Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
GRWM to Go to Jail: When Family Vlogger Lose Control
How far would you go for online fame? In our latest episode of the Toxic Cooking Show, Lindsay McClain and Christopher Patchet, LCSW, LICSW, expose the shocking ethical breaches of momfluencers and family vloggers. Tune in as we dissect the unsettling practices of these online personalities who prioritize content creation over their children’s well-being. From the harrowing tales of the DaddyOFive YouTube channel, where prank videos crossed the line into abuse, to the disturbing cases of Ruby Frankie and Michelle Hobson, we unveil the dark facets of their pursuit for internet stardom.
The episode shifts focus to the harsh realities faced by children in the world of influencer culture, highlighting cases where the line between entertainment and abuse is tragically blurred. We discuss how these influencers have manipulated their platforms, often driven by immense pressure and sometimes religious influences, ultimately jeopardizing their children's safety for the sake of viral success. Ruby Frankie and Michelle Hobson serve as haunting reminders of the dangers lurking within the industry, showing how easily the pursuit of online success can overshadow a child's basic needs and rights.
Engagement is a double-edged sword, and our conversation doesn’t shy away from exploring this paradox. We examine how negative interactions with disliked content can inadvertently amplify its reach. The 'Mr. Beast effect' demonstrates the lengths creators will go for attention, pushing boundaries in ways that might shock you. We urge our audience to be mindful of their online activities, advocating for reporting harmful content rather than contributing to its visibility. Join us in understanding how every click, comment, and share can impact the digital landscape, often in unexpected ways.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, lindsay McLean, and with me is my fantastic co-host.
Speaker 2:Christopher Patchett, lcsw and then LICSW, depending on where you're at.
Speaker 1:I like how you didn't get messed up over the I, but it took a couple letters for you to fully realize that you had made the mistake.
Speaker 2:I don't get why they had the I in there, when I would think that it's already known with LCSW that you're independent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't see why it needs to be specified that you're independent here. That's a weird one. West Virginia Yee-haw, welcome to the South, baby. So today we have a super exciting follow-up from last time. Ooh la la, don't worry, there are actually more parts to this, because this was a rabbit hole from hell that I went down.
Speaker 1:This was supposed to be just two parts and I was like, oh, I think I'm going to have to do a third. So I don't know when that's coming out, but it will come out soon. Just so you know that we haven't covered everything here. So last time we were talking about momfluencers and kind of setting the stage there. But I should add that momfluencers, family vloggers there's a lot, a lot of overlap Like, momfluencers are family vloggers. Family vloggers don't necessarily have to be women, so therefore they're not necessarily momfluencers, but there's, they usually are, they usually are. Unfortunately, I decided that this week we're still going to look at the worst of the worst, like I promised you people going to jail and we're going to have people going to jail, but just know that there's more to come.
Speaker 2:I promised you that people are going to jail.
Speaker 1:And damn it, we're going to deliver. Well, it also feels bad to just drag it out Like we're going to keep getting worse and worse. Each time I was like no, let's just hit the really bad stuff. Good job.
Speaker 2:Good times, good times.
Speaker 1:Good times. The obligatory trigger warning is that we aren't gonna be talking about child abuse, so that's something that you're not feeling real comfortable with today. Maybe come back or listen to another one of our episodes that doesn't involve that oh, good times.
Speaker 1:I know good times yeah, yeah, you have to add that in there. It's like, oh, it's not gonna be good, is it so today, of course, we're looking at the mom fluent to his family vloggers who have crossed that line, and of course, we spoke about last time the fact that when you are an influencer, at a certain point, the product that you are selling is yourself, it's your lifestyle, and when you are a mom fluencer or a family vlogger, that is going to include your kids as well hence the whole point of being a mom uh, yeah, I mean theoretically you could be a mom fluencer for your pets, but I guess then you'd be probably a pet fluencer.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that exists.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I would not doubt it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having kind of run across people who definitely run Instagram accounts for their pets and this, this is their life. It's basically like if they had a kid, but this one is just like a naked cat.
Speaker 2:So I mean that is, that is pathetic, when somebody's you know letting their pet be a huge part of their lives.
Speaker 1:I mean how dare they? We would, we would never. We would never. Don't tell EP that. So yeah, you're selling your kids and their lifestyle and your parenting style, and the internet is a hungry, hungry place. It always wants more content, always more. So you have to keep churning out. If this is how you are making your money, if this is not just like. This is something I'm passionate about, so I like taking photos and putting it on here. You have to be putting out content every day. You really have to be putting out content multiple times a day, and so I think that may be part of what can lead to some of the more extreme behaviors that we'll talk about today and next time. Unfortunately, religion is a part of that. That's a whole other episode on its own. To talk about the fundies on Instagram and TikTok, I'm going to poke one of them today and that's it, because that's a whole. Do you know what fundies are?
