The Cult of Kidfluencers

Summary

Sounds Like A Cult – “The Cult of Kidfluencers”

Episode Date: April 7, 2026
Hosts: Amanda Montell, Reese Oliver, Iman Hariri-Kia
Guest: Forteza Latifi (Journalist, Author of Love, Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of Childhood Online)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the complex and controversial world of kidfluencers—children who become social media stars, often amassing millions of followers and dollars while still in elementary or middle school. The hosts examine the kidfluencer phenomenon through their “cult” framework, probing questions about exploitation, fame, parental roles, algorithmic pressures, and the bleak or bizarre outcomes of growing up online. The conversation is grounded by real-life examples, pop culture references, and chilling recent cases, with journalistic insight from special guest Forteza Latifi.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Rise of Kidfluencers and Their Cultural Impact

• Kids Want to Be Influencers: Opening with the statistic that many children now aspire to be influencers rather than traditional “heroic” roles.

  "[When you ask kids what they want to be, the majority of them say influencers.]" – Forteza Latifi (01:51)

• Kidfluencers Blur Childhood and Adulthood: Amanda notes the oddness of seeing preteens in adult spaces due to online trends (e.g., 13-year-olds at Pilates classes imitating influencer routines).

2. Defining Kidfluencers

• Who Counts: Anyone under 18 made public by themselves or parents for online fame/profit, ranging from family vlog kids to self-starters like Ryan of Ryan’s World and JoJo Siwa. (10:24)
• Notable Archetypes:
  • Family vlogger kids
  • “Star” children (e.g., Ryan’s World, Piper Raquel)
  • Middle-schoolers launching skincare/haircare lines

3. From Child Star to Kidfluencer – Historical Perspective

• Roots in Entertainment and Law: The hosts trace the phenomenon to the evolution of child stars in television, mention of the Coogan Act of 1939 (requiring trust funds for child actors' earnings), and how social media upended traditional protections. (11:39)
• Dying Kids’ TV, Rising Algorithmic Fame: The pipeline has shifted from Disney/Nickelodeon stardom to DIY digital fame, with far less oversight or regulatory support.

4. Cultish Qualities of Kidfluencing

• Checklist:

  • Conformity & Dissociation: Mannerisms, catchphrases (“YouTuber voice”), curating persona for algorithm/engagement. (17:36)
  • Followers & Leaders: Dynamic often scrambled; parents, algorithm, and the audience all wield power.
  • Algorithmic Pressure: Success depends on trends and constant visibility—"everyone's going to be the same person".

• Viral Lottery and Low-Quality Fame: Obsession with virality and commodification of kids’ lives described as “mass consumerism” and “cultish”.

5. Real Dangers and Notable Cases

• Child Exploitation and Abuse: The discussion repeatedly circles back to the dangers inherent in the kidfluencer world, from emotional/financial exploitation to actual abuse, as in the Piper Raquel case. (07:49)
• Worst-Case Scenarios:
  • Piper Raquel: Sued mother/manager for abuse; audience speculated about her joining OnlyFans at 18—she did, making $2 million in a day.

    "That makes me sick to my stomach that people were waiting until she turned 18." – Reese Oliver (07:54)

  • Lil Tay and Danielle Bregoli also cited as kids who entered adult content creation (OnlyFans) immediately on reaching legal age. (53:14)
• Parents as Content Creators: Narratives abound of parental pressure, with parents as gatekeepers, exploiters, or simply as desperate breadwinners in the “viral lottery”.

6. Moment of Empathy: Why Some Parents Do It

• Economic Motives, Social Isolation: Guest Forteza Latifi expresses sympathy for some parent-influencers, many of whom are young mothers without prospects, seduced by the promise of upward mobility and community via social media. (43:33)

  "I feel a lot more sympathy than I expected for the parents who are at the head of this... a lot of times family vloggers start as young moms who... had a bunch of kids in rapid succession, never got to go to college... and then they find themselves in this system that totally locks them out of any economic opportunity." – Forteza Latifi (43:33)

7. Algorithm, Audience, or Parent: Who’s The Cult Leader?

• Ambiguous Power: Everyone except the child is implicated—tech companies, audiences, and parents all share blame, but the amorphous influence of algorithms makes assigning responsibility slippery. (33:00)

  "The cult leader is like everyone except for the kid." – Amanda Montell (35:11)
  "The responsibility to me lies with the parents and the government." – Forteza Latifi (34:13)

• Lack of Effective Regulation: Age restrictions on social platforms don’t protect children, since parents run accounts for kids.

8. Rituals, Lingo, and Community within Kidfluencers

• Rituals:
  • Filming “haul” or “get ready with me” (GRWM) videos (38:32)
  • Day-in-my-life shots, ASMR, group TikTok dances
  • Copycat setup: matching ring lights, mirrors, products
• Lingo:
  • Online-specific abbreviations and terminology (“GRWM”, “CPM”)
  • Hyperbolic language and identical vocal affect

  “I do think the vocal affect in itself... and everyone's gonna sound the same." – Reese Oliver (41:05)

• Identity Shaped by Trends: Hosts lament what’s lost when kids curate their personalities for algorithms rather than real development.

9. Shifting Public Perception & Societal Reckoning

• More parents now blur or hide children’s faces online, reflecting growing unease about the “attention economy” and exploitation. (23:33)
• Critical documentaries (e.g., Piper Raquel Netflix doc, Hulu’s Born to Be Viral) arise faster than ever before, showing cultural backlash and demand for scrutiny.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the sickening “adultification” of kidfluencers:

  "It is pretty sickening... affecting the lives of very, very young children and minors in a way that can follow them for the rest of their life. Like growing up in fucking Scientology.” – Amanda Montell (07:59)

• On the performance of private crises for views:

  "She has two pinned posts... one is a video of her son... dying. He's struggling to breathe, and the mom is holding him, and it seems like the dad is filming... the dad is just, like, keeps filming... It's her pinned post..." — Forteza Latifi (31:38)

• On the bleak economic engine behind influencer dreams:

  "...the American dream has kind of, like, blown to dust in front of our [eyes] and... the idea for... upward mobility is that you have to play the viral lottery and hit it." – Forteza Latifi (42:17)

• On the cult-y sameness and pressure to perform:

  "Everyone's gonna be the same person, and they're all gonna talk exactly like this." – Reese Oliver (17:36)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:51 – Kids aspire to be influencers; culture-shifting stat (Forteza Latifi)
• 03:29–09:38 – Defining kidfluencers, anecdotal evidence, nostalgic references
• 11:39–14:46 – Comparison to child stars, Coogan Act, transition from TV to social media, modern ‘culty’ structures
• 20:26–22:17 – Tech-facilitated parenting, pandemic isolation, and kidfluencing as a new “youth group”
• 23:33–24:39 – Cultural backlash; blurring kids’ faces, public anxiety over sharing
• 27:10–29:59 – Introduction of guest Forteza Latifi
• 31:38 – “Most messed up” exploitative story (medical crisis pinned for engagement)
• 33:00–35:16 – Who's the cult leader? Diffuse blame among parents, audience, algorithm
• 38:32–41:14 – Rituals, lingo, group behaviors among kidfluencers
• 43:33–45:46 – Economic motives, empathy for some parent-influencers
• 49:15 – The Piper Raquel exposé, aftermath, and OnlyFans path
• 51:48–52:18 – Advice for parents; you can’t “have it both ways” with privacy and content
• 52:46–56:26 – “Profit or Stop It” kidfluencer guessing game (comic relief)
• 57:02–57:17 – Cult classification: unanimous “Get the fuck out” verdict

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Final Takeaways & Podcast’s Verdict

Cult Verdict: “Get The Fuck Out”

The hosts categorically place kidfluencing in the most dangerous “cult” category, citing the combination of exploitation, lack of meaningful regulation, loss of childhood, and the overwhelming role of profit and algorithmic pressure.

