SMNTY Classics: The Dark Side of Mom Influencers

There's a difference between posting a picture of your child on social media and making a business out of posting content about your child. Bridget Todd joins us to talk about some new research around the detrimental impacts and consequences of using children to get clicks and engagement in this classic.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I welcome to Stuff Never Told Your production by Heart Radio,
and for today's classic, we are bringing back one that
we did with Bridget about mom influencers. And the reason

(00:31):
for that is this has been a huge topic of
conversation lately. There's been some books, some kind of tell
all books from children who have been exploited in this
way coming out.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think there's been some like mini series about it,
which I'm always.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Kind of of two minds about because I'm glad we're
talking about it, but at the same time, it also
feels like you're making money off of exploited at the
same time, so it can be true.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Two things can be true. Yes, So I thought we
would bring this one back and please enjoy.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephan
Never Told You, a protection of iHeartRadio, and today we
are once again thrilled, so ecstatic, joyful to be joined

(01:39):
by the amazing world traveling Bridget.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I love the introductions you all give. They like truly
warm my heart.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, well, you warm our heart by being here, especially
when you're doing so much other stuff and you are
coming at us from a different location.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Correct, that's right.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm coming from you lot. Well, it won't be live
when people hear this, but live for right now from
Mexico City, Mexico, where it's nice and warm. Yeah, it's
lovely here.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
It looks lovely.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
You've got like a like healthy light globe coming in
behind me.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Where where we're staying is like has a lovely view,
and like all the different monuments and stuff. And then
there's I didn't know that Mexico City is so mountainous,
so it's like a really it's kind of like being
in California, like a beautiful view. But then skyscrapers. Yeah,
ten out of ten can.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Recommend yes, So you're having a good time.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Can you give us some highlights, some food maybe that
you've had.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Oh? Yes, everything I've eaten has been amazing, honestly, it's
so one of the reasons I wanted to come to
Mexico City was because of the food. I've been told
that you could go to like Michelin Star super bougie
restaurant and get a delicious meal in Mexico City if
you wanted to, or just get like, you know, cheap
tacos on the street, and that would be delicious, and
so I've been eating all the things. Lots of street tacos,

(03:08):
which are great. Something else I like is they take
breakfast very seriously here, which I am a breakfast person.
I really like that. So lots of good breakfast items. Yeah,
so far i've been I've only been here since Saturday,
so it hasn't been that long. But looking forward to
eating all the things.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, oh yes, well you've been.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
There almost a week, so I think you've gotten You've
gotten some variety. I'm sure you're gonna have a whole
lot more. But that's I'm very jealous of, like the
breakfast because I'm sure it's all spicy and delicious.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
There's something about a savory, spicy breakfast.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
The spot it does, it really does on it. They'll
be there, save a couch.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
For me, save a couch, yes, yes, just as well.
We're looking forward to checking back in more food updates hopefully.
But yeah, thank you so much for taking the time
to join us from a different city when you haven't
been there that long.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Oh, always a pleasure. And my own podcast, There Are
No Girls on the Internet, is on a hiatus, so
I feel like in this time where I'm not podcasting.
Having an outlet where I can be like, I saw
this thing on the internet and I have to talk
about it with somebody has been great for me. So
thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yes, absolutely, And the topic you bought today is fascinating
and such like a big one and one that we
have discussed a lot on the show recently because we've
been kind of on a tech streak on the show
and not to like, not to put words into anyone

(04:50):
else's mouths. But I didn't grow up with social media.
I got it late college, I would say, was the
earliest that I got. Some friends of mine got it
when I was in high school, but I was kind
of a late bloomer, as they say. And I know
it sounds kind of like back in my day, but
I'm pretty thankful for it, honestly, in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
And this.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Kind of new phenomenon of all of our lives, but
especially in this outline bridget of children's lives being on
the internet is fairly new and in a lot of
ways kind of disturbing, a little unsettling. I did want

(05:38):
to ask before we get into this conversation both of you,
what was your kind of experience with social media and also,
and you can pass on this one because I know
it's kind of a subject.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Does your family follow you on social media?

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Ooh, what a good question?

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Well, you know, I we just before we got on here,
talked about the fact that I am from the generation
of Beeper's and that the Internet was not a thing
until I almost got into college.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Essentially, like at the tail end of everything.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
The beeper was due to my job and at my
first job out of college, I was a child abuse
investigator and those systems were getting online. I was still
in the time when we were doing everything by hand.

