hilton and Ivanka Trump.

[Taylor Lorenz]

And I write about this blog called Socialite Rank, which started ranking these socialites and publishing information about them online and sort of upending the entire social cultural order of New York City.

[Ava Smithing]

Among these socialites, Socialite rank was a big deal at the time. And in some ways, it was a predecessor to the worst parts of social media.

[Taylor Lorenz]

We all sort of have become these socialites where we put ourselves online, we curate these images of ourselves, we build these sort of Personas. And we get 24. 7 feedback on these public Personas that we've created for ourselves through social media.

[Ava Smithing]

But socialite rank did something else too. It gave people access to an exclusive world they were otherwise shut out of.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Everyone assumed, oh, the only person with this level of access and knowledge of our parties was another socialite. When it turns out who was behind this blog. In fact, it was two random Russian immigrants.

[Ava Smithing]

Early bloggers were essentially the first influencers. And many of them were women who struggled to be heard in the real world, and they used the Internet to find their voice.

[Taylor Lorenz]

So mothers were also really early Internet adopters.

[Ava Smithing]

And you can't talk about the early Internet without talking about the mommy bloggers.

[Taylor Lorenz]

At the time, the media ecosystem was incredibly misogynistic. I went back and read a bunch of old women's magazines from the early 2000s, and it was shocking. You know, they were presenting this really regressive view of motherhood.

[Ava Smithing]

These Internet moms started to challenge that view, and it resonated.

[Taylor Lorenz]

You had these moms basically turn to blogging to say things like, hey, this is my experience of motherhood, and it doesn't jive with what I'm seeing in traditional media. Does anyone else feel this way? It was a real feminist act that these women were doing. They were really sort of challenging social norms.

[Ava Smithing]

It's hard to overstate how significant this was for the entire 20th century. Information always flowed from the top down. Whoever ran the TV networks and the radio stations decided what we heard, who we heard it from, and when we heard it. Now all of a sudden, here was a way for anyone and everyone to have a voice without some guy in his suit deciding if that voice mattered or not.

[Taylor Lorenz]

People like to push this idea to young people that, oh, before the Internet, before you had all this information, it was great. No, it wasn't. It was actual hel for so many people, especially women and marginalized people, it was terrible. You had a media environment where you weren't represented, where you had no ability to connect with people immediately outside your geographic area. And there was so much injustice that was basically swept under the rug. Like young people had no voice.

[Ava Smithing]

A great example of this, and bear with me, here is Monica Lewinsky, the white house intern who became embroiled in a sex scandal with then president Bill Clinton.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Sources say the tapes include Lewinsky's graphic descriptions of a long term sexual relationship she allegedly had with Mr. Clinton.

[Ava Smithing]

With hindsight, I think most people now would agree that Lewinsky was a victim.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Welcome to the tonight show.

[Ava Smithing]

Nice to have you. Oh, and happy Monica Day, everybody.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Today is Monica Day.

[Ava Smithing]

But that's not how figures like Jay Leno portrayed her in 1988.

[Taylor Lorenz]

And Monica's book is coming out tomorrow. Good.

[Ava Smithing]

I'd to like. I'd like to read that.

[Sophie Fergie]

Oh, sure.

[Ava Smithing]

In fact, she did a book signing today. Actually, even the book signing she does a little different. Here she is signing some of the books. There she is under the desk there. Hearing that now makes my skin crawl. But what if Lewinsky didn't need the media to tell her story? What if back then she could have just gone on TikTok and told people

[Taylor Lorenz]

directly she had no voice to speak out, no voice to tell her story. Now she's been very vindicated and through really using the Internet to take back her voice.

[Ava Smithing]

Taylor says this is the thing that makes the Internet so great. The ability to give voice to the voiceless, to democratize speech and bypass the gatekeepers. And if you know where to look, there are plenty of young influencers doing this today. Hey, politicians like little Miss Flint Flynn

[Sophie Fergie]

needs our water bath. Do your job.

[Ava Smithing]

Or Valerish.

[Sophie Fergie]

I'm Ukrainian. This is awful. To see how the youngest and most beautiful are killed by Putin.

[Ava Smithing]

Or Yaqeen Haman, an 11 year old Palestinian girl who showed the world what it was like to live under Israeli occupation until she was killed back in May. All young women and girls using social media to tell their stories, to draw attention to critical perspectives that the mainstream media so often overlooks that wouldn't have been possible two decades ago. Just ask Monica Lewinsky. At this point you may be thinking, okay, sure, there are obviously some influencers using their platform for good, but aren't most of them just doing goofy dance routines and makeup tutorials? Well, maybe. But I also think the line between activist and lifestyle influencer may be blurrier than we think. Do you think you have influence?

[Sophie Fergie]

I would hope so.

[Ava Smithing]

Even though most of Sophie Fergie's content probably falls in the lighthearted fun category, she can also get pretty deep.