“I feel very strongly that this is a ‘get the fuck out.’” – Iman Hariri-Kia (57:02)
“There’s nothing good about this other than maybe Shirley Temple King.” – Amanda Montell (57:06)

Lingering Concerns

• Who will these kids become in adulthood? Hosts and guest express deep worry about long-term psychological, social, and economic consequences.
• “I feel deeply concerned about the next generation.” – Iman Hariri-Kia (57:21)

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Notable and Lighthearted Moments

• The “Profit or Stop It” game (“Shirley Temple King” wins the panel’s affection but underscores the oddness of this fame pipeline) (52:46–56:26)
• Frequent meta-jokes about the “cultish” qualities of any community, whether it’s “youth group kids” or Waldorf/alternative school parents (21:43, 52:18)

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Conclusion

The episode expertly mixes seriousness and wit, using scholarship, journalism, and pop culture savvy to dissect the world of kidfluencers. By the end, the hosts leave no doubt: the cult of kidfluencing is deeply harmful and demands urgent scrutiny—a “get the fuck out” scenario with profound implications for kids, parents, and society.

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Further Reading & Guest Info:

• Forteza Latifi: @hiforteza
• Book: Love, Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online
• Podcast: Sounds Like A Cult

Transcript

[Amanda Montell]

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[Forteza Latifi]

When you ask kids what they want to be, the majority of them say influencers.

[Iman Harirukia]

They can't read or do basic math. But the kids are all right because they can show you their 10 skincare routines or stream themselves cursing someone out on a video game.

[Reese Oliver]

There's an attention economy rooted in the faces of our children.

[Amanda Montell]

So obviously, just like the 21st century bid for belonging, this is Sounds Like

[Reese Oliver]

a Cult, A show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Reese Oliver. Sounds Like a Cult resident rhetoric scholar.

[Amanda Montell]

I'm Amanda Montel a linguist and author of books including Cultish and I'm Iman

[Iman Harirukia]

Ririkia, author of Female Fantasy, the Most Famous Girl in the world and 100 other girls.

[Reese Oliver]

Every week on this show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the Cultural Zeitgeist, from the Amish, all the way to Bravoholics. To try and answer the big question,

[Iman Harirukia]

this group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

[Reese Oliver]

And if so, which of our culty categories does it fall into? A Live youe Life, A Watch your back or a Getlof Fuck out? Because not every group that seems a little too culty for comfort is mixing up poisonous off branch Kool Aid the same way. Honey Cultish influence these days exists on a spectrum from the slightly offbeat to the Seriously concerning the point of this

[Amanda Montell]

show is to explore how fanaticism creeps into everyday life, to examine how power and identity get warped in the forest corners of the Internet, and to critique the culty places you might not think to look, but maybe you should like certain seemingly adorable corners of your for you page.

[Iman Harirukia]

Indeed.

[Amanda Montell]

Today we're examining the complex, controversial and squeaky dirty world of kid fluencers. That being a portmanteau of kid and influencer of course. I wanted to ask you too, what is your like familiarity with the world of kid fluencers? Like children who star on YouTube and other social media platforms generating like bajillions of dollars?

[Iman Harirukia]

Well, Rhys and I were talking about how we both used to watch Tana on YouTube and she got started really young, like maybe 14, 15 and she in my mind was one of the OG kidfluencers. But nowadays when I think about kid fluencers, I think about that middle schooler who got her own Sephora line and thousands of other middle schoolers lined up to be the first to access it and it's so sold out in minutes.

[Amanda Montell]

It is weird to see kids show up in traditionally adult spaces. Clearly as a result of kid fluencers on the Internet. I was at a legree Pilates class, non lex, but a couple days ago and there were two 13 year old girls.

[Reese Oliver]

That just makes me sad.

[Amanda Montell]

No, I was like this probably is gonna stunt your growth, like it's too heavy for me. And I was like they probably saw a kid do Pilates on the Internet and were like I want to do Pilates in real life and then post about it on the Internet.

[Reese Oliver]

Yes, this is reminding me. Amanda, I think I told you this story. I am an event server by day and I worked at Bat MITZVAH the other week where in the girl had not only neon signs but also merch of her initials that had been transformed into the aloe logo. Like the activewear brand.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, so it was like activewear themed, like kids merch. You're conti. If you're listening, you're 13 maybe, but you're 13 now. You know, welcome to the woman. Welcome to womanhood. But I do think that fitness logo Corporate bootlicking from 13 year old children is a result of kid fluencing. And I was saying the Tana angle is crazy for me to hear because I grew up on the YouTubes. So while yes, Tana was a child, I was a younger child. So I am very used to like everyone I ever consume online being older than me. The only person who was like around my age when I got on this whole Internet thing that I saw as really having any kind of cultural clout was like Ryan's toys. His bit is opening toys.

[Amanda Montell]

Exactly. That's what I was going to bring up. Like, when I think of canon kid fluencer, I don't necessarily think of the children of family vloggers who are sort of like coerced into becoming Internet stars and raking in money for their parents. If you have not already listened to our family vloggers episode, that's probably a good companion. Listen to this one. Rather, I think of kids who are the star of the show. I think of Ryan's World, who at one point was like the top earning YouTuber, I think, who just like, yeah, unboxes and reviews toys. He's like this little tiny, hyper, energetic child. And then I also think of kid hype houses like that, which was helmed by Piper Raquel. Does that name ring a bell to either of you?

[Reese Oliver]

Thankfully not.

[Iman Harirukia]

I don't think so.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay, so Piper Raquel is the subject of a Netflix documentary that I watched and was truly horrified by. Even after all these years of commenting on cults in everyday life, this shocked me to my core. The documentary is called Piper Raquel and the Squad and it talks about this really abusive, allegedly momager who turned her child, Piper, who was like, you know, a charismatic kid into a famous YouTube sensation, cast a group of supporting friends or whatever who blurred the boundary between like entertainer and actual friend, whatever, to kind of support her and financially exploited them, emotionally abused them, allegedly. It was really harrowing to see. And Piper Raquel, we'll talk about her with our guest later. Because our guest for Tezza Latifi, who has appeared in a Sounds Like a cult episode before actually our family vloggers. 1. She has interviewed a lot of kinfluencers, including Piper Raquel, who just turned 18. And there was all this creepy fucking speculation on the Internet as to whether or not Piper Raquel, especially in the wake of like all this controversy surrounding the documentary and the content of the documentary, whether or not upon entrance into legal adulthood, would join OnlyFans.

[Iman Harirukia]

Oh my God.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah. And she did. And she made $2 million in one day.

[Reese Oliver]

Ooh, that makes me sick to my stomach that people were waiting until she turned 18.

[Forteza Latifi]

Ew.

[Amanda Montell]

It is pretty sickening. And so I am just so curious about how culty Internet fandoms, it's so dark. But I'm particularly interested in like how they're affecting the lives of very, very young children and minors in a way that can follow them for the rest of their life. Like growing up in fucking Scientology.

[Reese Oliver]

It's.

[Iman Harirukia]

It does kind of feel like child actors walked so that kid fluencers could run.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. And it is spooky because, you know, like with child actors, you're a kid watching kids on TV and you think you want to be a kid on tv. Wouldn't that look so fun? And now kids are having that thought and they're telling their parents, oh, I want to be an influencer, but there's no barrier to entry there. That's an accessible thing that you can do at any point. And then mom realizes this makes her money.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Forteza Latifi]

Boom.

[Reese Oliver]

It's spooky.

[Amanda Montell]

Absolutely.

