00:03:42.860You know, I think a lot of people, they have a hard time thinking about the views, right?
00:03:49.540Like, you know, first kids can't conceptualize it, but even us as adults sometimes can't conceptualize the eyes on our video and like just using your child's boogers at entertainment for strangers.
00:04:04.580Like, are you that are you that boring of an individual and that desperate and starved for attention that that's what you're doing to your child?
00:04:14.480And then people who are watching this, are we that bored?
00:04:18.080that we want to watch this like go pick your own boogers i just just watch yourself there's a
00:04:26.660mirror watch yourself in the mirror picking your own boogers and you know you know what i'm gonna
00:04:33.320ask you because this is something you talk about all the time when this kid grows up and all of
00:04:40.380his boogers are living forever on the internet what will it be like to be booger kid 1000.66
00:04:47.560100% like I can't I can't conceptualize what that's going to feel like and I recognize that
00:04:54.380like there's a good chance that there's going to be so much content of some of these kids
00:04:58.720that they might not even find the worst of the worst of it right but if this account is like
00:05:05.240literally just based on being the booger kid there's a good chance that that's going to be
00:05:11.220easy to find and follow you for a long time. I was tagged in a video where an influencer,
00:05:18.660millions, millions of followers, was discussing her newborn baby girl's vaginal discharge.
00:05:30.340And her husband's experience with it. And like that, I couldn't even watch the whole thing. I
00:05:37.640heard like that and like my husband's first experience with that and he was all ick it was
00:05:43.440when I saw it over a million views could you imagine being that little girl and finding out
00:05:50.420that one of your earliest viral videos was your mom talking about your newborn discharge and not
00:05:57.720even like in a way that like this child has never been seen like I'm pretty sure they were like
00:06:03.240tiktoking live from the hospital right like right it's a very kid as content account but like it's
00:06:10.720just there's no boundaries there's no privacy there's nothing is sacred anymore it's extremely
00:06:17.760concerning i'm i'm terrified by it and we right well you know what let's back up i need you to
00:06:26.240introduce yourself i need you to tell about that whatever we just dove right into it i need you
00:06:31.200about that audience. I'm like, yeah. So I'm Sarah. Hi, I'm Sarah. We're talking about boogers and
00:06:39.640baby vaginal discharge today. But you know what? My audience likes that. We like to get right into0.94
00:06:45.200it. You are Sarah. You are Mom Uncharted. Talk to us about your account and all of the awesome
00:06:52.620things that you do with it. And then we're going to get into some more gross things that people
00:06:57.740post about their kids and the crux of this which is kids art content and they really shouldn't be
00:07:04.080content the second they come out of the womb yes yeah yeah um yeah so i'm sarah um better known as
00:07:12.040mom uncharted online i started talking about these subjects probably like a year and a half two years
00:07:16.720ago and um honestly joe like uh fangirling right now because under the influence and your first
00:07:24.280season of the podcast was one of the, you know, lightbulb moments that got me more interested
00:07:29.500in this subject. So just it really had an impact on me and triggering me to look further into
00:07:37.220these influencers and the family bloggers and things like that. So thank you for that,
00:07:43.020because you were a large part of my lightbulb moment. And, you know, I didn't always think
00:07:48.020this way. You know, I had my first baby in 2017. I followed a lot of like the mummy influencers on
00:07:53.740Instagram because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I didn't know how to do this, what to0.98
00:07:58.300buy, what to, you know, the tips and tricks. So I fell into that, you know, mummy influencer ghost
00:08:04.720scroller. I think that's what they called me. I was kind of like a ghost scroller and didn't really
00:08:10.600think critically about it. It seemed pretty normal back then. And as time went on, we went into a
00:08:16.560pandemic. I had a pandemic baby. We're all on our phones more. I just started to get really
00:08:22.780uncomfortable with the amount of time parents were spending on their phones with their kids you know
00:08:30.160like the amount of stories I was seeing throughout the day the things they were sharing like I was
00:08:36.280starting to see people like their kids waking up eating breakfast what they were wearing to school
00:08:41.040school drop off there were weekends where they are at that exact moment medical diagnoses and I just
00:08:47.580thought whoa hold up one second and a light bulb went off and I was like I'm a stranger watching
00:08:54.520and like kind of invested in this kid's life that's weird that that doesn't feel good that
00:09:01.080doesn't feel good anymore that doesn't feel good it doesn't feel good right yeah it feels wrong
00:09:06.840it feels invasive I shouldn't be privy to this information right um and yeah it was just a big
00:09:14.900moment for me. And I started discussing it with family and friends. And they're like, wow, you
00:09:19.000seem really interested in this. Like, what are you going to do about it? And I was like, I don't
00:09:23.240know. And I downloaded TikTok on a whim, started talking about like random stuff and talking about
00:09:30.420this. And then I realized I just kind of wanted to talk about this. So I just kind of niched my,
00:09:35.440yeah, I just was like, there's so much to talk about. Why would I talk about anything else?