[Sophie Fergie]

I always kind of knew that I had like maybe a little bit of influence, but after I released this podcast episode with a few friends of mine. What about it?

[Ava Smithing]

Should we eat candy?

[Sophie Fergie]

Yeah, let's make a candy salad. Let's make a candy salad. And I talked about a story of mine. Yeah, that's exactly what we're gonna do.

[Ava Smithing]

Sophie and a few friends have a podcast called Girl Talk. In one episode, Sophie talked about her experience with the Squad, a group of popular tween influencers.

[Sophie Fergie]

Oh, God, I don't like this, guys. When I was 11 years old, I was. I don't even know how to explain this. Okay. When I was 11 years old, the lady that I lived with, not a family member, but the lady that I lived with, like, did stuff to me, and I brought jelly bean.

[Ava Smithing]

Back then, Sophie was best friends with Piper Raquel, the main star of the squad.

[Sophie Fergie]

So today I'm going to be doing a sleepover with my friend Piper. Come on in. Hi, guys.

[Ava Smithing]

In 2022, Sophie and the other members of the squad sued Piper's mom, who was the group's de facto manager. In the lawsuit, they alleged that they experienced, quote, emotional, verbal, physical, and at times sexual abuse at the hands of Piper's mom. The suit was settled for $1.85 million with no admission of wrongdoing. That alleged abuse is what Sophie talked about on her podcast on an episode called Consent.

[Sophie Fergie]

And I think a lot of people felt comfortable to open up about their stories and Consent. And, like, I had people dming me, like, wow, I'm very inspired by you. And I'm gonna go talk out and speak out about what's been happening at home, which is very moving to me. That's so important to me that, like, if you're going through something that I could help you kind of feel more comfortable to talk about it.

[Ava Smithing]

See what I mean? This whole thing is complicated. Some influencers use their platform to sell eyeliner, and some use it to talk about important social issues. And sometimes they use it to do both. And the only reason someone like Sophie has an audience in the first place is because she spent years making goofy videos, pranking her friends, trying on clothes, and, yes, doing makeup tutorials. It's hard to square all of this because we also have research showing that social media tends to be bad for kids self esteem and encourages girls to sexualize themselves. It's hard to make sense of a technology that is simultaneously deeply empowering and incredibly toxic.

[Taylor Lorenz]

It's not because of the platforms.

[Ava Smithing]

Taylor Lorenz says it's a mistake to think of this as an Internet problem.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Let's not forget that social media gave us the entire body positivity movement. And I wish that some of these people that are having these panics could look at the 90s and the 2000s because that was the only content that was available. That is all you were exposed to. There was no alternative. The Internet is downstream from culture, and so it sort of holds a mirror to culture, and our culture is regressing.

[Ava Smithing]

As for the idea that we're living Through a golden age of narcissism. Well, Taylor says we might be misunderstanding why kids want to be influencers in the first place.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Most of them actually are very uncomfortable with fame and don't like fame and actually have a really hard time with attention. But when you talk to them, they want security.

[Ava Smithing]

This seems to resonate with Sophie.

[Sophie Fergie]

I've watched people work their ass off or, you know, like, not great pay. And I just. I think I am so blessed to be where I am.

[Taylor Lorenz]

They want economic security, and they've seen that that can be had through the Internet. And so they put themselves on the Internet and they commoditize their lives. And I think it's dystopian. Ultimately. It's just like, it's this, like, hyper capitalist version of the influencer world. That's. I just think it's kind of dark. Like, what is more capitalist than commodifying your very self and every aspect of your life?

[Ava Smithing]

If Taylor's right, that kids are selling themselves online because it's the only path they see to economic stability and the only way they can be heard, well, maybe that's more dystopian than the technology itself. Next time on Left to Their Own Devices.

[Sophie Fergie]

And it made me so withdrawn from literally everyone. Like, I wouldn't talk to people or I wouldn't go out and hang out with my friends because I literally just wanted to sit in my room all day and watch porn.

[Ava Smithing]

I think every day was a rock bottom, you know, every day was like, oh, today's gonna be the day that I don't. You know, I'm 15, 16, 17, and I just can't get out of it.

[Sophie Fergie]

This is not something fringe.

[Taylor Lorenz]

This is not something that, like, some kids are doing sometimes or bad kids are doing. This is something that your kid is probably doing on the regular.

[Sophie Fergie]

Every day in your house.

[Ava Smithing]

Left to Their Own Devices is hosted and produced by me, Ava Smithing. The show is written and produced by Mitchell Stewart. This episode was also written by Debbie Pacheco. Mixing and sound design by Reza Daya. Our story editor is Kathleen Goldhar. The executive producers for Paradigms are James Millward, Helen Hayes, Taylor Owen, and Mitchell Stewart. The executive producer for the Toronto Star is JP Fozo. If you want early access to upcoming episodes of Left to Their Own Devices, subscribe to the Toronto [e-mail].