[Iman Harirukia]

And I also feel like the path forward is marketed to them at such a young age because there are so many how to videos online. People saying, just because you haven't taken off yet doesn't mean that one video won't change your life. Keep going, keep going. And unboxings and hauls have become such a way to gain access. Which also means like specific kinds of

[Amanda Montell]

influencers are totally in a certain, you know, tax bracket or their parents tax bracket. Yeah. I feel like the low barrier entry to this particular type of what I might call low quality fame, mass consumerism, like fast fashion and just I guess not only desire, but the almost deification of Internet fame has created a kid fluencing cult that can explain Piper Raquel and Ryan's world, but also that alo yoga themed bat mitzvah.

[Reese Oliver]

I feel like, as is a shocker to no one, this is not going to be the most fun and light hearted of episodes. But we did want to provide a more explicit disclaimer right off the top. A Lot of what we are going to get into could easily be construed as, or blatantly is child abuse, which is obviously not something we ever want to minimize here at. Sounds like a cult. Of course, as we've mentioned in the past during stickier episodes like Mormon therapy, Neil Gaiman, Mr. Beast, sometimes the Zeitgeist. Here, cults we cover, although not technically classic cults, have extremely detrimental effects. Nonetheless, that's why we're here. Our classification and discussion of kid fluencers serves not to obscure the abuse that can and does occur in the kid fluencing world, but to recontextualize it through a cultish lens so we can learn from it and we can learn more about tactics of mass control and why we behave in the culty ways we do.

[Iman Harirukia]

Well put, Very well put. So before we go any further, let's quickly just define what the fuck a kid influencer actually is. Kid influencer, yes, but also kid fluencers, like their adult counterparts, can take on as many different forms as there are hashtags to differentiate them. So kidfluencer is synonymous with anyone who was put on camera or made a public figure by a parental figure or by themselves with implied parental permission for an extended period of time under the age of 18. So this means anyone from JoJo Siwa to the Rizzler. Are you guys familiar with the Rizzler?

[Forteza Latifi]

No.

[Reese Oliver]

He's familiar with the Rizzler. Can you explain? You're gonna. That's another. You're gonna have to Google it later.

[Amanda Montell]

I can't explain to you, but a Rizzler is like a ladies man, right?

[Reese Oliver]

Yes, but there is only one.

[Iman Harirukia]

There can only be one.

[Amanda Montell]

I get it.

[Iman Harirukia]

Okay, so confluencers are basically like the Digital Ages iteration of the child TV star, a la. Like the cult of Nickelodeon. Listen to that episode if you have not. It is fab. What seems to be the common thread though, is this undertone of exploitation and inorganic behavior on behalf of a child in order to garner clout.

[Amanda Montell]

We did just say that child actors walked so kid fluencers could run. And I do think it's important to document some of the history of the child entertainment industry with respect to the Internet, so that we can understand how kid fluencers are in more of a cult than kind of any child entertainer before. So obviously, children being exploited for the sake of amusement on screen isn't a new phenomenon. Instead, it's one that has shifted mediums, as has entertainment technology itself. So notable developments in the children's rights sector of thought have influenced and been influenced by by these shifts in children based entertainment. Like California's coogan Act of 1939, which required a portion of funds earned by the child to be put in a trust fund to be accessed once the child reached 18, lest their parents like run away with it all. And the following revisions to the Coogan act to close various loopholes that didn't happen until the early 2000s. Now in recent years, the kids TV industry has come under closer inspection as another wave of progress in this realm. If anyone does remember our Nickelodeon episode, they'll recall the Netflix documentary Quiet on Set and hullabaloo that ensued following its release. You might have Also read Jeanette McCurdy's banging, scathing tell all about her life growing up in the entertainment industry. Her memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died. So this is kind of like the history of children's rights in the culty ass entertainment industry until the Internet. Yeah.

[Iman Harirukia]

And all this reflection retrospective discuss feels obvious to us now, of course, but that's because the age of kids TV is dying or dead. Unless you're of course an animated Australian Shepherd.

[Amanda Montell]

What is that? Bluey. Oh Bluey.

[Iman Harirukia]

But nowadays all the coolest 6 year olds are actually scrolling on TikTok with pint sized Alex Earls to boot. Let's investigate how regular kids being silly on the Internet became full blown PR receiving, Utah curling, bold glamour filtering kid fluencers. But first, I have a question for both of you. Do you think being a child actor or a kid fluencer is cultier?

[Reese Oliver]

I'm going kid fluencer because really like the main thing that's flashing in my brain right now is the brand deal aspect of it. There's just a lot more avenues of unregulated monetization there.

[Amanda Montell]

100%. Yeah, I don't know. I mean like I don't feel psychologically prepared to interact with people on the Internet in the position that I'm in as an author podcaster. How the fuck is a developing pre frontal cortex supposed to healthily navigate those dynamics? There's no protections, especially if your parents are irresponsible like JoJo Siwa. What a great example. Like JoJo Siwa is a product of some interesting parenting, I will put it that way. She literally licensed her entire likeness and identity to nickelodeon and at 11 years

[Reese Oliver]

older, however old she was, was best friends with Colleen Ballinger.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God. Reese and I offline about the Colleen Ballinger stuff so much we like don't have time to get into the album.

[Iman Harirukia]

You're not going to pull out a ukulele and sing an apology to us.

[Forteza Latifi]

Right.

[Reese Oliver]

Different cult for a different day.

[Amanda Montell]

Different cult for a different day. But yeah, exactly. Like, right, so, okay, that actually is relevant though because, like in the influencing space and like the vlogging space or whatever, like it is still a wild west industry and part of the strategy to grow is to collaborate with other influencers. And so that can pave the way for kids to develop creepy relationships with adult creators with. With parents of other kids. Like this Piper Raquel documentary is so bone chilling, I'm telling you. And shows the worst case scenario of how this can go. And we'll just leave it to our guest shortly to explain exactly what that looked like.

[Iman Harirukia]

Yeah, I also think there's just a level of accessibility with kidfluencers that operates at more of a remove with child actors and also parasocial relationships where if you're seeing a new video every hour on the hour from someone, you can feel as if like you have unwanted access to them. And that can lead to blurring of lines between like, reality and fantasy.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God. While you're developing your identity, I mean, anyone who uses the Internet and posts is probably on some subtle level, like algorithmically orienting their identity.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh sure.

[Amanda Montell]

But for a little kid whose livelihood depends on their engagement, they might decide to pursue romantic in scarecrows. How, how romantic could these relationships be but like a boyfriend or something? Because those videos are more attract to their followers.

[Reese Oliver]

I'm thinking about like, Tana went through some seriously messed up shit as has come out in recent years, just being a teenager in the influencing world, trying to navigate the networking side of it and like stay in the spotlight and maintain maturity. But also you're a child and that's what you're making money on. And by the way, I know we're bringing up Tana a lot. I just want to say that, like, I'm not a Tana fan. I think she's done a lot of problematic things and we're not condoning any of her actions here. We just mean to say that, like, seems like maybe being an influencer at the of 14:15 didn't have the greatest influence on her actions and on situations that she was put into.

[Iman Harirukia]

And you're collaborating with people who also market their content to kids, but in many cases they're older than you and perhaps have like, way more nefarious means. And I think also, not to mention the level of like, scrutiny and insecurity that can impact your brain before your Prefrontal cortex develops when you're constantly getting negative feedback or positive reinforcement based on your appearance, your personality, the jokes you made, all that. It's. I can't imagine how desperate some of these kids are.

[Amanda Montell]

Daily vlogging every day, they're shaping themselves based on what their audience likes or doesn't like. That is not a healthy way to triangulate an identity. So it's so culty.

[Reese Oliver]

Everyone's gonna be the same person, and they're all gonna talk exactly like this.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, my God, the YouTuber voice the over.