Speaker 2:I was going to say fundies. I thought that you were saying at first oh fundies, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Fundies is in fundamental Christians. The ones who have 12 kids. Sometimes they only have eight, but they're all living in a bus and they lock their kids. These are real people. You can cricket sound me all you want. These are real people and they make their money on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, oh, fucking people.
Speaker 1:Okay, go ahead. Are you ready to hate humanity more than you already do? I was gonna say yeah.
Speaker 2:This, this podcast, has not filled me with hope I mean again, it's never too late to have like a podcast about like puppy tales we might need one after this.
Speaker 1:So up first. Our first contender for like, worst people of the year are daddy oh five was their youtube channel name, also sometimes called family oh five, also known as mike and heather martin, real government names. They used to create prank videos where the parents were shown both emotionally and physically abusing their kids, including Prank videos.
Speaker 1:Yes, prank videos such as spraying disappearing ink on the floor and then yelling at the child quote what the fuck did you do? And then yelling at the child quote what the fuck did you do? While the kid hysterically cries because he's really upset that he's going to get in trouble because his parents are yelling at him and he doesn't understand what's going on. But Teehee, it's a prank. Encouraging the kids to slap each other. There are five kids in this family. I believe two of them were from Mike's previous relationship and then three were with the current wife. I think is how it worked. I know that two of the kids were not biologically both of theirs, but just biologically his. That will come up later. But yeah, encouraging the kids to slap each other like across the face, shoving one of the kids like into a bookshelf, that type of quote-unquote prank, that's really funny, teehee I may, maybe 2015, what's?
Speaker 1:that this is.
Speaker 2:This is all happening in 2015 so maybe in the past, you know, close to 10 years, my, my sense of humor has changed. But, um, yeah, I'm not finding the humor. Uh, because, like, when I think of a prank, I think of like you know, like, oh, got you yeah, and we all laugh about it at the end like, haha, you got me good yeah, I'm failing to see the prankish part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, at the very least, humanity was on your side, because they also did not see what was so funny about some of these things and, in particular, the thing with the disappearing ink. That caused them to release an apology video in 2017, not long after it came out because people were like I don't think this is okay. Like that kid is bawling and crying, he's so upset because he doesn't understand what's going on. This is not funny. So, yeah, they released the apology video like oh, we're a family, you know, we're just, we like to have fun together. Yada, yada, yada. We understand that. Maybe from the outside, this went a little too far, so there.
Speaker 2:There's, you know, like one thing that comes to my mind is and and this went around for a little bit was where you took a picture of, like your yourself, just kind of like holding nobody, and then they would have like a little nine-year-old come in like a few minutes later and then they do a magic trick and, like you know, the kid disappears, and then they would show like the other picture of the kid holding nobody and like people would laugh. And there was a very thin line, because sometimes, like they took it too far, where the kid was like crying but like, yeah, you know, when I think of a prank, like you know, like the kid going, oh my god, I'm here, I'm here and being like, oh no, no, no see, this is what we did. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, versus laying the kid get down to the point of crying yeah, and apparently in this video again, the fact that they literally were like yelling at the kid what the fuck did you do as part of their prank? Like that's, we're out of prank territory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no more pranking here.
Speaker 1:You don't come back from that. So, yeah, in 2017, they put that video out and that was what got people really kind of upset about it, really kind of upset about it. And so, in addition to their apology video, they did also stop publishing on the channel right around that time, but unfortunately for them, it was semi too late, because in August of 2017, mike and Heather were arrested and charged with child neglect. Who saw that one coming?
Speaker 2:Big surprise.