00:09:40.320the content never ends. There's so much to talk about. We can talk forever and hopefully you're
00:09:46.920going to become a regular on this show when we talk about kids as content because it's something
00:09:53.140I want to go back to over and over and over again. And look, I struggle with it too. My kids are
00:10:00.660still on some of my accounts. It freaks me out that I still do it and I don't stop doing it.
00:10:07.320i tell myself it's because i want to share parts of my family but not all of my family yeah in in
00:10:13.560a perfect world i would get off the social medias all together but mama's got to sell books i was
00:10:17.540gonna say books yeah yeah yeah and so i'm not going anywhere anytime soon friends but this is
00:10:24.480something we have to keep discussing and something you and i have been going back and forth on
00:10:28.680on the dms is videos postpartum videos of the baby literally the second that it comes out of
00:10:37.040the womb yes yes um it's a thing like the you know you google you google birth videos go on
00:10:44.740youtube um i would say a large portion of the family vloggers and influencers share their
00:10:52.840labor and delivery these days um right it's a thing it's a thing and it does really well
00:11:02.360for a lot. Oh, it does. You know what? Like pregnant pregnancy, the minute an influencer
00:11:07.660announces they're pregnant, like that is peak influence right there. Like that's when it kind0.98
00:11:13.380of starts. That's when they start growing. Pregnancy, babies, you know, you kind of have
00:11:19.920like it all until they move away from toddlerhood. And then they kind of start thinking about like
00:11:25.820number two or number seven. Number eight. Number eight. We're just saying number eight just
00:11:31.060happened for for for one of them oh i saw that on sarah's instagram yeah the other day yeah i got
00:11:37.680i got shit on a lot for posting about ballerina farm having another baby and saying you know that0.88
00:11:45.560this is probably good for her content some women attacked me saying how dare you attack a mother1.00
00:11:52.440but i'm not attacking her they can support all of these babies they can do all of the things1.00
00:12:45.200And I think it would be naive to think that there aren't content babies in this day and age.
00:12:51.540It literally feels that some people, and there's a variety of reasons why people have children, but if you're looking at some of these people as a viewer, as a critic of these individuals, it really does oftentimes feel that a lot has to do with content.
00:16:00.520So there's going to be a lot of thoughts and feelings about that already.
00:16:04.820So that's going to track the engagement right there.
00:16:07.880But there's something about using, like promoting a supplement, like a bloating gut health thing five hours after postpartum that also felt really icky to me.
00:16:19.680The fact that a mother is five hours postpartum and so invested in social media that they're setting up their camera and getting the bloom and stuff ready to create this video to edit and stuff like that.
00:16:35.300Like, for me, it's like, that's what you were thinking?
00:16:37.740Like, you had a baby and that was one of your first thoughts?