[Reese Oliver]

Well, it's like I'm trying to do the TikTok voiceover thing where it's like the artificial voice that they put over.

[Iman Harirukia]

Come with me to investigate a cult.

[Amanda Montell]

It's like, get ready.

[Reese Oliver]

My God, you guys, you won't believe what I saw today when I, like, I saw a kid vlogging at the zoo the other day. I was at the zoo and this kid was vlogging the entire time in front of me.

[Iman Harirukia]

Or they're like, oh, my God, I'm obsessed.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh, my God, you guys.

[Amanda Montell]

It's so buttery smooth and so like, okay, so let's go down like a culty checklist. You have your sense of conformity. You have your dissociation from reality. You're not fully present. You're vlogging. You're not even looking at the monkeys.

[Reese Oliver]

And then, like, everything is so hyperbolic. The language, the, like, actions, how you look. Like everything. The saturation is so up to nine.

[Amanda Montell]

And then the cult leader, cult follower dynamic, which, I mean, there's kind of like the followers are both cult leader and cult follower and vice versa. There's such a power dynamic there. It's so scrambled. It's just forcing everyone into a type of reality that I'm afraid of the fallout. Who will kids be in 15 years because of kid fluency?

[Reese Oliver]

It's really scary. And I think we're seeing different iterations of it as we're seeing different iterations of kid fluencers over time. So, like, from child tv, as we were talking about earlier, we have seen several different iterations of kidfluencers that have gotten us to where we are today, usually orchestrated by the parents. Sometimes not so much. You know, since people could monetize their own Internet presences, they've been using their children to do the same by extension, in ways that are less than ideal. You know, millennials and older Gen Z folk may remember family vloggers like the Shaytards or Bertailey. I always Feel really uncomfortable saying the Shaytards name. I don't know why they weren't. Oh, my God. Why is it still like a thing? I don't know. But, you know, the children are part of a larger picture where the parents can tune in to watch parenting content, kids can tune in to watch kid content, but it's all kind of the same show.

[Iman Harirukia]

No, totally. And this is still such a large faction of kid fluency, and often a very dangerous faction at that. Listeners may remember the Mormon Therapy episode covering Ruby, Frankie, Jody Hildebrandt, and the abuse behind the 8Passengers YouTube channel. However, as kids are now being handed iPads at younger and younger ages, they're becoming more competent at not only consuming but also creating their own content. Yep, they can't read or do basic math, but the kids are all right because they can show you their 10 step skincare routines or stream themselves cursing someone out on a video game like this is allowing the parents to fade into the background and either neglect the operation entirely or worse, and more often behave as puppeteers that you, as the viewer, you're not supposed to engage with. Given that kid fluency content is largely geared towards other kids and the people who like watching them.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay, I'm not a parent, and I'm sure that if and when I become a parent, I will not be able to resist the temptation to sometimes just, like, sit your kid with the screen. You need a break. Whatever. I think a lot about, like, how I'll navigate that, but it's not my problem just yet. Anywho, I do think it's interesting how many kids are literally being raised by a Digital Caregiver by Ms. Rachel. Yeah, pretty much. And that's probably affecting their development in really weird ways. But something that shows up in classic cults from history, including the cult that my dad spent his teenage years in Synanon, is like separating children from their parents or their parental figures and having them be raised by other figures in the cult. And so if kid fluencing is the cult, the world of that cult is encouraging parents to offload their kids to the cult leaders. Those being like, kid fluencers.

[Reese Oliver]

Kid fluencers and their own followers. And so it's just like, guess I'll leave you in your bedroom to make us money now.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah.

[Iman Harirukia]

And combine that with pandemic isolation and all of the impacts that it's had on young people's ability to socialize too. It's almost as if they can only have this kind of, like, dynamic, ooh, social life online.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, My God, this is gonna sound judgmental, but I'm fine with it. You know how when you're out and about, you can tell like, a group of kids is like youth group kids?

[Reese Oliver]

Yes.

[Amanda Montell]

I feel like when we're out and about in the near future, we're going to be able to tell when a kid was raised by a kid influencer because they're going to sound a certain way.

[Reese Oliver]

They're going to sound a certain way. And just a certain way, you know, behave selfishly generally. Like that kid that in front of me vlogging. You think he was spatially aware of anything happening around him? No. I mean, obviously you're a kid, but I mean, I've seen influencers act that badly, if not worse. Just a sense of entitlement.

[Iman Harirukia]

But it's just funny. Like, I remember the affect of my peers being. Being influenced by whoever was popular on the Disney Channel at the time, like, using phrases like dang nabbit, because Miley Cyrus would on Hannah Montana.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh, my God, that's such a good point.

[Iman Harirukia]

Yeah. And the same thing I feel like can be said for the way that kids are speaking now based on whichever niche micro celebrities they look up to.

[Reese Oliver]

So where are we at now, y'?

[Iman Harirukia]

All?

[Reese Oliver]

As we've stated, kid fluencing is children's entertainment du jour, and it does not seem like like it's going anywhere. However, public opinion, as of late, at least on our side of the zeitgeist, generally seems to be kind of disconcerted with this and is a little icked. And we're kind of ready for kid fluency to die off or go away, especially in an era where cybersecurity is increasingly threatened and our data is being ran through quicker than the last joint on Spawn Ranch. An example of this newfound reticence to share our children is this kind of newer phenomenon I'm noticing, wherein a lot of public figures or even regular degular people are blurring or fully retracting their children's faces from content they're sharing online. I think kind of sad, because these were originally platforms so you could keep in touch with relatives you don't live close to. And here's what my kids are up to, and here's what my family's doing. And now we're validly concerned that maybe we shouldn't be doing that because there's an attention economy rooted in the faces of our children.

[Amanda Montell]

So true. Oh, my God. Yeah. No, it is weird that there are a lot of people I went to high school with Whose kids? Like, I don't know what they look like. I mean, I guess I wouldn't before the Internet anyway, so it's kind of fine. But like, I guess it's just weird and awkward and a mirror to, like, the culty behavior that we all exhibit with when we're online that, like, I'll be looking at a photo of my former high school classmate's family and there's like a weird redacted blur over their baby's face. I'm just like, this says something spooky about us right now. And the cycle of criticism does seem to be shortening. Quiet on set. The Nickelodeon docu series Expose was made about 20 to 30 years after the material it covers. But the kid fluencing cult has such chronic effects that we are seeing docu series already being made like the Piper Raquel one that I mentioned. And we've also seen the release of Hulu's Born to Be Viral, the Dark side of Kid Influencing, which follows several Mormon kid fluencers. Because of course, a lot of them are Mormon. And this is culty in a completely another dimension that religious parents, more like in a cult, are using their kids to recruit and evangelize.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh, yeah, you have seven of them. That's a whole vlog squad right there.

[Iman Harirukia]

It's like when tech bros went on like, Repopulize Earth using their own seed. Yes, it's similar energies 100%.

[Amanda Montell]

Ew. Let's not say seed anymore anyway.

[Iman Harirukia]

But as we know, every action garners an equal and opposite reaction. And of course, this is no exception. Many have seen and capitalized on the kinfluencer boom. From those popping out babies for content to those shilling products for them to shill to each other once they are born.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, my God.

[Iman Harirukia]

I am of course referring to Shay Mitchell's latest line of products, which is a skincare line for kids called Reenie.

[Amanda Montell]

Shay Mitchell was like a. She was a Pretty little liar.

[Iman Harirukia]

She was a little Liars Emily. Yeah. And she also makes the baes suitcases.

[Amanda Montell]

Yes, I actually do have people love

[Iman Harirukia]

staring at mine right now behind you.

[Amanda Montell]

I do like it, but I'm an adult.