Speaker 5 (06:28):
Essentially, that was where I am.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
The technology and social media was fairly new for me.
I think outside of college had like MySpace and Facebook.
I dabbled at first, and since then I'm like, Okay,
I like the social media thing, but I'm also very grateful,
especially seeing what my nieces and nephew have gone through

(06:50):
with social media, which they are a gen zer so
is a whole different level. I do have family that
follow me, I do not like it, and now a
post less because follow me.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah. So we were talking about how the first time
I met you, Samantha, you this was just a couple
of years ago. You had a beeper on your person
the first time you met in person four years ago. Yeah,
my my relationship with social media, I Annie, I'm kind
of like you, Like, I am so glad that I

(07:22):
came of age in a time where social media, Like
I'm glad that what I was doing on social media
or like the early days of my Internet usage is
not still around to haunt me or least Scott, I
hope not. So. I was using things like live journal
when I was in early high school, and I remember

(07:42):
I was in college when we first got Facebook, and
before Facebook it was MySpace, so like I was like
a scene kid and so college like MySpace dominated my
college experience. Like that was like how you understood and
kept up with my gross scenister hipster friends in college.

(08:04):
But it's funny because even though I was dabbling with
social media back then, it's so different than it is today.
Like it's like it doesn't even feel like the same thing.
I guess it technically was social media, but the implications
were so different then. I mean, back then you were
spending hours making it so that when you go to
your MySpace page, it has like falling stars and an

(08:26):
auto play panic at the disco song that nobody can pause.
But it was stuff like that, and then it was
social media, but it was so different than today, the
question of whether or not my family follows me on
social media. I don't allow them to follow me on
social media. This could be a longer conversation, but I

(08:46):
feel like I've kind of accepted that my social media
and digital presence is not actually who I am in
real life. And so you know, you should really be
thinking about, like when you post on social media, like
who is your audience? Who is this? And so who
I actually am that the audience for that is like
my friends and family, people who knew me in real life,

(09:07):
my online persona, if you will. That's not for my
friends and family. That's where people who are interested in
my podcast, interested in my content, that kind of thing. Like,
And so I draw like pretty clear distinction between the two.
Like I almost think of my my social media or
my digital self as like my avatar for my real self.
And I don't like the idea of the two kind

(09:29):
of the two worlds kind of overlapping. So I try
to keep a very clear distinction between my friends and
family IRL and my social media persona which I don't
see as my real self, if that makes sense. I
know I probably sound like somebody who just took a
huge bong rip. I swear to god I have not.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
You know, that's pretty fascinating because I think that says
a lot to the reality of social media when you
say it like that, there is a persona, and there
is this whole level of understanding that there's a difference
between the person and what's seen on screen and in
different accounts and different platforms. And I know, as we're
talking about the subject you're bringing, which I have a

(10:12):
lot of opinions, So I'm really really excited and a
lot of concerns, just as being in child welfare, but
in that level of what we see and what is
posted and who has control of what is being posted.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Absolutely, it's so complicated, and I think it's complicated for
me as a grown woman in my thirties. I can
only manage how much more complicated it gets navigating this
as a young person. So I know that I came
on the show quite a while ago to talk about
Francis Hogan, the Facebook whistleblower, and what her whistle blowing
revealed about what Facebook and Instagram knows about how social

(10:47):
media negatively impacts young girls, and so that was a
conversation that we had. But this conversation is a little
bit different because it really asks what happens when it's
not the teen or the child child getting on social
media themselves. What happens when it's the mom or the
parent who is kind of forcing I use that word

(11:07):
in quotes, forcing their child to be part of their
social media content, part of their social media persona. And
so on my podcast, there are no girls on the Internet.
I did this fascinating interview with this woman, Sarah Adams,
and she runs the TikTok account mom Uncharted. She told
me that she calls her account mom Uncharted because social media,
if you think about it, is really like this uncharted

(11:30):
territory for parenting and we really do not know how
social media will impact our kids. If you want to
listen to the whole interview, check out my podcast. She's
a really fascinating person, but her social media account is
dedicated to explorations of kind of mom influencing and like
mom run accounts and all the different ways that parents.