Speaker 1:Big surprise. Unfortunately, though, can't stop, won't stop. Mentality set in, and they did. In 2018, they started a new channel called Family 05. Youtube took that one down. They've since kind of popped up a few other places trying to do a little bit of this stuff, but they've never reached the levels that they did in 2015, 2016. They do have a website and they have Twitch, and then Mike the dad has a channel called the Martin Family, where they do have some stuff. I'm not sure how much, though, some stuff. I'm not sure how much, though, because the two children, who were not Heather Martin's biological kids, were removed from their custody and returned to their biological mother, amongst other things. Oh, that's a gross one. Yeah, if you Google problematic influencers, they're going to show up. Problematic influencers they're going to show up, but we have somebody else who will absolutely just like dominate the search results. Do you know the name? Ruby Frankie.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't sound familiar, mm. I have a feeling it's going to sound familiar after this, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she was originally known from the youtube channel called eight passengers. It was a obviously youtube channel of her and her husband and their six kids, so also started in 2015. It was about them living life in utah, doing their thing, and 2020 was when stuff started to fall apart for them. In one of the videos, I think kind of in passing one of their kids, who was 16 at the time, mentioned something about the fact that he'd been banned from his room for pranking his sibling and he'd been sleeping on the beanbag for like six months oh god yeah, another one went to school without lunch and the teacher apparently called and was like hey, your kid doesn't have a lunch.
Speaker 1:And Ruby Frankie's response in a documented video about this was like well, she's supposed to make that herself, so if she didn't make it, then she's going to be hungry. I hope no one gave her any food, because she has to learn.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's.
Speaker 1:This is your kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. So in 2022, the parents separated, their main channel was deleted. I think they'd started receiving some pushback kind of around this time too, of people being like these methods of punishing your kids are really bizarre and really inappropriate, and Ruby began working with a woman called Jodi Hildebrandt. They had this group and then they started a channel called Moms of Truth, and I don't know where dad was in all of this and I do have a lot of questions about that.
Speaker 2:So one thing I do want to kind of say like you know, just real quick for this type of of uh punishment, you know, like, especially a kid at that age is not going to connect the dot that oh well, you know, I didn't make lunch. Therefore I need to be more responsible. A child doesn't have that mentality of connecting to dogs like that. So what their gain is, I didn't make lunch, like uh mom didn't? You know? Uh didn't make it for me.
Speaker 1:Therefore I'm unlovable yeah, well, one of the things that we worked on with at camp was that when you were punishing kids like when I was a camp counselor the punishment had to be appropriate and linked to the problem. So if you had a kid at the barn who was not following directions, you wouldn't say, hey, I'm taking away your swimming time later because it's not connected, it's too far apart. You also wouldn't say you know, you're not going to get, you know, any dessert for the rest of the time you're here, because that's way too large of a punishment for something that's happening. You need to have it right now and be like if you don't, you know, stop and listen. We're with horses, you can get hurt. Then you're coming off the horse and you're going to sit here and watch. They have to be able to understand that. Like able to understand that, like I didn't do this and so therefore, really quick, here is my punishment. The punishment is appropriate and the punishment is linked to the thing that I was doing incorrectly.
Speaker 2:You got to make it like in nice little boxes and I mean I would also say, like you know, age appropriate too yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Like I don't know how old this kid was in this particular situation. At least at camp, the majority of the kids I worked with were girls ages 9 to 11. That was the age group I got a lot. So, again, you really want to hone in and be like nope, you can't listen on the horse, you're coming off the horse and you're going to sit here for 30 minutes. Then we can try again. So, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:The internet did pick up that these punishments were becoming like kind of weird and extreme. Where was I? So in 2023, frankie and hildebrandt were arrested and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse, and how that came about was not because husband stepped in Again. I want to know where husband was in this. Like these were his kids too, and he just seems to have completely disappeared.
Speaker 1:Because they were arrested after the 12-year-old son escaped and showed up at the neighbor's house with duct tape on his ankles asking for food and water. There are like um security cam videos you can find there's like a mini documentary made about this and you can see that like the security cam videos of it, and then you can see the body cam videos from some of the police who went into the house afterwards where this child's sister was. He apparently reported that his wounds had been treated with cayenne pepper and honey. I mean, he had like visible wounds on him from being tied up and again he had duct tape on his ankles where he'd been like tied and clearly he'd gotten out and he was like looking for food and water because he was so hungry that's fucking.
Speaker 1:Oh god, that's sick yeah, both of these kids were like super malnourished when they got the the sister out of the house. Part of how they kind of got her out was luring her out with pizza, because food oh fuck yeah, it's um, if you watch the documentary about it, just be aware that you're gonna see some like grown men, big police officers, kind of tear up talking about it yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's, I mean it's good.
Speaker 2:It's giving me goosebumps just hearing about it, so I mean I can't imagine being there and seeing it and yeah, oh good times.
Speaker 1:Good time on the toxic cooking show.
Speaker 2:Puppy tails.
Speaker 1:We're not done yet, though. We have to wait on the puppy tails.
Speaker 2:Oh fuck.