[Iman Harirukia]

Yeah. And by the way, that's legal. We can keep it that way. And it's not the only one. Everly Lebrant. But I should really actually say her mom and stepdad, Savannah and Cole LeBrandt, have recently released Bev Skin, their own competitor. Have you guys heard about this?

[Reese Oliver]

Yes, I have. These are some fundies that I am deep into.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay. I Used to tune in and then I got well after scandal and I pieced out.

[Iman Harirukia]

Well, the brand's gist is basically like, hey, your kid is probably skincare obsessed on TikTok, but doesn't need to be using those products with harsh chemicals and active ingredients. Encourage them to stop watching the content.

[Forteza Latifi]

No way.

[Iman Harirukia]

Instead, just give them their own products.

[Forteza Latifi]

Our products.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay. Something that cults and the skincare industry have in common is that they present a fake problem and the solution in the same breath. Like cellulite is not actually a problem, but you know, whatever. This is the Venn diagram between the cult of the skincare industry, the cult of just social media in general, the cult of child abuse. Like, it's just so spooky and then

[Reese Oliver]

like pointless childcare products that prey on like first time parents. Parents. And parents are like, yes.

[Amanda Montell]

Because everybody has so much anxiety about like being a good, you know, like,

[Iman Harirukia]

have I been putting chemicals on my baby's face? Maybe I do need Renee, how have we gotten here?

[Amanda Montell]

It's the worst. Okay, now that we've officially depressed all of our listeners and you know, gotten the background that we need, we're very excited to introduce our guest today. We're lucky enough that she's actually a friend. Her name is Forteza Latifi. She's the author of the new book Love Like Follow, subscribe Influencer Kids and the cost of childhood online. She's a journalist. She's a second time sounds like a cult guest. And she is here to answer our burning questions about this kid fluencing culties. I don't like paying rent. You don't like paying rent, but guess what? Built makes it feel a little better. Built is the loyalty program that rewards renters every single month with points and exclusive neighborhoods benefits. Allow me to explain. With Bilt, every single rent payment earns you points toward flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more. And here's something to be even more excited about. If you have accomplished the American dream and purchased property now, Built members can earn points on mortgage payments too. That means you can get rewarded wherever you live and unlock exclusive benefits from more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies and other neighborhood bars partners, There are so many purchases that I make in my everyday life that Built can help me save money on. I'm talking those ride Shia rides. I'm talking my little workout classes that can really add up an expense. It's really very simple. Paying rent is less painful with Built. And now owning a home can Be better with built to earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbuilt.com cult that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com cult make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform to help entrepreneurs stand out and succeed online. So whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it super easy to set up a beautiful website that really represents you and your business to sell absolutely anything from products to content to even your valuable time and help you engage with your audience. I am a longtime Squarespace user. Sounds like a cult.com is a Squarespace website. Check it out. It's super easy to update. Whether you are kind of a Luddite or a total web developer extraordinaire, Squarespace's features make it a wonderful option. I'm talking their design intelligence which combines two decades of industry leading design expertise with cutting edge AI technology to help you fulfill your strongest creative potential. Squarespace Payments also makes it super easy to manage all your payments in one place if you're selling things on your Squarespace website. And I also love that using Squarespace you can easily set up a fundraiser. I genuinely and sincerely recommend giving Squarespace a try. If you're interested in setting up a website of any kind, check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com cult to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Fortezza welcome back to Sounds like a Cult.

[Forteza Latifi]

Thank you for having me. Always so much fun.

[Reese Oliver]

Can you first of all reintroduce yourself? And second of all, tell us about what brought you into the cult world of kid fluency.

[Forteza Latifi]

Oh my gosh, yes. Okay, so hi, I'm for Tessa Latifi. I am a journalist. I live in Los Angeles and I'm the author of the forthcoming Very Soon Like Follow and Subscribe, Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online for which I spent the last few years deep in the world of kid fluency. Mom fluencing, family vlogging. I'm not okay mentally if you're wondering. It was a real trip. But what brought me into it? I'm 32 now and I grew up watching Teen Mom. Did you guys grow up watching Teen Mom? Yes, I was like so into Teen mom because I was like 16 also and I was like, wait, I could have a baby and be stuck with my high school boyfriend forever? Like, what? So I was watching it, and then as I grew up, I started seeing, like, the teen mom kids obviously growing up. And, like, now they're 16. And as they were reaching their teenage lives, I remember thinking, like, God, that's so strange that, like, their whole lives have been, like, broadcast. And then I was like, wow, it used to be this, like, really small cohort of, like, the Gosselin's, the Duggars, and the teen mom kids that were, like, growing up in front of cameras, but now it's hundreds, if not thousands of kid influencers, and there's so much less. Like, I'm not, like, saying reality TV is without its issues, but at least those kids were, like, being filmed, I don't know, a couple days a month, right? Kid influencers are being filmed sometimes all day, every day. And I was just like, wow, this is a really weird thing. And then I fell down a rabbit hole.

[Amanda Montell]

Relatable. Okay, we're already getting right into it. But out of the gate. For Tessa, what is the most fudged up story living rent free in your head from this cult right now?

[Forteza Latifi]

Okay, this thing that cannot get out of my brain is there's this mom infl with a million followers on Instagram. And I was looking at her page for my book, and she has two pinned posts. And one of the pinned posts is a video of her son. And he looks like he's dying. Like, he is struggling to breathe. He's, like, having some kind of, like, medical episode. And the mom is holding him, and it seems like the dad is filming, and the mom is saying, there's something wrong with our son. There's something wrong with our son. Like, we need to do something. And the dad's like, yeah, we do, but he's just, like, keeps filming. And then the mom is like, we need to go to the hospital. And they were, like, camping or something, and the dad is like, the nearest hospital is, like, I don't know, over, like, 15 miles away. And the mom's, like, freaking out, and the kid's little siblings are, like, crying in the background, and the dad is just, like, still filming. And, like, the kid. And maybe this is because I'm a mom now, but I think it's also just, like, because I'm a human. But, like, the kid cannot open his eyes fully but cannot shut them, and he's, like, flushed, and he looks so ill. And it's her pinned post on

[Reese Oliver]

her page that's disgusting because of how

[Iman Harirukia]

high the engagement was.

[Forteza Latifi]

Was, I guess.

[Iman Harirukia]

Oh, my God. That leads me right into my next question. Who do you think the actual cult leader here is? Do you think it's the kid fluencer themselves? Or is it the parent or maybe the audience or the algorithm?

[Forteza Latifi]

Okay, I'm interested in what you guys think about this because I've thought about this a lot, and I do feel like the onus is kind of on the audience and the algorithm. And obviously the algorithm is like, not a person, but, like, we are feeding the algorithm and. And so it's feeding us back. We wouldn't be getting all this content if we weren't looking for it or if we weren't into it. And we meaning, like the general we. But I don't know. What do you guys think?

[Amanda Montell]

I completely agree.

[Iman Harirukia]

Attention. I think it's our attention.

[Reese Oliver]

Sometimes I think that it can be a little vague to say that because I just want to say it's Zuckerberg, honestly. Well, someone created the algorithm, right? Like, someone programmed this thing. Someone is at the end of all of this with the bag from all of us behaving this way.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah.

[Amanda Montell]

Actually, my instinct was to say, like, tech overlords need to have the moral compass to set regulations, but they won't. So that's what's really spooky because the cult leader is so hard to identify in this situation that the responsibility just ends up on the people that we know exist, which are the audience members. But who's to say what anyone should really do about this other than, like, stop watching the content? But how's everybody supposed to agree to just stop watching it?