(11:50):
It's honestly, it's usually moms use their children for content
on social media. She told me that social media, you know,
the dynamics around it have changed so quickly, not that
long ago. If I was to say something like, oh,
sharing your kid on social media, you might think that
means like posting a cute picture on Facebook where your
great aunt or your uncle or something might like it. Now,

(12:12):
kids who are not even really old enough to understand
what it means, not to mention, not old enough to
consent to it, can have their most intimate or sensitive
or embarrassing moments seen by millions of people on social
media platforms like TikTok.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right, as we've said in a lot of these past episodes,
this is sort of an iteration of things we've seen before.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
This is going to also kind of age me.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
But my parents want saying a video of me as
a kid to America's funny as on videos. But that's
like very different, Like they weren't going to make money
off of it, right, Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Wait what were you doing in that video?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Never your mind?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
No, I was I was alternately like so enamored with
a frog and then terrified of the frog. It's just
like it wasn't that funny, but they thought it was
very funny, but.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Then it became like you know, reality.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
TV, and we've talked about those things before as well,
of like kind of the dance mom's situation, and then
now it becomes what we're seeing on social media where
people are making money off of this content of their kids,
where the kids can't consent to it, where it will
probably never be able to be fully erased if that's

(13:39):
what they wanted, If that's what they wanted, And then
I know we're going to talk about this later, but
there's kind of all these achy issues around, like parasocial
relationships people develop with these kids, and what do we
do about that? Like is that the platform or is
it the parent that's posting this content? Like all all

(14:00):
of these questions that come from from what it like
one level can seem like, oh, this is just a
cute video of this kid falling over but on, but
when you dig deeper than that, there's just all of
these other questions.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Exactly and you put it so well right, just two
levels at I don't feel like every parent who shares
content of their kid is is creative equal here, Like
there's a pretty big difference between you know, sharing the
occasional family vacation video or like cute picture or whatever
with your friends on social media or even the wider Internet.

(14:35):
There's a difference between that which I think most people
do and is like fine and running a business that
generates income from relying on an audience of millions of
people engaging with your child, right, And there are so
many questions that you just kind of alluded to and
reasons for why we should sort of be asking questions
about what that is doing to our kids. One of

(14:56):
the things that I think is unique about social media
and technology in general is how quickly it moves. Things
just move really quickly, And I think that when it
comes to our kids and the impact on our kids,
it would be who of us to not move really quickly.
It would be who of us to take a minute,
pump the brakes and do some real deep thought about
how we want our children to be showing up on

(15:16):
social media and whether or not it's actually good for
them psychologically, emotionally, and whether or not it's actually safe
like in the real you know, in every implication of
the world, like sometimes it is not safe to share
so much of your child on social media with strangers.
You know first there might be a negative psychological impact

(15:37):
on kids I really wanted to find I was like, oh,
I'm going to get some good media research on this.
But as the uncharted part of Sarah Adams's TikTok name suggests,
there kind of isn't a ton of good research out
there about the way that being used for content by
your parents would impact children. And that's partly because it's

(15:59):
just So Morgan sung over at NBC. She's one of
my favorite Internet reporters, and she's really been following this
beat of young people who have been kind of turned
into content by their parents. So Morgan spoke to Lindsay Cooley,
who was a licensed clinical child psychologist, who said that
because social media is so relatively new, there is not
really a lot of clinical research on the long term

(16:20):
effects of what she calls growing up online. But lately,
some kids who did grow up with parents who shared
every aspect of their lives on social media are starting
to speak out. Morgan Soong talked to Cam, whose mom
used to make content about their life. Cam said that
their mom sharing every single detail of their life had
a real negative impact on their mental health, and eventually

(16:42):
they kind of stopped being open with their mom about
whatever they were going through because they knew this is
just going to wind up being shared on the internet
with her followers. Cam is immunal, compromised, and would spend
a lot of time ill or sick, and rather than
like being there for them, Cam says that their mom,
which is be filming these filming that's for content. So

(17:02):
at a time, at times in their life where they
were sick or stressed or going through something difficult, their
mom would be there with a camera in.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Their face, right right.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
And I think that's the way you phrased it of
like you know, using kids for content, of like then
you become something like a tool to get clicks as
opposed to like a child that needs care.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
And needs help and needs respect.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
And how damaging that absolutely would be if you start
to feel like, oh, it's just like my tears are
just a way for you to film something and get
people to watch it. Like what would that do to you?
Like that's very damaging? I think, yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
And it's actually as an adult, like speaking of that
sort of distinction between my social media life or my
digital life and my real life, I don't really share
a lot of my like real life on social media,
and in part it's because of that tension that you
just named. If I have something in my life that

