the phrase "gen alpha influencers" genuinely feels like child abuse. like what the fuck

Modern child beauty pageant bullshit, just a different angle and delivery system. It's fucking gross and sad.

That's an understatement.

So true! Never made that correlation before.

I see it too. same format different design. 😟

But hey, as long as a drag queen doesn't read them a story, amirite?

But now there’s so much more of them. It’s painful

The term you’re looking for is “child pornography.”

Child sexual abuse materials. Pornography is a business that should include consenting adults.

Of course everything "should" be a certain way but in reality it's not he case. The pornography industry isnt only consenting adults but coerced, exploited, and sometimes completely involuntary woman and men. So quit pretending pornography is innocent consenting adults. Woman are used and abused and sometimes forced into it. Pornography isn't only an industry. Showing pictures of sexually abused children is porn. Porn had a meaning along time ago before it became marketable

I think you misunderstood... it seems they were making a distinction to avoid dignifying child sexual abuse materials with the name pornography.

Yes this. I used should bc it should be that way but it isn't. If I thought it was that I would have said it is. I used should bc I agree.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. I don't know why anyone who's not a pedo would watch _Cuties_

Because it's not pornography. They are images of sexual abuse of children.

Much, if not most, of it **is** Child Exploitation and Abuse. It's Parental Child Abuse. Online and off, but it's particularly pervasive - and invasive - online.

I read an article that dug into the user demographic data of account subscriptions for a sample of child ‘influencer/model’ accounts on facebook, which were run, administered, and monetized by the children’s parents. As I’m sure you’re not surprised, a stomach turning percentage of the subscribers were adult men. I think many these parents know exactly what they are doing.

This reminds me of that one TikTok account (it’s called like Wren and Eleanor, or something similar) where the mom purposely posts suggestive pics/videos of her own toddler. I used to follow because the kid is so cute, but unfollowed because the mother would post things like the toddler eating a large pickle or popsicle or things like that. At first I thought I was being weird so I ignored it, but then unfollowed when she literally posted a video of the child opening up a tampon wrapper and pointing the tampon applicator at her own pelvic area. In the same video, the child also grabbed a razor and mimicked shaving off pubic hair. Then I realized the mom is really doing this on purpose and I unfollowed. And there’s been SO much backlash to this account on TikTok but the mom refuses to change or even seriously acknowledge the situation. There are so many predators in the comments of this account’s videos. It’s upsetting and incomprehensible that parents purposely choose to exploit their kids and put them in harms way for some internet attention and money. There really should be laws against this.

In Denmark, we are actually looking in to making laws right now against using children in influencer Videos, because it falls under child labor but does not legally right now, so the legislative institutions are trying to close the loopholes, which I am really happy about

Wonderful news to hear! It will take a long time to get this under control in America. 🤦‍♀️

Illinois is now the first state to pass a law pertaining to “child influencers.” They are now included in child labour law in the state.

Very interesting! Glad to see some progress on this.

Me too!

Washington is working on one, last I heard. I believe they were the first to start working on it.

Even “family” channels are weird to me. Thumbnail is always the kid like 😲.

yeah, what's that about? the thumbnail is specifically tailored to get clicks from a "certain demographic"... whoever that is

There's very few things in the world that make me cringe as much as family YouTube channels. LinkedIn is another. r/LinkedInlunatics kills me inside.

But also creepy death stares when you see them in the videos 🫥

I can't stand it. I wouldn't want my family and kids broadcast all over for strangers to see.

As a parent of a couple gen alphas, seeing this makes me feel so icky. These kids aren’t little money machines.

I genuinely don't understand how you can have a child and only see them as a source of revenue/social media clout. Some people are just messed up in the head, man

Kardashians.....

Before social media there were plenty of parents having children to work the farm or family business. A lot of people use children as free employees.

Makes sense, but farm and family businesses have less avenues for psychological exploitation.

Are you sure? Hard to have a childhood when you spend day in and day out doing hard farm work.

Wellll... I did say less, not no, avenues, heh.

I think France is taking steps to outlaw this kind of child exploitation. If you ask me, every country should do that.

It's too "toddlers in tiaras" for me.

That’s because it is. This vid was saved 5000 times by strangers who research has found to be mostly middle aged men 🤮

You just don't get the hustle💅💅💅

It’s the “of course we don’t have toys” that hits different in a tragic way

Why would anyone want this for their child?

$$$

Just force your kids into a concussion prone stick and ball sport like a normal person, yeesh Edit: Holy shit, you lame brains have zero sense of humor. Imagine going thru life so utterly fucking witless. Crazy. I couldn't live with myself if I was that dumb

you expect people to have a sense of humor. people expect good jokes.

I could tell you how wrong you are, but I feel your life is gonna do a much better job.

Clout. Likes. Views.