[Forteza Latifi]

And I also think who's the head of the cult is different from, like, who bears responsibility, because for me, I talk to people in my book and they're like, oh, you know, it's the tech companies, it's the algorithms, it's whatever. Like, they need to make the changes. And I'm like, they're a company. They don't care. That's not their job to care. But, like, the job to care is the parents job. And so, like, the responsibility to me lies with the parents and the government.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. Well, maybe the companies that operate this way shouldn't be allowed to operate. Like, like, maybe, maybe they should care. Maybe they should be forced to care.

[Iman Harirukia]

There are age restrictions on social media, but it's so easy to cheat.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

This is reminding me so much of MLMs where it's like, we put up some rules and call it done, but, like, there's no way to enforce it.

[Forteza Latifi]

And also like, the age restrictions don't really help in this case because like, okay, so a 4 year old can't make an Instagram, but they can have an Instagram run by their parents, you know what I mean? So it doesn't really like change, change anything.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God. So the cult leader is like everyone

[Forteza Latifi]

except for the kid Diffuse cult leader.

[Amanda Montell]

Exactly. And I think that's like the most insidious form of cult leader in terms of the groups that we analyze on the show. Okay, so there are so many different types of kid fluencers. There are like the obviously coerced children of family vloggers. That's not really the focus of today's conversation because we already did that one with you. There are the like toy reviewers, like the Ryan's World people. There are the kind of like wannabe TikTok micro influencer K. There are the Piper Raquels of the world. Can you kind of explain the landscape of kid fluencing as it is today? And how did all of these different denominations of kid fluencers come into existence?

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah, so I write about this in the book. It all starts with the mommy bloggers of the early 2000s. And I feel like calling them mommy bloggers is kind of like putting them down. But they were really doing like incredible work. Like it's fascinating. In my research I found that people weren't talking about the reality of like motherhood and birth and pregnancy in public in the same way until mommy bloggers started doing it. Like it was really revolutionary. Like they were writing about like postpartum depression and hating being pregnant and like sometimes regretting for a second, like becoming a mother and just how difficult it was and like things that we take for granted now, like the mental load and all of these things. So that was kind of where it started. And then those blogs became able to be monetized and so that kind of changed the whole scene because when they first started, no one was making money off of it. But these women were putting like the equivalent of like a full time jobs effort into these blogs. And then they started being able to monetize and then Instagram came on the scene that changed everything. YouTube came on the scene that changed everything. TikTok. So now it's funny because there's YouTube stars, there's TikTok stars, there's Instagram stars. I'm sure soon we'll have like substack

[Amanda Montell]

stars once the children are old enough to learn how to write.

[Forteza Latifi]

Right? Yeah. Or I think to be written about, you know, But I think what's really interesting is some kids have this way of like, crossing the boundaries where they were originally a YouTube star, but now they're really big on Instagram. But often you find that someone is like either YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. But YouTube is kind of like the holy grail. So that's kind of known as like, if you're a YouTube star, you've really, really made it. And that's because of the way that YouTube pays people. It's the best paying social media platform. Instagram, I would say, is the worst. And TikTok is right there in the middle.

[Iman Harirukia]

Can you imagine a future in which parents are either taking their children's diary entries and transcribing them for substack audiences?

[Reese Oliver]

I'm sure it's happening.

[Iman Harirukia]

I just got chills. I can't believe that came out of my brain.

[Reese Oliver]

I think we're seeing something like Everly Lebrant, who I mentioned earlier, is one of those influencers where her bio says it's run by her parents, but now that she's 13, it's run by her. But all the captions are still very clearly written by Cole and Savannah, and I think that that's not too far off. She lives in my brain rent free.

[Forteza Latifi]

I think she's the prototypical child influencer. In a way.

[Reese Oliver]

She is.

[Iman Harirukia]

Well, we're not quite at the point where we need to interview our 10 year olds and upload it to. To substack podcasting, but I will say there are some rituals in the cult of kid fluencers that you can see a lot when you're scrolling on TikTok. So what are a few that you've noticed other than, you know, unboxings and hauls and get ready with me's.

[Forteza Latifi]

I'm curious what comes to mind for you guys, but I feel like trends are really like the rituals of the kid fluencer, you know, like just whatever trend is happening right now, right now. It's like the 2016 throwbacks. And it would actually be funny if they did that because it's like you were a child or an infant in 2016. But I really see a lot of get ready with me, which is pretty funny because they're just doing their skincare and they're like eight or nine. And I'm like, I literally didn't even buy moisturizer until I was in grad school. And I know that just makes me sound old. Like obviously it's a different world now. But I was wondering what rituals you guys see.

[Iman Harirukia]

I think trends are really on point. I think that in order to be an influencer, whether you're a kid fluencer or an adult influencer, you have to stay on top of of the like, very, very fast attention span of the Internet. And I'd say like week by week there are different trends that people are doing, but tentpoles. Day in my life videos, day in my life of a six year old.

[Amanda Montell]

I mean, we talked about this before you hopped on for Tessa. But like, when you accommodate your burgeoning personality to an algorithm and to trends, it feels like it can rob your authenticity or your freedom to grow and figure out who you are in a way that feels extremely culty. But the cult leader is diffuse because it's like algorithmic and the audience. And that just feels like really scary just to think about, like the future of extremely online kids lives. Rituals are obviously an important adhesive to keep cults together, and so are us versus them dynamics. Like, you have to make people on the outside feel like they want to be on the inside. And cultilingo is one way to do that. Could you talk about any cultilingo that kid fluencers use?

[Forteza Latifi]

I mean, I think it's just all the extremely online lingo we were talking about. Get Ready with Me is like, they'll just like post grwm and it's like if you're not online, you don't know what that means. Like, if I said that to my parents, they would be like, what are you talking about? But I think the interesting thing with kid influencers is they're very savvy and they're very plugged into the way that the Internet works in a way that like most people aren't. Unless you're like a tech reporter. They can talk about CPMs, which means cost per impressions, which is basically like how much you get paid for like a cut of what ad is running on your video on YouTub. But like, they can talk about that easily.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God. There's like influencer prodigies probably.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh yeah, like baby little finance bros.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, because they're sponges. Your brain is like growing the fastest rate it'll ever grow.

[Iman Harirukia]

And they're thinking about how they can maximize their optics, which is spooky.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

I do think the vocal affect in itself, the get ready with me girly and everyone's gonna sound the same. And I don't know if that's lingo, but it's. It feels somewhere in those lines to Me.

[Amanda Montell]

Ooh. I feel like ASMR is also a bit of a ritual. Like the nails.

[Reese Oliver]

Ooh. Another ritual I've noticed is every single time I've seen a group of teens set up to film a TikTok dance in a public area, it looks exactly the same and makes me feel exactly the same way. And it's almost like they all look at each other and they just, like, know that it's time.

[Forteza Latifi]

It's, like, time to lock in. Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

And they find the little corner where they're going to be in the most people's way, and they set it up somewhere, and they're doing the exact same dance in sync.

[Iman Harirukia]

And all their products are the same too. They have the same mirror, they have the same ring light, they have the same types of makeup. Their setup is identical.

[Amanda Montell]

Well, when you put it that way, it's so obviously just like the 21st century bid for belonging. You know, it's like our bids for belonging at that age were a lot quainter. But, yeah, I mean, like, of course, if culture is moving in this direction, kids want to be cool, kids want to be accepted. Kids want to establish themselves as, like, someone that other kids are gonna want on their team in the game of life. And that is a beautiful thing. But the cult of kid fluencing is exploiting that drive.