(18:08):
is really truly meaningful to me, I am really uncomfortable
with the idea of that being content, of that being
something to generate clicks, of that being something that's going
to have a number attached to it, like, oh, three
hundred people liked that my grandfather passed away or whatever.
Like I'm I really am not comfortable with that personally,

(18:30):
and so I tend to keep big or meaningful real
life moments off of social media because of that, because
I don't like the idea, and I'm like, no shade
to anybody who doesn't feel that way, this is just
how it feels for me. It just doesn't feel right,
and I think for me it feels like it is
does a disservice to how meaningful those moments truly are

(18:53):
in my life. I don't want to see Mark Zuckerberg's
engagement metric on the back end of something that was
like meaningful to me in my real life. That seems
to cheapen it. That feels a little bit cheap.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
To me, I guess, yeah, And it is interesting because again,
we are adults, and if you want to post that
content and you're contenting to yeah, you're an adult, so
you can consent to it.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Then that's one thing.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
It still feels strange because that's a whole separate podcast,
but kind of the like, oh, here's this sad thing.
I have to like it because otherwise they're going to
be mad I didn't like it, Like there's like this
kind of social dynamic around it that feels odd because
then you're like, well, I'm liking this thing that's really sad,
but if I don't do it. But I do think that,

(19:38):
and please don't come at me, listeners, but I do
think like this. In the same way people sometimes use
like pets or puppies to be like, oh.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Look how cute. Click on this content.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Here they are people are using their kids like that,
like see here's my life. Here's this like view of
my life, and like, oh, what did my kid do
today to.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Get these clicks?

Speaker 2 (19:59):
And if that is this is like, oh, my kid
is very sick and I am going through a hard time. Please,
you know, give me these likes, give me this engagement.
It does become pretty murky, right.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
You know, it's interesting too as we were talking about
the levels, like you're talking about social media etiquette, which
has been a conversation like how how do you go
from this? But also how social media has grown, Like
when you think of the initial Facebook, it was literally
to connect with college friends for me, or your past
friends or high school friends that you haven't seen, so
you may be updating so I might get a picture

(20:34):
of my old high school friend.

Speaker 5 (20:36):
Who had a child, and oh, how cute.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
And it wasn't necessarily about getting likes and looks. It's
just hey, I'm updating you about my life, even to
the point that like wedding announcements, funeral announcements were done
on Facebook. I'm on Facebook still to remember people's birthdays
and to get event invites, because a lot of people
used to use that as the way of getting invitations

(20:58):
or birthday parties or even sometimes which is really odd.
But the level that we have grown to is this
genre of TikTok is not a thing You can do
private and you can do small content, but it really
is a race to see what can go viral and
what can make money and what can get sponsorships. And

(21:18):
it's changed vastly from what an elder millennial like myself
knew it as to what it is today. But because
people are learning things so fast or getting access to
things so quickly, the etiquette has been kind of lost
or lost in translation perhaps, and it's become a point
that for the gen zers, and I guess newer millennials,

(21:42):
what are those younger millennials, baby millennials have seen this
as a norm and didn't realize until maybe just recently
as the younger generators who've been on social media all
of their lives since their birth have started to call
it out that this was normal and a competition and
a way of possibly making a live and it's just
kind of made this whole culture completely different from what

(22:05):
it was even three years ago.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh my god, that's such an insightful point. And I
do think it is like it is not just human nature.
It is a little bit, it's some of it, but
it's also exactly what you said, I think. I think
it's algorithmically generated platforms where whatever is extreme or over
the top or whatever gets more attention, and platforms like

(22:29):
TikTok where that is the currency is like that that's
what gets engagement, is that attention and so you have people,
so that's that's like its own thing. When you add
in kids to the mix that it just kind of
has the potential to really be so fraud Like I
remember it was some YouTuber I don't know her name offhand,

(22:49):
but she was kind of like quote unquote canceled because
she was known for being like a like a YouTuber
who showed her family and her family pet passed away.
And so she was making a YouTube video about how
her family pet passed away, and I guess she accidentally
uploaded the unedited footage where her child was very like

(23:14):
genuinely authentically upset and crying, and the parent was, rather
than consoling this child, trying to tell the child to
contort his face so that it would be really so
it would be like a really extreme picture of them crying,
because she knew that if you use that image of

