Do you know how much an influencer makes? If so many people quit their day jobs to share content online incessantly, there is one reason: depending on the platform and the following, you can make as little as 2$ or as much as 50,000$ per post. And here’s the news: you don’t need any particular talent for your videos to go viral. The easiest way to amass followers is to share details about your private life. And what better than life with kids to give you that opportunity?
Ask any informed person, and they’ll tell you that putting your kids’ pictures or videos online is a bad idea. However, most parents are used to sharing their kids’ lives with their family and friends on social media. And they don’t feel they’re doing anything wrong: welcome to the world of “sharenting.” But where does it stop being “cute,” and where does it start to be exploitation?
What are influencers, and what do they do?
Influencers are individuals who have established a dedicated audience through platforms like social media, blogs, or video channels. They leverage their platforms to influence their followers’ opinions, behaviours, and purchasing decisions. This brings them money in several forms: first, they can monetize the views on the social media platforms where they share their content (many platforms will pay them according to the number of views, likes, or comments you get on a post). Second, brands and companies will pay to advertise their products, implicitly or explicitly, in their videos, especially if they can reach many viewers. Then royalties, gifts, and other incomes come with popularity. Influencers have proliferated since the increased popularity of social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and many others, and being one is now a full-fledged career.
Type of influencers and earnings
With time, influencers have earned their salary pyramid based on their content type and reach:
- Mega-Influencers are celebrities or individuals with millions of followers, often with broad reach but less personal engagement.
- Macro-influencers have a significant following (100,000 to one million) focusing on specific niches.
- Micro-influencers have smaller audiences (10,000 to 100,000 followers) who often have highly engaged and niche-focused communities.
- Nano-influencers are everyday individuals with a small but loyal following (1,000 to 10,000 followers), known for authenticity and strong personal connections.
According to various online sources, this table estimates how much an influencer can earn per video or post, depending on the platform and their followers. Each platform has its rules, but this will give you a ballpark idea.
| Platform | Nano $/post | Micro $/post | Macro $/post | Mega $/post |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $200-$1.000 | $1,000-$5,000 | $5,000-$10,000 | $10,000-$50,000 | |
| $25-$250 | $250-$1,250 | $1,250-$12,500 | $12,500+ | |
| -- | $2-$20 | $20-$100 | $100-$1,000 | |
| YouTube | -- | -- | $1,000-$10,000 | $10,000-$50,000 |
| TikTok | -- | -- | $80-$120 | $80-$120 |
Anything for likes
So, what do influencers have to do to gain popularity? They create content. What type of content? It could be anything. Some will talk about a topic they’re passionate about, their lifestyle, or their travels. Followers often trust influencers for their perceived authenticity, for validating a trend or product desirability, or for being relatable.
Many influencers are professionals. They are passionate about the topics they talk about and dedicate their time to creating quality content. And you don’t necessarily need expensive or dedicated equipment to film and distribute videos: a phone and a camera are all you need to get started. However, many have discovered that you can get attention, views and followers (and the money that goes with them) in other ways.
The concept of “anything for likes” refers to the widespread practice of people engaging in unusual, often absurd, or even harmful behaviours solely to accumulate social media likes and followers. This phenomenon has been observed across various platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit.
For example, on TikTok, users have posted videos showcasing extreme or bizarre behaviours, such as eating a book, performing dangerous stunts, or engaging in awkward social interactions, all in pursuit of likes and followers. The “TikTok challenge” trend exemplifies how creators can get involved in harmful behaviours. Always on TikTok, the dancing trend has brought to the surface cults and companies trying to exploit young dancers looking for a breakthrough.
On Instagram, hashtags like #anythingforlikes and #likebait have emerged, with users sharing content that is often provocative, attention-seeking, or misleading.
The willingness to engage in such behaviours often stems from a deep-seated desire for validation and attention, highlighting the darker aspects of social media’s impact on mental health and self-esteem. The proliferation of fake or manipulated content raises concerns about the erosion of trust and the blurred lines between reality and fiction online. The emphasis on likes and followers can lead to a culture of competition, comparison, and superficiality, potentially undermining meaningful connections and genuine online interactions. But there’s worse.
The sharenting phenomenon
Sharenting is the phenomenon of parents oversharing photos and other information about their children on social media. Our kids are the first generation to inherit social media presence and privacy risks they didn’t ask for. According to recent studies (see the sources in the video below), by age 5, the average kid has 1,500 photos of them online. These studies estimate that over 90% of American children have a social media presence by age 2. According to Barclays, by 2030, “sharenting” could account for up to 7 million incidents of identity theft and over $800 million in online fraud. This is while parents don’t see anything wrong in sharing their kids’ life details online without their consent.
In the video below, some of these kids have conversations with their parents about it. How do you think it went?
However, this is just the surface of the sharenting problem. Some parents use their kids to create content for likes and revenue to become successful influencers, regardless of their kids’ emotions or heart-breaking reactions. Kids have enormous followings, and not all followers are there to watch innocently. But many parents, apparently, don’t care.
From Sharenting to child exploitation
The video below provides an overview of parent behaviours that become progressively more questionable in their everyday posts. You can find these videos everywhere, and the worst part is that they are extremely popular, adding up to views in the millions.
The desperate need to create content pushes people to share inappropriate information about their kids. Tantrums, meltdowns, embarrassing accidents, and private moments are all put on public display for laughs and strangers’ entertainment. Sometimes, especially with younger children, parents create situations that provoke adverse reactions from their kids, film them, laugh about them, and put them on public display for everybody to see. For the sake of likes, parents are becoming their kids’ bullies, and it doesn’t stop here. Another popular scenario is parents sharing their kids’ medical information online, documenting their sicknesses and private conversations with their doctors.
The video below shows the situations and scenarios that have spread over the Internet through these viral posts.
Many of the videos featuring kids put them in uncomfortable situations, and some are indeed hard to watch. However, while children appearing on TV and participating in video productions are protected by legislation such as the Children’s Television Act, FCC guidelines, and child labour laws, the Internet is still largely unregulated. This makes it possible for parents to profit by exploiting and bullying their kids into these situations.
The darker side of influencer parents: children for likes
Believe it or not, it gets even worse. Just recently, Netflix released a documentary about JonBenét Ramsey’s unsolved murder. The child was put by her parents in pageants and was likely targeted and killed because her popularity attracted the attention of the wrong person.
The same type of attention is now attracted from videos spread online by kids’ parents hungry for likes. The only difference is that millions of views amplify this kind of attention on kids, endangering them exponentially.
The following video gathers such cases and cases of malicious child exploitation online by their influencer parents: due to the sensitive content and subjects depicted, it’s unsuitable for younger audiences.
As profit prevails over common sense, regulating children’s rights online is becoming necessary.
We should aim to protect children’s rights, privacy, and well-being while balancing the freedom of expression for creators.
A starting point could be to extend child labour protection laws to include social media platforms, ensuring that children featured in videos are not overworked, exploited, or placed in harmful situations. But this is still not enough.
Parents are putting their children on display for profit and popularity. And as long as they will profit from them, these behaviours won’t likely stop. Many are advocating for social media platforms to stop remunerating videos where kids appear. This would immediately drop the most dangerous trends and force creators to look elsewhere for likes.
While this happens, however, we can all do something to expose how these behaviours are wrong and harmful to kids.
We can all spread the word and call out parents posting this type of content. And, if they don’t stop, report them. We can also teach children about their rights regarding online content featuring them, including how to speak up about misuse or exploitation.
Schools and communities can do a lot if they know the problem. We can all help.