[Forteza Latifi]

I also think it's like, there have been studies where when you ask kids what they wanna be like, the majority of them say influencers. And I do think, like, obviously that's pretty bleak, because when we were kids, it was like, doctor or astronaut or whatever. But I also think it says a lot about where we are in American society and the way that the American dream has kind of, like, blown to dust in front of our. And we're just like, oh, the idea for, like, upward mobility is that you have to play the viral lottery and hit it. Or you have to play, like, the literal lottery and hit it. So, like, in a way, I don't think all these kids are just, like, raging narcissists who just, like, want to be whatever, whatever. But they see all these generations struggling to make ends meet, to pay rent, forget about buying a house, like, whatever. And then they see these YouTubers who are, like, moving into their McMansions and paying for it in cash. And it's like, I don't really blame them. Like, I understand that because everything feels economically so fraught. And I don't think they're consciously thinking of it that way, but I think they're thinking, oh, this is How I can make it.

[Amanda Montell]

That's such an important reminder and also feels reminiscent of the multi level marketing industry. There are a select number of people who get that Mary Kay Cadillac at the expense of everyone else. And the expense in this situation is identity, time, maybe money, authenticity, privacy.

[Forteza Latifi]

I really do feel for these kids though, and I write about this in the book Amanda, I know you've read it, that I feel a lot more sympathy than I expected for the parents who are at the head of this and not for all of them. Like there are some things that I look at, I'm like, I can't understand that. Like that video I was describing to you guys that I cannot understand. But a lot of times family vloggers start as young moms who got married really young, 18, 19, 20, had a bunch of kids in rapid succession, never got to go to college, never got to have that like self realization. And then they find themselves in this system that totally locks them out of any economic opportunity and, and they're like, it's interesting because mom influencing and family vlogging is the only job I can think of where having a kid is a positive because I feel like in every other job in the world like as a mother and I have great work that's really flexible and like I have really understanding bosses and stuff. But it's not helpful to have a baby and work. It's just not. Like I love my daughter, she's the best thing I've ever done. But like it doesn't help my career but like if I were a family vlogger or a mom influencer it would help my career and not only that, but I'd get to stay home with her and like totally focus and like whatever. And you can say obviously there attention is splintered. But I feel a lot of sympathy because I talk to people for the book that have this entire chapter on the teen moms of TikTok and these girls who got pregnant at 15, 16 and what options did they have, right? So they enter the viral lottery, some of them win it and now they're buying houses and cars and cash and like I'm sitting here like writing about

[Iman Harirukia]

them and also I'd imagine getting pregnant that young and getting married that young can be really isolating. So the ability to form community online with people who are either to going, going through something similar, who are offering like kind words of encouragement and support can be such a like lifeline at the beginning at least before the gold rush sets in.

[Forteza Latifi]

I really feel a lot of sympathy for these Creators, and not all the time. And there are things that cross the line for me and that I can't understand. And I also make a different choice than they do. Like, I have a one and a half year old daughter. Her face has never been online, her name has never been online. I don't really write about her. I sometimes write about like my experience of motherhood, but I'm really careful to not include details about her. So even as I understand them, I am making a radically different choice.

[Iman Harirukia]

Yeah. So what differences do you see between the kid fluencers of like five, 10 years ago? We've been talking a lot about Tana Mongeau and like the rise of the YouTube influencer, and then those raised in family vlogging situations and now those who are making actual short form content themselves.

[Forteza Latifi]

It's interesting because there's kind of this class of kid influencers that has in a way, what I see as like the best of both worlds. Like I think of like the Ryan's world kid, right? And like, obviously he's the biggest child influencer in the entire world. There's no one bigger than him. But also, I know nothing about him. His entire channel is just like a commercial and it's just a capitalistic fever dream. There's never videos of him like having a tantrum. There's never videos of him explaining that he's not doing well in school or talking about his first crush or whatever. So there's these creators that are like kid influencers, but they are very specific and in their lane. And so for my book, I talked to some creators who started like 10, 15 years ago and they did like all like skits and stuff. Like they would do like just these really funny things where they would be like, each member of our family has to eat food that's only one color for the entire day, right? And it was just kind of like silly and like it wasn't personal and it wasn't private and whatever. And then there's like the family vlogger families which really traffic in that personal and private and intimate and where the people really feel like they know the kids and they love them and they know them really deeply, right? And so there's different kinds of like, levels even within child influencers. And I think the interesting thing about today's child influencers is that some of them have been influencers since they were in utero. There's so many accounts of mom influencers and dad influencers starting Instagram accounts for their fetuses who are not yet born and they're racking up hundreds of thousands of followers and sometimes they're getting sponsorships and they're not even born yet.

[Reese Oliver]

That reaches like, quiverful territory where it's like, at this point, are you having kids for content?

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

Family vibes.

[Amanda Montell]

And it's giving, like baptized by capitalism.

[Reese Oliver]

You know, you've been vlogged now, so now you exist.

[Amanda Montell]

You just like, people are going to start having slime births.

[Forteza Latifi]

Oh my God, no.

[Reese Oliver]

Literally, I don't want to be there for that.

[Iman Harirukia]

Someone's going to be listening to this and say, wait, that's actually not a bad idea.

[Amanda Montell]

I know. I hate when I do sponsorship.

[Reese Oliver]

Get it Sponsored.

[Amanda Montell]

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[Reese Oliver]

Okay, so shifting gears a little bit, what are some of the worst case scenarios you have seen in the kidfluencer world? Like, I am definitely thinking a lot about Piper Raquel, who Amanda mentioned earlier and whom I honestly don't know very. So if you'd like to expand more on her as well.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah. So Piper was one of the preeminent kid influencers of the 2010s. She was this massive YouTube sensation. She lived in Georgia and then she and her mom, when she achieved YouTube fame, they moved to LA and then they started this almost like a hype house before we called it a hype house. And it was like these other kid influencers joined and they were called Piper Raquel and the squad and did all these things together, made millions of dollars, had a great time. And then a few years ago, Piper's mother was sued by a bunch of the former squad members and accused of some really terrible stuff of like verbal abuse, sexual abuse, just really terrible stuff. And they ended up settling, and Tiffany Smith, who's Piper's mom, denies all wrongdoing. And they ended up settling for like $1.85 million. But after that, Piper's YouTube channel was demonetized, which obviously, like, YouTube has been her entire life. She's made hundreds of thousands of dollars a month since she was a kid. So like, now what? Right? So. And then a huge Netflix documentary came out about all, which was Bad Influence, the Dark side of Kid Fluency. And I interviewed Piper for Rolling Stone a month or two after the Netflix documentary came out, and she was like, no one wants anything to do with me. Like, no one will work with me. No one will talk to me. Because she was kind of this, like, I don't know, it's interesting because people are not like blaming her for her mother's supposed crimes, which Tiffany denies. But she was kind of caught in the storm and people were like, we have to save Piper from Tiffany. And Piper was like, I don't need to be saved. I love my mother. Like, this is not, not what you guys think it is. And then Piper would make tons of content around, she was 17 at the time about the possibility of joining OnlyFans. And I interviewed her again for Teen Vogue when she turned 18, and she was like, I'm hoping that people take me seriously once I turn 18, that I can move forward kind of on my own and away from like what people think my mom did. And maybe I'll get re monetized on YouTube. Maybe people want to do brand deals with me, like, blah, blah, because she was really this figure that no one wanted to work with. And then on January, January 1, she joined Only Fans and she made $2 million in one day. And I talked to her for Rolling Stone again and she was basically like, everyone has dragged me through the mud for years. What else am I going to do? She didn't say what are my options? But that's the feeling that I got from her.

[Amanda Montell]

Would you count that as a worst case scenario in the cult of kid fluency?

[Forteza Latifi]

I mean, I don't want to judge the choices that she's making, but I do think it's pretty bleak.

[Iman Harirukia]

What advice would you give to. To parents in situations like these who are raising kids than about navigating the cult of kid fluencers?