(23:35):
an extreme close up of like a distorted face who's
experiencing extreme emotion, if you use that for the thumbnail
on YouTube, it gets more engagement. If you ever looked
at YouTube videos and you're wondering, why do all the
thumbnails have people making really weird over the top faces
that nobody really makes in real life. It's because they
have figured out that the algorithm rewards videos that include

(23:56):
faces like that. And so while this child is seeing
a genuine response emotionally to losing their pet, mom is like, Oh,
make sure that you really give me a good cry
face so that my YouTube video backus performs well. And
so I think it's not just our nature as humans,
it is also platforms that are prompting people into behavior

(24:19):
that they would not otherwise probably do if not for
the way that platforms kind of encourage us to do this.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 4 (24:26):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think again, like the squeaky will
gets the oil type of thing where you see the
most dramatic or the most over the top. Like one
of the things that's really thriving on TikTok is people
calling out other people for cheating or thinking they're cheating.
If your so and so I just saw your husband
here talking to this girl like that's been a big

(24:46):
thing and it shouldn't be as before, Like there's a
part of this like yes, let the little women know
so they can get out, but it's also purely for entertainment,
for the numbers, for the likes. And then as we
see with these children more and more shocking things that
people think is okay. I know a YouTuber as you
were talking about another YouTuber family. We talked about this recently. Actually,

(25:08):
in one of the episodes you came on, the couple
adopted the child just for the sake of saying, we're
good people and adopted this child. Come on this journey
with us. And then all of a sudden, the child
disappeared and I'm good, Look what the hell just happened?
What did you do to this child? And it's the
same way as we've seen several the couple who did
the experiment with their two young boys saying, hey, we're

(25:31):
going to say that one of your brothers died, your
pretend brother died. Just go along with it so we
can make money. And this was a whole experiment on
the kids for entertainment. The audience is supposed to know
that this is a joke. We're just testing the kids.
Let's see how the kids react. And it was so
traumatizing to watch these kids pretending like they're lying but

(25:52):
questioning why we're doing this, and then having it filmed
and everybody saying, what are you doing? This is so
mentally damaging to your child, but you're doing this for
the sake of TikTok to show what.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
So the example that you brought up earlier, the family,
the YouTube family that adopted a child, they're gonna, We're
gonna return to them. They make a little surprised guest
appearance in this episode. I think you're right. I think
that there is I honestly think it goes back to
something that you said, Sam. I think it's a situation

(26:24):
where because the Internet has moved so quickly, like from
where it was when I was updating my MySpace profile
in my dorm room in college to today, that wasn't
that long I'm old, but I'm not that old, right,
that wasn't that long ago, And where we were then
and where we are now are completely different. So it's

(26:44):
moved so quickly, and I think it's a situation where
not like the cultural norms around what is and is
not acceptable, healthy, okay, to do a good idea, to
do whatever, those have not kept up how quickly the
technology has moved, and so we now can film our

(27:05):
kids inside of our house and quickly uploaded to TikTok
or YouTube and a million views. Our society has perhaps
not progressed to a place where it's like, but should
we And I would argue that our laws have also
not kept up with that, And so I do think
there's something about the speed with which the Internet has
changed and become so ubiquitous in our lives that we
have not pumped the brakes and allowed for cultural norms,

(27:27):
societal norms, the law to all catch up to where
we are right now, and especially the fact that kids
are involved. We absolutely should be taking the time to
be a little bit more introspective and slowed down a
little bit, to have a cultural reset about what is
it is not okay when it comes to filming children
for strangers online right, And it.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Kind of always reminds me of the thing that I
had to tell kids as Snapchat and all those different
things were existing, again reminding them you may think it's
not on the internet, but it's on the internet, So
just as a reminder, but also the government was very
quick to use things like this to go after the
marginalized communities, and that's a whole different conversation, I know,

(28:11):
but having to try to explain to both parents and
two children, like, hey, you posting this picture of your
half naked child is actually could be considered child porn,
and you can be arrested on a felony and then
being completely shocked and then having also letting the kids know, Hey,
you just sending it yourself, even though you're doing it
with your quote unquote consent. As a minor, you don't

(28:32):
have the ability to consent. But it's only going after
specific things and specific morality rather than what the root
of the problem is with the social media.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Oh my god, Sam, this is kind of a non sequitor.
I had the like the most like weird conversation with
a stranger on TikTok. It was for whatever reason, I
get surfaced a lot of content about hallucinogens, like hallucinogen drugs.
TikTok thinks I'm very interested in like expanding my mind.
And there was a woman who is a woman of
looks like a woman of color to me talking about

(29:03):
how she enjoys using mushrooms and it's like, oh, like,
come follow me from my beautiful day on mushrooms, and
it did look like a beautiful day. Like she's at
the beach, She's like going for a swim. Looks fantastic.
Then she goes to her car, and it like She's like, oh,
I had to drive home, and I was like, honey,
this is a video. You're a woman of color and
this is a video of you admitting to a crime.

