Nearly one in three preteens lists influencing as a career goal, and the so-called creator economy surpasses $250 billion worldwide.
But health and technology experts have cautioned that social media presents a “profound risk of harm” for girls. Constant comparisons to their peers and face-altering filters drive negative feelings of self-worth. Depression, even suicide, is not uncommon.
The New York Times set out to examine the risks and perils for young girls of pursuing online fame through Instagram. The reporting revealed a surprising and powerful enabler: parents. Although Instagram prohibits children under 13, parents can open so-called mom-run accounts for them, and the accounts can live on even when the girls become teenagers.
With moms at the helm, the often toxic influencer phenomenon is flourishing. Eleven percent of those born in Generation Z, between 1997 and 2012, already describe themselves as influencers, with some of them earning six-figures, The Times found. That money is sometimes made with the help of moms, who commodify their children’s social media presence.
What often starts as an effort to jump-start a modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to the children.
Thousands of accounts examined by The Times offered disturbing insights into how the influencer frenzy is reshaping childhood with direct parental encouragement and involvement. Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos, exclusive chat sessions and even the girls’ worn leotards to mostly unknown followers. The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing the relationships.
The large Instagram audiences boosted by men can benefit the families, The Times found. The bigger followings look impressive to brands and bolster chances of getting discounts, products and other financial incentives, and the accounts themselves are rewarded by Instagram’s algorithm with greater visibility, which in turn attracts more followers.
One calculation performed for The Times by an audience demographics firm found 32 million connections to male followers among the 5,000 mom-run accounts examined by the reporters.
Interacting with the men opens the door to abuse. Some flatter, bully and blackmail girls and their parents to get racier and racier images. The Times monitored separate exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app, where men openly fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily available.
“It’s like a candy store ,” one of them wrote. “God bless instamoms ,” wrote another.
Mothers are conflicted about what to do. One in Australia warned others to keep their daughters away from the platform. “I’ve been stupidly, naïvely, feeding a pack of monsters” she said, “and the regret is huge.”
But another mother in Alabama said parents couldn’t ignore the reality of the influencer economy. “Social media is the way of our future, and I feel like they’ll be behind if they don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