Speaker 1:I mean, those are the. That that's the worst case of influencers gone wrong. Obviously, there are lots of cases of like parents mistreating their kids, unfortunately, but in terms of like big name influencers, we I think we just unfortunately haven't reached prime saturation level yet for that, because influencing is still like a relatively new thing. But the fact that you can already find these examples of people who started YouTube channels or started Instagram or whatever and have been posting and it's like, oh you know, here's this great, beautiful life. I hear the kids having fun, here's how I do this, here's how I do that, and like it has had time to fall apart so spectacularly. I think we're only going to see more of that in the future, because these were the. These are the two big name cases. Again, if you google like problematic influencer or like influencer who went to jail, ruby frankie is like the number one. She's just going to show up on everything, just like pages and pages of google results for this woman, and rightly so, because, holy shit, like how do you do that?
Speaker 2:oh god, yeah, yeah, I'll never understand it no, and there are more unfortunate.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about this that you had picked up on this last time. There was a youtube channel from the early 2010s called fantastic adventures with seven adopted kids and most of the videos were like really benign and fun, like playing games and all of this type of stuff. But behind the scene, mom was holding them without food and locking them up in closets, pepper spraying them, giving them extremely cold baths.
Speaker 2:And then you know, and then from what I heard and maybe you saw this as well is like if a video didn't make a certain amount, then she would do these types of things. Yeah, so the kids' motivation to make a good video was. Here's your basic necessities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:For a day or two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a day, until we have to make a new video, because, again, even at this point, like you got to keep churning out the content, whatever that content is, you have to keep putting it out there or your videos are not going to show up in the algorithm. And so I think these people were like all feeling the pressure of like I just I have to keep going, I have to make more. I mean, if it's any consolation for her, she did Michelle Hobson, she passed away in 2019. But not before being accused of what is it? 30 counts of kidnapping and child abuse.
Speaker 2:Damn.
Speaker 1:Huh, yep, and there are more. Cases Like these are the ones who have been charged, like there was enough evidence or something went so badly wrong that, like, child protective services got involved and looked into it. There are a lot, a lot out there who it doesn't take a lot of looking before you start to be like, oh, I don't know is, is this okay? Like this, is you know where's the line between you know, the prank and the abuse? And where's the line between the prank and the abuse? Where's the line between when you have a lot of kids, you're going to miss some stuff. And there's a fundie who is one I'm willing to talk about this time. Her Instagram got taken down recently, thank God. They're called the Collins Kids. You may have you probably wouldn't have, because you're a dude, but if for our female listeners, I feel discriminated against, like no, you haven't because you're a dude.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, there's sexist.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying the algorithm shows us wildly different stuff. If you have ever seen a video of a white woman with dyed blonde hair, I don't know if you would recognize it as dyed, being a man, but it's definitely dyed. She's got blue eyes and she's got this horrific like early 2000s, like excessive black eye makeup going on. What's her name? Um collins, kids c-o-l-l-i-n-s, and she's usually surrounded by her 11 at this point children, and they all look kind of creepy because she is definitely. She's been accused of this and I would fully believe it. So she's white and her husband is black. Uh, she lightens her kids skin in photos and she messes with their eye color to try and make it blue. It's like babes. That's not how genetics works. This is the lady who I think last time I sent you the post she had made at one point about her oldest child being a baby and having a poop fight on the trampoline with the dad.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean she's been accused of like again the fact that her kids are running around in diapers filled with poop so often, obviously, I mean kids are obsessed with poop, like they're gonna get ahold of it, they're gonna put it on things, but like the fact that it kept having their kids are just like you see it in the videos, these really saggy diapers, like constantly, like that child needs the diaper to be changed. Why are you letting them run around like this, like it's not healthy? Did you find them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I saw them.
Speaker 1:Do you recognize them?
Speaker 2:No, I don't recognize them at all.
Speaker 1:See, I told you, I told you, the algorithm is not showing you these people, it's showing you sexy ladies.
Speaker 2:Well, my algorithm is mostly showing me dog videos and short jokes, because those are the two. That is how we send each other and unfortunately lately, because I couldn't shut my mouth about the election some seeing a lot of conservative posts now too I'm so sorry and and, and. The sad thing is every time that that I see one, I I start like you know, like you, mother, I was like no, this is just adding to it next one don't engage.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's hard uh yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, this lady's been accused of like letting her her crotch goblins run around with like overly full diapers. I believe they are all homeschooled and there's some questions about like are these kids actually getting an education? Cause you can be homeschooled and receive an amazing education. Like the two are not necessarily connected, but there are some questions about like are these kids actually getting anything?