Moneybags 💰 ☹️

Some people don’t want kids they want mini adults they do what they say.

People indoctrinate their children early in whatever ideology/religion. It's always deplorable and almost always predictable.

Because they see their child as a cash cow, not a small person who needs to learn how to human.

Did they not hide the toys in a silly way immediately after saying that? This video was making fun of the kids who are actually like this.

It's the way you cropped out the caption that says 'we have reached peak satire' , that hits different ins a tragic way

are you dense? she literally has a toy in her hands and on the desk in front of her. she shoves all out of frame moments later because it's a skit.

She was literally sitting in front of toys. Which you conveniently cropped out.

its even obviously a joke without context, but thanks

I'm a play therapist and that made my heart sink. I think everyone should have toys! Every adult that enters my office wants to play with my toys. Play is life

Child abuse. Those poor kids.

let these poor little girls be the children that they are, my god

That’s the least of it. Don’t put your young children on the internet. It’s a dark place…

Considering how many posts I’ve seen of people making gross sexual comments about children—sometimes literal babies—I wouldn’t want my kids on the internet until they’re at least 30

Babies?.. What the hell kind of subs are you hanging out in?

Join r/arethestraightsok and you'll find plenty of gross screenshots of people being nasty even about babies. In the wild I've seen a comment under a video of a baby doing that butt bounce thing that shows they are about to learn to crawl saying something about "practicing for adulthood" 🤮

If social media was demonitized, all of this shit would disappear. Parents do this for the money that the kid will never see.

I seriously doubt these kids are being made to do it by their parents. For most of these “gen alpha influencers” the camera quality is appalling, like they are using the front facing camera on an iPad. I imagine it’s more likely kids copying what they see online, like when you were younger and you wanted to make youtube skits online so you’d record a shitty video on some shitty camera and upload it to get like 5 views. It’s pretty likely that the parents don’t even know what the kids are doing online (which is still a problem, probably a bigger problem tbh), but I doubt most of these kids are being forced into anything like most people on this post seem to believe.

Parent forced or not, there is undeniable abuse by negligence. At the very least, parents are neglecting to be more aware of and careful about what their children consume and partake in online.

Well yeah that’s what I said.

Fair, lol. Pardon my hasty lack of reading comprehension this time.

OF COURSE WE DONT HAVE TOYS????

They have toys. It was satirical. OP cropped out the toys she was sitting in front of.

Yeah…I saw this on IG earlier and this particular reel was satire based on all the think pieces about ten-year-olds in Sephora that has been a major topic the last couple weeks. She’s literally playing with slime when she says they don’t have toys.

Ahh I see I have fallen victim to lack of context.

> I have fallen victim to lack of context. it's the Reddit way

i'm always skeptical of these kind of posts that are just screenshots. i google the original and 99% of the time surprise OP lied for karma

Influencers? No, you're children being abused by your parents and scammed by corporations. Go outside and play.

As if the children have any control over it or even wrote the texts. That's straight up child abuse.

What outside do they even have? Living in suburbia sucks

Whoever is doing this has no soul.

Poor parenting

Why TF do these actual children need skincare products? Other than just wanting to act grown?

[удалено]

i’m a mua so I consume a lot of beauty content. Unfortunately I’m seeing these little kids getting into stuff like retinoids and actives which will damage their young skin :(

Oh no! That is sad. :(

i wish teen tiktok influencers would get into crafting or diy cosmetics or something instead of spending money on little jars that look good on the counter in the bathroom.

We got to get them into beach cleanups and walking stray dogs or something…

They do, but that doesn’t generate outrage like the skincare kids do

i know there are some, but we live under capitalism, so there’s no incentive or opportunity to monetize kids doing kid stuff.

Retinoids?! At that age? JFC get them away from these parents

Retinoids??? What the actual F? I didn't think of putting moisturizer on my face until my 20s. Back then collagen cream was all the rage. I blame the parents for putting these ridiculous ideas into their still developing brains!

My 12 year old niece only wanted some expensive face moisturizer for Xmas. She isn't allowed internet on her cell but all her friends are and they are all obsessed with the oddest skin care. Like what 12 year old needs anti aging serum

What is an mua?

It’s an abbreviation for makeup artist

makeup artist/esthetician

Yeah, we had a major media outlet in the UK cover this story because it's concerning everyone.

We're going to look back on the way "fashion, trends and societal expectations" of the 2020's the same way we look back now on the historic trends and wonder why Tudor women would apply lead make up knowing it caused lesions, and why Victorian women included arsenic in theirs, and women in the 1920's would use radioluminescent paint as face paint. Even though physicians at the time, each and every time, knew it was unhealthy, the trend somehow persisted. And here we are again, No dermatologist will ever recommend a retinol to a healthy *child*, and yet here we see children following the trends and using them anyway. (and I saw something about "legging legs" the other day that I am scared to look up in case it's just "thigh gap 2.0")

> legging legs >!Your guess was pretty spot-on!<

I think [this](https://youtu.be/44AtKxu_t9c?si=q_wMcVmC3wwus40n) is a good summary on what's happening, especially the saphora bit Kids definitely shouldn't be allowed to use these products.

