I feel compelled to talk about how worrying the Saccone Joly channels are, and how much I wish that these channels would be shut down in the interests of the children’s privacy and safety. As a member of Gen Z who grew up with the internet and watched the rise of online social culture, as I move into my twenties I’ve become absolutely disgusted by how exploited Gen Alpha children are/are allowed to be on the internet. Edie is one of the most egregious examples of this.
Aside from any debates about her transgender status, which I have no problem with and which I want to stress isn’t the topic of my post, the issue is the extreme exploitation, monetisation and publicisation of this very personal aspect of Edie’s life, removing all of her choice about her privacy in later life. This is a personal, sensitive journey involving a vulnerable young child…that millions of people have had access to the intimate details of thanks to her exploitative parents. She was much too young to make the decision to publicise her life on the internet, and now she can never take back the years of extensive personal content made about her. Edie has become the main focus of the channel and has been encouraged to grow up much too fast. The thought of this 10 year old, Year 5 child, wanting to play or have any interest outside of the internet, consumerism, and celebrity culture, is unfathomable, and how tragic is that? Her awful parents are fine with her acting like a teenager and being exposed to hate and inappropriate content on the internet because it keeps the money flowing.
In all of the family tiktoks Edie is wearing noticeable makeup and has been since she was about eight or nine. She clearly feels she has to wear mascara, lipgloss and nailpolish every day, because this vision of performative femininity has been so endorsed by Jonathan and Anna. On her own tiktok account lots of her reposts deal with issues of not feeling ‘pretty’ and ‘appealing’ to boys, as if that’s the most important thing a primary-aged child should be concerned about!! Edie is also allowed to, or rather enticed to, swear, dress skimpily and act very brattily with no consequences. It’s uncomfortable and saddening to see. I place no blame on this poor child for what her unethical parents have done to her, but at this rate she is going to be a very troubled adult, and likely a very unpleasant one, as her rude behaviour is actively rewarded on camera.
Edie’s own personal tiktok account is easily accessible through Anna’s ‘following’ list, and the content is beyond disturbing. Why does this ten year old child have a public tiktok account, on which there is clear evidence that she talks to (adult) strangers and has online fights with other children. Social media isn’t intended for kids, yet it’s overrun by the children of irresponsible parents who allow the kids to have accounts like this, with no privacy settings and lots of public content that’s completely inappropriate for their age. Edie’s tiktoks are full of swearing and revealing of personal information and feelings, which are honestly concerning. The account feels more like that of an angsty 13 year old, but this child is barely 10. Yet she has been so conditioned to act years older than her age, and is consequently struggling with complicated feelings from being exposed to mature situations/online content, which she’s being allowed to use tiktok as an outlet for. It makes me furious and sad to see such a page run by such a young child. And now that she’s been taken out of school it appears that even larger parts of her life are being lived online. The detrimental effect on this child is already clear, and it’s just going to get worse unless someone takes responsibility for her, which her fame-hungry parents are never going to do.
My friends and I (all aged in our late teens/early twenties) discuss online social culture a lot, and I’ve noticed that most people in my generation share the same opinions on content that features children, because it’s a phenomenon that we grew up alongside, but that we’re now old enough to see past and realise the damaging effects of. I hope that this will mean a huge backlash against online exploitation of children for ‘family content’ and the protection of the privacy of the next generation of children online, but at the moment Generation Alpha are all over the internet thanks to a normalisation of children’s presence on social media among the adults responsible for them. My friends and I have all agreed that we’ll never post our future children publicly on the internet, nor allow them to have any social media accounts until they’re teenagers. We also believe that all accounts with minors 13-17 should be private; public accounts should be for 18 and up. And this is coming from members of a generation who grew up online, often with public social media accounts as preteens/teens, who know first-hand the inappropriateness of this, and who are only watching it get worse for the kids younger than us.
I report every single one of the Saccone Joly videos that comes up on my page, and I do so for any other ‘family’ content that features children. I also follow @mom.uncharted on tiktok, who does a great job of deconstructing and explaining why children should be kept off social media. I urge others to do the same, although sadly it seems to have little impact, because as it stands there are still innumerable cases of parents plastering their children’s personal lives all over internet platforms, then of these children following suit on their own accounts that are subsequently created, and becoming more and more distressed and damaged as a result. Children under 13 shouldn’t be on any social media platforms at all, let alone the main cash cows on family channels, and I can’t wait for the day when legislation comes in to protect the exploited kids of family vloggers. Sadly it will be too late for poor Edie.