Speaker 1:She definitely uses the oldest kids to take care of the younger ones. Like every time she pops out a new one. It's just like here you go off to the older kids to take care of the younger ones. Like every time she pops out a new one. It's just like here you go off to the older kids to kind of take care of. It's like they're still children. She calls one of her children a bulldog and she tries to like play it off as cutesy and it's like you don't like this kid, like you really don't like this one and you find ways to try and pretend that it's okay, but you're putting it out here on the internet and people are picking up that like this one child because she doesn't follow your rules and like you know the way you want her to live bulldog oh god yeah, again, we'll.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about them when we talk about the fundies in general, because unfortunately they are. They are christian like crazy christian, not regular christian, but like but there are more yay no, I'll only give you. I looked up like a whole big list. I was like I can't make you sit through all of it. You also have people like Roman Atwood, who I had never heard of before, but he liked to do pranks involving pretending to like blow up his children or have them fall over railings and then prank his wife with this.
Speaker 2:So this, this, this is the thing that that really kind of worries me is. Okay, there are reasons that they're doing this, whether it's for the views or whatever. Even more so is what fucking people are watching this, because, I mean, you know, and and this is thing it's like if people are disgusted by it and and it's kind of that did. Did you ever see the Howard Stern movie?
Speaker 1:Babes. You know I don't watch movies.
Speaker 2:So you know, it was kind of like a documentary, like a documentary not a documentary, no, it was basically kind of going over his career into mainstream media in the 80s and early 90s. You know, he was the shot jock and one of the things was that they're going over the reports of people who are listening to it and it says the average Howard Stern fan listens to Howard Stern for an hour and a half. Number one reason is because they want to see what he says next. The average uh, howard stern hater listens to howard stern for two hours.
Speaker 1:Number one reason I want to see what he says next yeah, yeah, I think the the onus here is on both the people who are putting this out there, like these families who think it's okay to create quote unquote pranks or even just to be posting all of this information about their kids. Again, I mean this kid, the oldest of the Collins kids I don't remember her name. All of their names begin with A, and at some point she just kind of like went off the rails and started spelling words weirdly, so it would start with a, I don't know. So it's a whole different one. But like, this kid now has to live her life like she's plastered all over the internet. All of these kids do, but this oldest one, I think.
Speaker 1:And then there's this story about her going around and having a poop fight with her dad on the trampoline, and obviously here I am spreading that by talking on this podcast. But, like, this is something that she's going to have to live with her entire life, cause her mom decided to share that. To boost engagement, mom shows all sorts of photos and videos of these kids doing things to boost engagement. She forces them to wear, you know, the matching clothing to boost engagement, because it catches your eye when you're scrolling through. It catches your eye For this. You know fantastic adventures channel. I'm sure it clearly caught people's eye Like, wow, here are all these kids and it's a cute little backstory, and here they are playing these games and they seem really into it. I'd be into it too. If that was how I got fed. I'd play the game you know.
Speaker 2:So, like you know the because I did watch like a story of the fun time adventures and the watch videos themselves, just like you said, it looks cutesy and things like that. You have no idea what's going on behind the camera, but I mean poop fight on the trampoline, like you know. I mean one is fucking disgusting too. It's, uh, you know, unsanitary, uh to the utmost degree. Uh, you know, and, and so I mean you have it there in plain view of thankfully, there was no evidence of it.
Speaker 1:This was just like a written post, for which I I thank the gods that we don't have video evidence of poop fight but even if you are writing about how cute it was or whatever, yeah there would be something like saying like okay, I'm sure the videos that they were showing had some degree of the toxic behaviors um, yeah, again, when people are calling her out for this stuff, her name is carissa, but the reason this, all the stuff I mentioned here, is stuff that people have mentioned a lot on the internet about her. That's just like it's not a one time oops, you saw a kid run by in one of her videos with a full diaper. It happens, it's a whenever she has kids in diapers they seem to be full diapers, like it's a really common thing. It's a really common thing to notice. It's like I don't think these kids are actually receiving an education, like it seems like they're, you know, struggling to read. They're struggling to do this.