00:16:49.680it's bizarre it's bizarre and it's also the world we live in right now that's the thing yeah i mean
00:16:55.920i think that it's becoming very normalized there was this viral video that a thousand people sent0.84
00:17:01.380me of a dude carrying a newborn baby through a grocery store oh the nicu the nicu baby in target
00:17:13.240lion king hold we're gonna take a quick break here before we get into this gonzo banana story0.56
00:17:18.740about a dad carrying a newborn with one hand raised in the air. The baby is in that hand
00:17:24.680as he walks through the aisles of Target. And I'm pretty convinced he did it just so his video would
00:17:31.600go viral. Okay, we are back. For those of you who haven't seen the video of content creator
00:17:50.440Stephen Lomas of the account at Alex and Stephen, here is what it is. It is a video of him going to
00:17:59.080target with his newborn baby Maya on the same day that she was released from the NICU. She's less
00:18:05.320than five pounds. And you should probably look it up because I can't do it justice. In the video,1.00
00:18:12.300Steven, who I just I need to talk about his mullet. He has a really intense mullet. And I don't know
00:18:18.680why I keep looking at the mullet when I should be looking at the baby. But I'm a bad person. So I do.0.63
00:18:25.520so I do. So he is walking through Target with the baby in his hand like a football,
00:18:31.480with one arm outstretched like a quarterback going in for a touchdown. At one point, Maya's
00:18:38.140mother, Alex, who is behind the camera, encourages Stephen to dangle the baby in the air with one
00:18:45.340hand. The parents then laugh like Disney villains at their little baby's very confused expression.
00:18:53.100for a while i didn't know if it was a real baby at first at first i thought it was a doll
00:19:01.240how many times did you watch it before you realize i'm still watching it right now and now
00:19:06.260i realize oh no it's a it's a it's a real baby it's a real baby um this got stitched so many
00:19:12.460should i just stitch it on tiktok because i'm trying to teach myself tiktok right now um
00:19:17.520that was can you describe that video to us it is a video of him in a target and the title do you
00:19:26.040have it there what does the title exactly read it's my Maya's first day out of the NICU Maya's
00:19:32.680first day out of the NICU yeah and the dad is walking through a target holding his newborn
00:19:39.700or his NICU baby in essentially the palm of his hands up like kind of to his right up high
00:19:48.280as we said kind of like a Lion King pose and it's not a proper way to hold a baby especially a NICU
00:19:56.180baby and then there was all the talk about also like bringing a NICU baby right into a public
00:20:00.920space and things like this and this is important to note that this is a repost this baby is not
00:20:08.040that age anymore this baby is a few months if not a year old now so that video was already out there
00:20:15.000but this was the one that trended and went viral and got all the controversy going
00:20:20.420this is a family that has more than 300 000 followers yeah yeah yeah and that's just on
00:20:29.380one of their accounts yeah and they have lots and lots of accounts all the other accounts and
00:20:33.500things like that yeah so um other people see this and then like we can't then other people are so
00:20:41.600starved for virality that other impressionable maybe young parents could see something like
00:20:48.580this and be like oh well this was controversial and this went viral like I regularly hold my baby
00:20:54.900like this at the gas station maybe I should try that right like you just don't know what this
00:21:00.340kind of content can turn into and create it has resulted in some pretty good satire videos though
00:21:06.540i mean i feel like i should make a video now all right yeah i mean look i can't have another baby0.99
00:21:13.120so i'm never gonna have a newborn again when i guess i could but i can't make one with dick0.97
00:21:17.800because vasectomy but i'm sure i could find a very nice young sperm donor who would want to0.99
00:21:24.400have a fourth baby with me oh joe if i if i need more content calling it at two calling it at two
00:21:31.280over here you know i thought i was calling it at two too no don't go to fargo don't go to fargo
00:21:37.680north dakota going to north dakota don't go to north dakota um so talk to me a little bit more
00:21:43.740you you this has become an area of expertise for you and how like just tell like what tell me
00:21:53.980everything that you're seeing what are what are some of the craziest things that you have seen
00:21:57.880posted or you get tagged in you get tagged in a lot of stuff now you're tagged in a lot of things
00:22:02.740because I think it's important to note that like I've curated my feed so my my for you page and my
00:22:08.380feed is actually like not kids and family vloggers like it's pretty niche to me so most of these
00:22:14.140videos are sent to me from right my audience or I get tagged in them and if I can see them before
00:22:20.720people block me that's also a thing right of course i joe there are just so many um some of
00:22:28.160the ones that upset me the most are the parents who record their babies covered in feces what
00:22:36.660yeah so there are and i'm not talking about oh i've been tagged in one or two video i'm talking
00:22:42.040about many many videos children have accidents and what the parent does is they pick up their
00:22:50.000camera and they go into their crib and they see feces all over their crib, all over the child.