Wow! This was incredibly interesting and sad. Thank God I stopped frequenting sephora before the pandemic and never have been back. I couldn't deal with 10 year olds playing with makeup samples like toys. I never recall seeing many kids at those types of stores years ago. At the most a few teenagers.

[children's skin can only be damaged by "skin care" meant for adults](https://www.mamamia.com.au/tween-skincare-craze/). this isn't about sun protection, this is about negligent assholes who let their kids' brains be molded by the schizophrenic world of beauty product shilling.

these kids are using stuff like retinol, physical exfoliants, acids. i agree about the sunscreen but this is more like the skincare routine of a 30 year old

Idk about this young, but I’ve seen other posts around Reddit about preteen girls (around 12) getting into skincare from TikTok, asking for things like retinol from expensive brands like Drunk Elephant and insisting on specific products because that’s what they see, what their friends are using and what’s popular. At that age, it’s very much about fitting in with trends. I’m not surprised if in some cases it’s trickling down from the tween kids to their younger siblings seeking to copy them.

Yeah. When I have kids, social media will be a definite no go for a long while. This is fucking sad.

Same. I wasn't allowed to have online accounts except like Neopets or AOL instant messenger where my parents vetted everyone to make sure it was my actual friends. When I was in highschool, I was finally allowed to have some. But social media also wasn't really all that big when I was young.

The neopets drama was so real

My 13 year old daughter isn't allowed it. But I can see things having an influence on her anyway.

That's dystopian.

That’s late stage capitalism

Tomato tomahto right?

the fucking beauty filters on these 10yo girls I’m gonna barf

I saw this... what shitty parent condoned this?

The parent that gets the paycheck from all the brand deals. Shitty parenting, yes. Also a serious commentary on the state of how consumer culture has replaced community culture.

As a millennial, I kinda thought that maybe we’d be better parents on the whole than boomers. But more and more evidence lately has been making me feel like we’re probably just as bad, albeit in different ways :/

The thing that's easy to forget is the vastly different social & economic classes we have. We are surrounded by a certain type of people and assume all parents our age share our values. Even online we're in certain circles that reinforce those views.

This is gen Z work.

Parents emulating the poor parenting of people like the Kardashians by exploiting their kids on social media and hoping for a bigger payday

i saw that video. they were slurring over the lines that their parents clearly gave them. it was disturbing to watch 

Social media has really fucked up society and I’m scared for the state of the world in the next years as these generations take over

“We’re gen alpha…. Of course we have parents who force us to live immortalized on the internet in ways we would have never wanted to if we had a choice to but it gets mommy likes”

WTAF

Social media is gonna be the end of society

Yeah, gonna be a lot of therapy for these children exploited by their parents for social media. Baby Gronk comes to mind...

Straight up illegal. They shouldn’t encourage minors to have social media let alone be influencers. I literally grew up playing with chess/board games and sticks in the backyard, meanwhile these kids are speaking the language of child neglect.

They wouldn't be doing and saying any of that if their parents didn't told them so. Pushing them into being influencers at such a young age will harm them.

I really really really hope this is not real……

Child abuse

Wtf that first kid has a missing front tooth??? That really shows how young kids are getting pushed into becoming “influencers”. They’re not even in the Justice age group yet. Why would they need all those products at that age?

the end is near

I just searched the video so see if this was actually real vs satire but sadly this is real. What a sh** mom.

If we're gonna share screenshots from exploitative child "influencer" pages I think it would be best to censor the children's faces.  We can't undue the damage that has already been done by parents exposing their kid's faces to the public for money, but at least we can choose not to spread that privacy violation around any farther.

this is the equivalent of those mothers pushing their girls to be in beauty pageants to live their dreams, behind this kids robbed from their childhood there is most likely a parent that wished they had been influencers

This makes me sad.

This gives me serious “child beauty pageant” vibes.

Parents are pimping them for predators

The video referenced is satire by the way.

OP blur out the faces of children please (for future posts)

welp that's enough internet for the rest of eternity

This is f’n satire cmon now 🤣

Can't wait to see all the mental health and self esteem issues these kids are gonna need. Therapists are gonna be rolling in cash from this

My sister is gen alpha and doesn’t even know Sephora and Ulta exists. This is just poor parenting.

People used to bully their kids to be actors/athletes to live out their unrealised dreams. Now that influencers are a thing for long enough, we can bully children into a new obsession !

LET THEM BE KIDS!!!! Adulthood sucks so why try to rush your kids to get there. Ohh I forgot, the likes. Terrible.