Speaker 1:The whitening their skin, you can see it in the photos. It's like, why does this kid look really pale here? But then in the videos it's not, you know, and that's that's them. For people like you know, ruby frankie, obviously those videos are gone. I never saw any of them. I've run into the collins kids in the wild. Unfortunately for ruby frankie I don't, so I haven't seen the videos that she was putting out there, but I'm sure that in general, you know, yeah, it looked cute, it looked fine, and then you would have these like little spikes of you know, like the 16 year old being like yeah, I'm sleeping on the beanbag for six months because I pranked my brother. I think the prank was something along the lines of like telling him that they were going to disney world when they weren't.
Speaker 1:You know, terrible, terrible, definitely deserves sleeping on the beanbag for six months that's fucking crazy yeah, so obviously there are tons of influencers family influencers, momfluencers, family vloggers whatever you want to call them out there who don't abuse their kids, but they are obviously using them to make money and there are a lot of risks associated with it. Like you don't have to be one of these crazy ones like the ones we've talked about here are. I was trying to come up with a word for this earlier. You know how we have the phrase um the creme de la creme, like the ones we've talked about here are. I was trying to come up with a word for this earlier. You know how we have the phrase um the creme de la creme, like the top of the top. So in keeping with that, keeping it in french, we could say these are la mer de la mer, like the shittiest of the shit. I would like to introduce that into our vocabulary.
Speaker 2:And as somebody who is very fluent in French himself, I could definitely pronounce that no problem.
Speaker 1:I think you could get there.
Speaker 1:I believe in you Fair food With the Italian hand gesture? Absolutely not, but yeah, with the italian hand gesture? Absolutely not, but yeah, we'll, we'll. That's what we'll talk about next time, though, is all of the other, the ones who are not like this bad, because, again, these are some of the worst, and obviously they're a very small subsection of the group in general, but we'll talk about some of the, some of the weird stuff that they can get into and all of the risks that are associated with being a family vlogger, slash momfluencer, but for now, based on this, based on, like the shittiest of the shit, where do you see us going from here?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is gonna have to come down to, you know, people just outright being disgusted by it, you know. And then so, like you know, like just kind of how I said before, about, like you know, the howard stern hater, yeah, well, when howard stern did come out, like I mean, that became the new norm of shock jocks because of the fact that, like you know, like, um, you know, his ratings were going through the roof and it was who can?
Speaker 2:who can shock that much better yep and if we are, I mean if we're even paying attention to these people I even even just kind of sitting there and being disgusted. It's one thing to be like oh my God, what they're doing is disgusting. It's another to watch your videos, because YouTube is not telling the difference between who's watching a video because it's disgusting versus who's watching a video because it's great. All it knows it's getting all these hits. And you know, there was a part of me that that you know.
Speaker 2:I mean just as guilty when I, when I first found out about fantastic ventures, there was a part of me that was very curious as well, like you know. Like, okay, let me check out the videos and see where it's coming from, you know, um, but at the same time, that's another hit that they're getting. You know that they would be getting on on their algorithm and thankfully, by the time I actually saw everything, their videos had been taken down, but still that curiosity kind of played in my mind. Yeah, it's kind of like rubbernecking, you know it's like the online version of rubbernecking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we see something, so just you know like crazy, and and you know we see cops and the fire and what's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's going on? And we, we slow down and all of a sudden, like you know, there's absolutely nothing going on, like in in you, your side, but yet you know, uh, traffic is slowed down to like five miles per hour because everybody wants to see what the hell's going on. But you know, if we started shit, if we started, if I started getting paid for every accident I got into I mean, I began, I'd be getting into a lot of accidents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially, you know, like tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like I fucking buy a car every fucking day and I'd be out there getting into an accident.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:So so that you know, now you're, now you're seeing, like you know, like there's this horrible thing and they're getting like tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds, thousands of dollars, you know, depending on how big the channel's grown and you have basic mom who is barely surviving on her own and doesn't have enough money for daycare and things like that and is trying to make a little bit of money just to just to kind of get herself back on her feet and looking at these people and being like, okay, well, these disgusting videos made it.
Speaker 2:Let's see where I can go from there. And yes, so it comes down to absolutely positively not paying attention at all, not even out of curiosity, is one thing. To call them out and have the the channel shut down, but to sit there and be like, huh, I'm curious, because at the end of the day, like you're not going to find that answer, to fulfill that curiosity, I mean you're gonna look at the video, you're gonna be like that's fucking disgusting, but it's not gonna answer. Like you know who could do this or why would they do this, and you know all those other things. It's just, you know, you're just seeing firsthand these disgusting videos and these people are getting money for it 100 agree that you just you have to.