00:22:56.060Maybe the child had an explosion in the car seat and is covered. And they film and offer commentary
00:23:02.640on this. Oftentimes they say like, you know, hashtag like birth control or here's your birth
00:23:08.860control for the day. But they literally film their own child covered in their own feces and put it on
00:23:16.300the internet for strangers. And it is the most degrading thing I have seen. It's shocking.
00:23:28.780It's shocking. It's shocking and degrading. And you, I don't think you would treat a stranger
00:23:34.300like that. That's what I'm going to throw out there. If you saw a stranger on the street who
00:23:39.160had just shit their pants, I don't think you would take a picture of them and put it on the internet0.99
00:23:43.940because you would feel guilty and yet some people take pictures of their own child and put it out0.98
00:23:49.700there it's it's it's absolutely appalling and these are beautiful little babies and toddlers
00:23:57.780and like you know they have accidents and like listen like a lot of people will be like oh well0.98
00:24:03.840they posted it to relate because what mom hasn't had a blowout we've all had fucking blowouts right0.98
00:24:10.560But we all aren't thinking, let's record my child covered in feces and use it as a form of entertainment for strangers online.0.98
00:24:20.180Many who apparently have like a poop fetish, which is a whole nother thing that is, you know, because when I started talking about this, it was mainly like a privacy and consent thing.
00:24:34.260Of course, I know the Internet's danger and stuff like that.
00:24:36.680But I didn't know the magnitude of all of this.
00:24:40.100So wait, talk to me. Talk to me about this terrible, terrible dark corner of the Internet.
00:24:43.920So not only are you posting this video of a child covered in feces without their consent, but then there are the grossest of gross pedophiles out there whose kink is actually kids covered in feces.0.99
00:24:58.740It's it's awful and disgusting to say. But, yeah, there is a segment of the population who gets off on feces.0.99
00:25:07.020And if that segment of the population is also predatory towards children, then those videos are gold mines for them.
00:25:15.860And, you know, we talk often about how, you know, things can be Photoshopped and AI and digital altering and videos can be manipulated and things like that.
00:25:30.860um regular videos can also end up on bad sites but another thing that has recently come not
00:25:38.420recently i've been aware is that a lot of times people will take these sick individuals will take
00:25:45.480these videos and these images or they become obsessed with like an influencer kid online
00:25:49.840and they go to forums and they talk in like graphic detail about what they would like do
00:25:57.040to these children and things like that yeah um i've i've seen the screenshots i get a lot of
00:26:05.840emails and things like that i've seen fan fiction written about influencer kids no that is
00:26:13.020yeah that is extremely graphic and wrong and this is a real human child that somebody has wrote a
00:26:22.400quote-unquote fan fiction and I don't want fan fiction to get bad a lot of people in those
00:26:27.360communities they're doing it right because it's fiction but some fan fiction is great we love
00:26:32.240fan fiction right exactly love fan fiction but not when but not when it's not fiction because it's a
00:26:37.640real human that you are um thinking uh yeah so I've seen some really awful stuff and I try and
00:26:45.100stay above board. I never want to get anywhere where I shouldn't. I'm very open about that. But
00:26:53.000it's it's scary. And, you know, on Instagram, a few clicks and next thing you know, you're in a
00:26:58.340really dark place. And that's not even the dark web. That's just Instagram. That's just Instagram.