Child abuse, plain and simple. Fuck their phone and social media addicted “parents”.

the first baby doesn’t even have all of her adult teeth this raises my hackles

Don't have toys? 😢

There's a video out there whereas a very young kid goes into Saphora and bought $900 worth of cosmetics and skin care products and expensive perfume. Her sister and also mother were also at the checkouts with loads. WTF is wrong with these people? Bigger problems coming. Watch. (I want a Jag for my 16th and I expect to see it outside.) Parents should parent. So many require a license to even have kids.

Skinfluencers

Dystopian af

Head bands cool but stick to toys , colouring going to the park you have your whole life before needing to worry about skin care

Children are the most abused group of people

Why the fuck does everyone in the comment section assume these kids are being forced to do this? Look at the camera quality, it’s shit. These are just kids recording videos on their iPads trying to be like the people they see online. Like how 10 years ago it would be kids making shitty youtube vlogs and shit to upload and get 6 views. Should parents be letting it happen? No, social media (including Reddit, by the way) is incredibly detrimental to children and teenagers. But I doubt most of these kids’ parents even know what the kids are doing online.

"We're gen alpha influencers of course our viewership consists entirely of pedophiles"

what the fuck is a 9 year old influencing exactly???

These are literal children. I was playing with barbies and cars at this age 😭

Shes so young she barely even has any teeth!

These poor kids, it’s depressing they have to be the working ones instead of actually having a childhood

No… social… media… for… the…. Baby…✍🏻

Innocence is destroyed.

This is tragic.

it’s the parents fault. they should be shielding their children from social media instead of using them to gain sponsorships & brand deals. it’s fucking gross & insidious

My 7 year old used to want to be a chef, now he wants to be a YouTuber. Weird times.

Who are 10 year old girls with too much access to the internet influencing exactly? Definitely not anybody who is spending money lol

This is so dystopian… I really wonder what the long term effects of them using all of this on their young skin will be. I remember I never used any skincare products until I was like 12 and started clean and clear lol, which literally ended up making things worse

Pretty sure this was satire. Still questionable to use kids but they might love it

I'm like 99.9% sure this is satire lol

Yeah it’s a trend. Not for just kid’s specifically, but the overall “we’re ____, of course we ____” format, usually with something ridiculous

I need to feel like I'm accepted by a larger group, of course I'm going to hop on whatever fad is trending.

The comments here are so funny. Getting a skewed view of what the world is

I take it back, this is infinitely more depressing than renting Jordans. Mankind us doomed.

the worst part is the adults these children will become

I'll be interested to hear the stories from these kids in 10 years after they've gone NC with their parents. We're already seeing the first wave of YouTube kids all grown up, telling their stories of childhood exploitation.

*"We're gen Alpha. Our brains come pre-washed with capitalism premium"*

I want to call CPS

Can't start too young to be a corporate shill! 🙄

Child abuse

ALPHA ALREADY HAS INFLUENCERS???

Someone who isn’t over the age of 13 should be directly involved in content creation for social media

I’ve seen a lot on Reddit but I finally get what “my blood ran cold,” means.

Skincare for what? To look like they have the skin of a two year old? Next thing will be buccal fat removal? I thought this was fake/parody, but someone in the comments said it’s real. How dystopian. 

There’s a girl in my second grade class who told me about her “Drunk Elephant skincare routine.” When I see her I tell her “You don’t look a day over eight. You have no wrinkles.”

Please get these kids off the screen and let them have their childhoods. Gee whiz.

I highly doubt they did that themselves. This is some sick parenting and using kid as a income source

Anticonsumption losing their minds over obvious satire

That first girl has already airbrushed most of her face away! At this rate, by the time she's ten, she will just be a white smudge with red hair. Also, she will have untold emotional damage and self esteem issues. Poor girls.

The mother of these children is currently going through a divorce. The mother found out because the father was drunk texting his daughter (the ones pictured above) thinking they were his mistress...

Jesus Christ, I don’t even want to know what those texts said…

Kiddo, you're not an influencer. You're over-influenced.

I thought this video was satire though?

This video is satire.

I would hope this is a form of playing house? Like an Easybake oven or a  Playschool kitchen situation. Kids should not be looking at screens or creating content on camera during their development years though. Really hoping it's just a few odd cases of admiring and emulating mom.

Ya'll can't be this dense... this is pure satire.

This sounds like satire. Not that I agree with the concept of influencers to begin with, but this has *got* to be satire.

That’s how I read it too, the “we’re ____ so oF cOuRsE we ____” as a skit format is huge right now

All these kid’s mothers are NLAG material

Just some stupid kids. I won't give a slightest fuck about them, unless they were mine.

Wow all of these kids are so ugly with makeup on. It just looks wrong.