[Forteza Latifi]

I don't think there's a way to like, have your cake and eat it too. There's this part in my book where I listened to this mom and dad influencer and they were on a podcast and they Were talking about how they were dropping their daughter off at preschool, and the other parents were like, oh, my gosh, look, it's so and so. It's so and so. Because they recognized her from the Internet, and they were like, that's so weird to me. Like, why are they, like, saying that? And I'm like, yeah, that is weird. But also, you made her an Instagram account when she was a fetus. So, like, what do you expect? Kind of like, I don't think you can have it both ways.

[Amanda Montell]

I think a lot about how maybe I'll, like, want to send my kid to, like, a hippie school where, like, all of the parents just agree.

[Reese Oliver]

Waldorf.

[Iman Harirukia]

Yeah.

[Forteza Latifi]

No.

[Amanda Montell]

Well, okay. So exactly. So then I'm like, okay, well, if you go too extreme on either end, it ends up being a cult.

[Reese Oliver]

And then the homeschooling is culty too.

[Forteza Latifi]

I know.

[Amanda Montell]

So then I'm like, what are we supposed to do?

[Reese Oliver]

Cry?

[Amanda Montell]

And on that note, we want to play a game.

[Forteza Latifi]

Oh, God. Okay. After all this darkness, let's play a game.

[Reese Oliver]

It's time for profit or stop it.

[Amanda Montell]

Reese invented this game.

[Reese Oliver]

Invented this silly little game. So we are going to describe to you a significant member of this cult without using their name or any identifying details. Your job is to tell us if this is a real person. Double points if you know who they are or if we made them up. Okay, number one, Cute little girl curses like a sailor and obnoxiously flaunts wealth. Usually yelling also makes music.

[Forteza Latifi]

Oh, Lil tay.

[Reese Oliver]

Ding, ding, ding.

[Forteza Latifi]

Also, she joined OnlyFans, too. So Piper is not the only child influencer who has turned to OnlyFans.

[Reese Oliver]

It's a pretty big pipeline because I would even put Danielle Bregoli in that bucket as well. Like, man and I were mentioning earlier how Tana, once she became of age, she started essentially an only fans agency where she was, like, helping her fans start OnlyFans careers.

[Forteza Latifi]

I don't like that.

[Reese Oliver]

No, it's bad.

[Forteza Latifi]

Don't bring other people in.

[Iman Harirukia]

Right.

[Amanda Montell]

Extra culty at that point.

[Iman Harirukia]

Okay, ready for your next one?

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah.

[Iman Harirukia]

Young boy and his small but very fat dog named Meatball share meatball sandwiches.

[Forteza Latifi]

I don't know this, so I'm gonna say it's not real.

[Iman Harirukia]

Correct?

[Forteza Latifi]

Correct. That one was fake.

[Amanda Montell]

That was a Stop it. That's a Stop it. That's a Stop it.

[Forteza Latifi]

That's a good idea, though. Someone should do it.

[Amanda Montell]

Next one little boy is obsessed with his local grocery store films, himself and his family holding products and eating from the deli. Okay.

[Forteza Latifi]

I feel like this could totally exist, but I don't know it.

[Amanda Montell]

Is it profit or. Stop it.

[Forteza Latifi]

Stop it.

[Amanda Montell]

No, we're Costco guys.

[Forteza Latifi]

Well, okay, you said local duck Grocery store. That's not Costco, I guess.

[Reese Oliver]

Look, I met local. Like, I. I just assume that's big retailers. Yeah, local.

[Amanda Montell]

I.

[Reese Oliver]

There's a Costco.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm obsessed with them, and I, like, ask them to be interviewed all the time.

[Amanda Montell]

We'll give you that one.

[Reese Oliver]

They get five big booms from you.

[Forteza Latifi]

I was thinking like a. Like Erewhon or like a Trader Joe's or something.

[Amanda Montell]

Trader Joe's and Costco are like the same level of local grocery store. Let's be honest.

[Iman Harirukia]

I can't believe there isn't one of these with Erewhon, though I'm sure there's definitely going to be in the future.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, for sure.

[Reese Oliver]

Baby Bieber in the future.

[Amanda Montell]

All right, ready?

[Iman Harirukia]

Little Mormon girl gets ready for service and reviews. This week's Crumbl lineup.

[Forteza Latifi]

I don't think that exists. Stop it.

[Reese Oliver]

Correct. You're gonna miss it.

[Forteza Latifi]

That is not real.

[Iman Harirukia]

But I'm shocked to find out it's not real.

[Reese Oliver]

I've watched this.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah, Crumbling, right, isn't it? Like, it's over.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, really?

[Reese Oliver]

They're really grasping at straws. They're trying to do other desserts. They're reformulating cookies. They are closing a lot of stores rapidly. They're just.

[Amanda Montell]

They're struggling.

[Forteza Latifi]

They're not having a good time.

[Amanda Montell]

I hate the crumble cookies. I gotta be honest, they're pretty nice.

[Forteza Latifi]

They're not.

[Amanda Montell]

They're not good.

[Iman Harirukia]

They don't look good to me.

[Amanda Montell]

They're not good at all.

[Reese Oliver]

Anything.

[Forteza Latifi]

They're Instagram cookies.

[Reese Oliver]

They are. Last one little boy rates and reviews every Shirley Temple he drinks. His standards are high, but that means, you know, his reviews are trustworthy.

[Forteza Latifi]

Stop it.

[Reese Oliver]

This is real. I fucking love this kid. This is Shirley Temple King on TikTok. Go follow him, everybody, right now. Go follow. That's literally all the content is, is him trying Shirley Temples and like giving it a rating.

[Iman Harirukia]

Shirley Temple King is also such an incredibly iconic.

[Amanda Montell]

Honestly, I can't even quite presumptuous.

[Reese Oliver]

But I think he deserves the title.

[Forteza Latifi]

You're a prince. At the most,

[Reese Oliver]

once you're out of the kidfluencer range, you hit 18. Some people start an onlyfans, some people graduate to Shirley Temple King.

[Forteza Latifi]

And then at 21, he's gonna be like vodka tonic King.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. Dirty turkey king.

[Amanda Montell]

Rhys, you are so iconic for taking the tone from a really dismal place and bringing the mood up with this game alone. Very impressive. And Forteza, you are iconic for lending your life to this reporting. If folks want to keep up with you and and buy your book, where can they do that?

[Forteza Latifi]

Yes, you can buy like follow, subscribe wherever you buy your books. Literally everywhere. And you can follow me hifortessa everywhere. H I F O R T E S A Incredible.

[Reese Oliver]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Forteza Latifi]

Yeah, thanks for having me. I literally love it so much.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay, Reese and Iman, out of these three cold count categories, live your life, watch your back and get the fuck out. What do you think the cult of kid fluencers falls into?

[Iman Harirukia]

I feel very strongly that this is

[Amanda Montell]

a Get the fuck out.

[Reese Oliver]

Get the fuck out.

[Amanda Montell]

Get the fuck out. There's nothing good about this other than maybe Shirley Temple King.

[Reese Oliver]

Shirley Temple King. You get a power. You are our Shirley Temple. Everybody else is dead to me.

[Amanda Montell]

I'm like spiritually drained from talking about

[Iman Harirukia]

this a little bit, and I feel deeply concerned about the next generation.

[Amanda Montell]

Me too. Okay, well, on that cute little note, that's our show.

[Reese Oliver]

Thank you so much for listening.

[Iman Harirukia]

Stick around for a new cult next

[Amanda Montell]

week, but in the meantime, stay culty

[Iman Harirukia]

but not too culty.

[Amanda Montell]

Sounds like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and hosted by Amanda Montel, Reese Oliver, and Amon Harirukia. This episode was was produced by Reese Oliver. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Notes on Modern Irrationality and Word A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network, Studio71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse. Sounds Like a Cult pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com soundslikeaculture.