00:27:03.620That's just Instagram. I think we all just need to know how unsafe these online spaces are
00:27:11.140becoming and I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know how bad it was so when I hear these things
00:27:19.540and I come across these things I feel like I just have to tell other parents that like
00:27:23.720this is happening and like you can do what you want with the information but like
00:27:28.440it's really starting to feel unsafe the thing is you're doing a service because the best thing we
00:27:34.220can do is talk about this right and because when we don't talk about it we pretend that it's not
00:27:40.040happening and the fact of the matter is that kids should not be content yeah they shouldn't be yeah
00:27:50.020and i've i've made the and i've said it before there is a difference between a parent turning
00:27:57.480their kids into content so like utilizing their kids as content meaning they would not have a
00:28:03.620successful platform without regularly featuring their child right their child is their platform
00:28:10.840versus an influencer who that's their full-time job and occasionally at christmas they have a
00:28:18.480image of their family or a kid is doing a silly dance right like in my opinion there is a difference
00:28:26.300in that right totally or well and then there's also a difference between the mom that just posts
00:28:31.860pictures of her kids once in a while right the everyday the everyday uh parent yeah in my and
00:28:39.740i always because i get one of my questions is always like um is private accounts safe right
00:28:45.560and what do you do and i don't post publicly or privately i don't i don't share like some of my
00:28:51.860closest friends oh you can talk to my parents ask them the last time they saw a picture of their
00:28:56.000grand kids i don't know because i don't send them that often right but i don't post privately
00:29:01.480or publicly and i always advocate for parents the everyday parent if you are sharing go private and
00:29:08.240know the people who are following you like do you really need that guy from college do you really
00:29:12.720need that like co-worker from 10 years ago i wish that we didn't live in a cesspool of a world where0.69
00:29:19.500i couldn't share my beautiful kids with lovely readers yeah uh because some creepy poop obsessed
00:29:26.020man might be watching and trolling my feed and also joe is it it's sometimes not just like the
00:29:33.540creepy ones sometimes people are just crazy it's not the creepy guy sometimes it's like another mom
00:29:38.920who like just hates them and is just making their life miserable by you know creating other accounts
00:29:45.540with photos or calling cps and doing things like it's not always like the creepy guy in the corner0.97
00:29:52.440Sometimes they're just crazy people in this dumpster fire of social media. Right.0.93
00:29:59.900Yeah. A lot of unwell and unhappy people.
00:30:03.100What are a couple other crazy things that you've seen that you think would give parents a wake up call about posting?
00:30:10.860I think when people are stealing images is another thing.
00:30:17.720Like I've I don't know how these influencers are OK with people creating fan accounts of their literal human children and then not having control over those photos and those comments and the followers.
00:30:36.140Like, to me, that's very bizarre that people and like people steal photos.
00:30:45.640You know, I have friends who their their photos were stolen.
00:31:24.620Wouldn't it just be nice for them to show up online and be authentically who they are
00:31:29.280without this curated narrative of who we've been telling the world they are that would be lovely
00:31:36.980that's the dream that's the dream you know like and it's a pretty easy gift to give your kid these
00:31:42.080days right to not just overshare their life online um yeah but there's just yeah there's a lot
00:31:52.540You once said something. You said, when is it no longer exploiting and it's literally pimping out your children?
00:32:02.740Yeah, so that's in relation to what I refer to as mummy-ran accounts, parent-ran accounts, where parents have made the account solely about their child.
00:32:16.820I went down this rabbit hole one time because I was clicking around off an influencer kid and ended up in like the dance, cheer, gymnastics world.
00:32:30.720And there are parents, specifically mothers, who are hyper-sexualizing their young girls and selling images and videos to predatory people online.