Speaker 1:You have to avoid it, and this goes for everything negative or anything that you don't like. In general, I see people make this mistake all the time. They'll be hating on something, even as silly as like the Kardashians, but in their quest to hate on it, they're now talking about it. They're watching the stuff, they're reading things on the internet. They're clicking on all of the articles Like what are they doing? Because you want to hate on them and there's a time and place for that. Don't get me wrong, I do live in the land of complainies.
Speaker 1:We love complaining. We love hating on things. To me, oh my god, how could they? But you have to know when to draw that line and be like if this is really something that I'm against, if this is really something that I hate, then and you should be able to make the connection to that all publicity is good publicity for these people, and so if you really think that this is a bad thing, whatever it is, the best thing that you can do is just disengage, like you know. Go ahead, tell Instagram, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1:If you think there's a problem, report it.
Speaker 1:Just go ahead and report it, because you never know, like what could make the difference of enough people watch this video and they're, like I feel really uncomfortable with whatever quote-unquote prank you've just pulled on your kids and I've reported it to instagram, or you know, I've, like you know, done something with it, reported it to whoever, and if it's just one person, maybe nothing happens.
Speaker 1:But now you know 100 people, 200 people, have come and reported this and been like this video is really inappropriate. Like I think there's something wrong happening here. You're just greatly increasing the chances that the platform actually will do something, as opposed to you just being like, oh no, how terrible as you scroll on to the next thing, because, yeah, they're doing it for shock value and the problem is you end up with the um, the mr beast effect where, like what used to be shocking, he did that years ago. So you have to just keep getting like bigger and bigger and crazier and crazier to keep people watching. Please tell me you know who mr beast is okay, I'm not that fucking out of it okay.
Speaker 1:You had this vaguely blank look.
Speaker 2:Go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying historically we have, you know, not known who some people and how to pronounce certain people's names.
Speaker 2:You know what. But here's the thing is I will take great pride in not knowing who cute die pie PewDiePie.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I know it's PewDiePie, but I take pride, knowing where he is today, that I didn't fall into the whole. Oh, during the time when he was popular. So why? You were sitting there watching Mr Fucking toxicity During the time when he was popular. So you were sitting there watching Mr Fucking Toxicity. I was there, I didn't watch his videos. Who the fuck he was.
Speaker 1:Hey, some of us did not watch his videos.
Speaker 2:Whatever?
Speaker 1:You still knew who he was. Yeah, because I'm cool and hip, I got Riz.
Speaker 2:Oh God'm cool and hip. I got riz. Oh God, that is total cap. Sorry, I couldn't help it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you have to ignore these people and you have to put your foot down. When you see the stuff that you're like, nope's not, okay, this makes me super uncomfortable. Just just do something about it. Like stop saying to me, oh, someone else is going to report it. Like, oh, you know, maybe it's not so bad. No, it is that bad. Just because we've gotten immune to it and like it's become normal to see people pull terrible pranks. Again with a prank, everyone should be laughing at the end. If it's a joke, we're all laughing, yeah, otherwise it's not a joke. If somebody's sitting there and is like I, I don't think this is funny, like I'm actually hurt, then that was a shit joke. You don't use that one same thing for the prank. If somebody is actually hurt physically or mentally, like that was not a good prank right, don't support it, don't support it, don't watch it, don't engage with it.
Speaker 1:Like we all know the rules of the internet by now, that engagement of any sort again is that publicity, and any publicity is good publicity, so any engagement is good engagement. So when you comment on these videos and you get into fights with people, that is the whole point. That's what they want you to do, cause that tells the algorithm that this is a good video. Send it to more people.
Speaker 2:You know, there was a time during the election that somebody had said something completely like off the cuff. Like you know, it was completely disgusting and I, you know, again, this is one of those things where, like I was about to post onto it and you know, I thankfully saw somebody who posts, like you know, like slightly the same thing that I was kind of going to go at, and she even commented right underneath it saying thanks for, you know, bringing my algorithm up.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And it was just like damn. She purposely whether it was because she partially believed it or fully believed it the more people were telling her to go fuck off Again. Instagram, facebook, all that doesn't give a shit whether you're telling them great job or fuck off. It just knows it's getting engagement and more people are going to be sticking around.
Speaker 1:Just comment on this yeah, because as you're watching that video and then you're going to comment, it's playing in the background. You can't make it stop. So as you're scrolling through those comments and reading them and hating on them and making your own, it continues to rack up plays and views and and obviously you know it's noticing that it's all from one person, but it's still also noticing that it's like, wow, people seem to want to watch this video 20 times in a row. It must be good, and I think a lot of these people know that and they are playing off of that value, that shock value of you're going to get shocked and, you know, maybe you are going to run to the comment section and be like, wow, I can't believe you would do that to your kids. That's not funny.
