Emma Sutherland | Writer
April 18, 2025
In the new docuseries that has been published to Netflix earlier this week, ‘Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing’ highlights the dangers and exploitation behind “Kidfluencing.” Kidfluencing, a term used to describe children posting content that brings in millions of dollars each year, along with rising social media fame, is examined directly through the well-known child YouTube star Piper Rockelle, as well as her previous “Squad” also full of children YouTube stars.
In this new docuseries, horrors regarding the long filming hours and extremely toxic environment are shared through stories from the previous squad members. Initially, after growing up in the pageant world in Georgia, Piper Rockelle at 8 years old, along with her single mother Tiffany, moved to Los Angeles. It was in Los Angeles where Rockelle found work in a popular YouTube show, Mani, while growing and expanding her rising YouTube channel. Within the Los Angeles child YouTube community, Tiffany found other rising child YouTube stars, to make videos alongside Piper. These videos initially began making slime, or doing dares and extreme challenges, such as “24 hours in the pool challenge.”
As the documentary began, the child stars spoke of how they all enjoyed filming in the beginning, and making their own videos on their own channels, managed by Tiffany and her boyfriend, Hunter. The interviews within the documentary show the love for being in front of the camera that they had, and shows their journey into Piper Rockelle’s “Squad,” where they all received their own channels and in return met YouTube fame, with millions of subscribers. However, as the squad began, a toxic environment began to prosper. In an interview with SCHS student Ashton Nelson, she remembers a time in her life when, “[she] watched Piper Rockelle’s channel, I copied her and made slime videos with my friends all throughout elementary school, it was fun!” When asked about her opinions on the documentary, Nelson stated she felt “disgusted” and “could never understand” why the parents of these child stars couldn’t “protect their children from all the trauma they endured.”
While these individuals share their personal experiences within the ring surrounding Piper Rockelle, the intense and disgusting truth of child exploitation shows to be the most disturbing. It has unfortunately been uncovered that male predators are the main viewers of these videos regarding young females. A key takeaway from the docuseries was one of Piper’s fans, ‘Megan,’ who turned out to be a male predator. Megan was in direct contact with Tiffany, who would send extra and ‘exclusive’ photos of Piper in exchange for gifts and money. Tiffany acknowledged to another mom in the series that she knew Megan was a pedophile, but remained in contact with him. A video, still on Rockelle’s channel, features a “Birthday Haul” with a monumental amount of gifts, only from ‘Megan.’ It is also alleged that Tiffany mailed a pair of Piper’s underwear to Megan, in exchange for two Gucci backpacks. The documentary even goes on to provide evidence of a group chat full of online male predators, who praise the children’s parents for making it “easy” for their goal of consuming child content.
Although the docuseries ultimately highlights the immense stress and fears of the children directly within Piper Rockelle’s Squad, it is important to acknowledge the disgusting behavior of predators engaging in the child creator content. In an interview with Molly Whidden, a junior at SCHS, she remarks how “disgusting it is for a parent to allow their child to be exploited for money.” Whidden went on to claim “Every child wants to be famous or make YouTube videos at some point growing up, but it’s their parents job to keep them safe and protect them from dangers everywhere, especially social media.” Whidden expresses the immense importance of maintaining a child’s safety, which sadly seems to have not been the case for the children within the docuseries. Ultimately, while earning fame and money is very tempting to some, it is more important to shelter children from exploitation.
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