Speaker 1:Youtube sees a comment and YouTube sees people reacting to that comment and engaging with that comment, and YouTube likes that and YouTube will push that video. Same thing for TikTok, same thing for Instagram. The algorithms all work the same way and these people know that, and so some of the stuff that they are doing is purposely to do that. Some of it is, I think, again, because these people are the worst of the worst. They're just shitty people and so they were going to do this anyway, and this has just given them a reason to do it and feel okay doing it.
Speaker 2:Let's sigh do it and feel okay, doing it.
Speaker 1:Let's sigh On our scale. Oh, toxicity. I shouldn't even have to ask this, but just, we'll go through the, we'll play it through. I know what your answer is going to be. I hope I know what your answer is going to be.
Speaker 2:Well, so before I, are we talking about mom fluencers or these momfluencers?
Speaker 1:So we already talked about momfluencers last time and we gave them a preliminary score, and we're looking at this subset of momfluencers slash family vloggers, because some of these were not momfluencers Roman Atwood's a dude, Although most of them are women again, because women are more likely to be posting on social media, which is why I think they're more likely to get. If there are more of them, then more of the people who get busted for this are going to be women. So yes, looking at this specific subset, would you say that this is a green potato will make you slightly sick, but you can also just peel off the green part and eat it and you'll be okay. Is this a death cat mushroom 50 50 chance of death or coma? Or is this antifreeze? A delicious but deadly last snack with mixed when mixed in with lime jello?
Speaker 2:choose carefully I mean, it's pretty fucking obvious, uh, cream potato obviously that's what I was going to say I mean, yeah, it's pretty fucking obvious.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you're talking about child abuse, you're talking about, you know, the whole, the whole idea that we're now in a competition of who can be worse. Yeah, you know, it is pretty fucking antifreeze. You know, it's not like. You know there's one person who is being completely child abuse and and the next person being like, well, you know, I I kind of like these little things, but I don't even like the, the whole't like the whole hitting and things like that. Look, it's now you're, you're, you're trying to out to the next person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a phrase that there's no way around it. And even looking at some of these where it's like it's just you know the pranking, like the last guy, you know the pranks involving, you know pretending to have his child fall over a stair railing that is just by itself to me almost into antifreeze territory on its own, because it's not funny. It's really really not funny. And you are drawing in viewers with these sensationalist things. You're putting your spouse in a terrible position of you pretending that something has happened. What if something did happen? And now they don't believe you because it's the boy who cried wolf type situation and you actually didn't watch. Your kid and your baby fell over the stair railing. But wifey doesn't believe you because you've already sent her six videos about this happening in the past and they were all fake.
Speaker 1:I really don't find that type of thing funny and I have never enjoyed that type of prank video on the internet. It's bad enough when it's just between adults and there are no kids involved, but I think like once there are kids involved, it just makes it that much worse. And I go back to the thing we've talked about several times now with kids on the internet, and that is, how would you feel if you, as an adult, stumbled across this video and you're like that's my dad doing this, that's my dad making this video of me pretending to be blown up, and that's my mom getting freaked out and that's's people laughing at it?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think we this one we can pretty much fucking agree on.
Speaker 1:Another antifreeze. Oh, I wish it wasn't. I don't like the antifreeze ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this one kind of sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, next time is not going to be that much better, so I'm so sorry. I'll pick something nice and green potatoey after this. I promise I got to get this next one out of my system because I kept running into stuff while doing the research for this one, and the people need to know how bad momfluencers and family vloggers are. Well, joy, joy joy, joy on that super happy ending.
Speaker 1:if you also hate mom influencers and family vloggers and if you have any that you think we should check out that you think are super toxic, or if you have any that you think are actually doing it well somehow, whatever that may be, please let us know. Know. You can write to us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom. You can also just send the link to whatever it is to us on any of our social media which, thank you, I have been checking and working on. We have Facebook. We have X. We have threads. We have Instagram TikTok. We have TikTok. I have threads. We have Instagram TikTok. We have TikTok. I knew there was a fifth one Dang it. I was doing so good, feel free to send them to us there. Or if you have any horrific stories, we would love to hear them. No poop, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a shit.
Speaker 1:On that note, this has been the toxic. You're a menace with that. Until then, this has been the toxic cooking show. We'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 2:Bye bye, bye, bye.