(29:24):
I'm like, this is not me judging you or me
saying this, but it is me knowing that. Like I've
seen people. I've seen people who are going through like
contentious marital situations to get CPS called on them. Like
I've heard horror stories of people who just uploaded stuff
to the Internet without thinking about it, and then they

(29:45):
lost a job, they lost a scholarship, like the courts
got involved, and somebody else was like, why is that
the first thing that you jumped to, And I was like,
I understand that, Like it sucks, and I like, I
don't want to be the person to have to tell
you this and like rain out of your parade from
you your nice day that you were trying to show
with the internet. But I want to be the person
that tells you the truth. And the truth is that

(30:07):
especially for people of color, you, I mean, nobody should
have been admitting to a crime on video. That's just
like end that there. Do what you're gonna do if
you're not hurting anybody whatever, but like be smart about it, Like,
don't have this new era of social media where we
don't necessarily have the cultural norms firmly established anymore, the guardrails,

(30:31):
if you know what I mean. Don't let that false
feeling of freedom make you think that we actually do
have freedom online, especially if you're marginalized. I would that
is just like a rule of thumb, don't admit to
crimes on the internet. That's just like, I don't care
how much engagement it gets you.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
That's just an overall But as you're saying for the
person who's like, why do you have to go to
that like pessimistic view? And I know I'm always joking
about the fact that I'm pessimistic, But the reality is
it's really privileged for someone to not have to even
worry about it.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
That's the problem.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
The problem about this is I have been on this
side of where I see police officers, I see court
systems actually go after specific individuals because they've profiled them
from jump and then find the social media accounts and
use every bit they can from that because they're profiling
once again, and that I know we use that as
generalized terms in the bigger picture, but it happens on

(31:22):
social media as well as well as the sact that
there was a perfect example of this dude who's really big.
TikToker got really big because he was funny. Everybody loved him,
thought he was just hilarious. He just cuts into a
video and then tells a random fact that was his
whole thing, and then people found and dug into his

(31:42):
earlier post where he brings his child, where the child
says all these homophobic and racist comments, which obviously was
taught by him, and he's encouraging it, and everybody's getting
pissed at both the child and him, and this is
what he's done, not realizing that he was going to
blow up.

Speaker 5 (31:59):
But that's the consequence.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's like, not only have you ruined your own reputation,
you've already ruined your child.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Oh my god. And it's like I could only see
that as like a parenting fail. If your kid heard
you using slurs and repeated that and you knew that
was behavior that they were exhibiting, that is one thing.
Then being like I should film this for the Internet
because it's funny. That is I guess that's what I'm

(32:28):
saying I'm not being very eloquent about it, but I
do think that we are in this point where I
don't know that people universally understand that not every moment
is okay to be shared on the internet. And you know,
I would hope for that parent in that situation to
be like, we need to have a conversation about what
is and it's not okay to say. The fact that
this parent was like, Ooh, get the camera, this is

(32:49):
going to be great put this on the internet. That
really tells me that I think that we are in
a place where perhaps people are not asking the question
of should I be filming this? What are the consequences?
This is because for my kid, like I think we
just need to have a little bit more introspection about
what we share to the internet.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
For strangers, absolutely, and again it is this layer of
safety that people think, because they don't see people's reaction,
they just record it and move on with their day
until the consequences happened, that they're safe to do this.
And maybe they're thinking they're being relatable or maybe they're
trauma bonding with people, which is in itself like why
are you doing this? And it's doing at the expense

(33:27):
of a child, thinking maybe I don't know if it's
legitimate or if it's a ruse saying that I'm just.

Speaker 5 (33:32):
Trying to teach you. I'm just trying to.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Share our you know, our downfalls, and I'm trying to
be real. But it's again at the expense of a
child's emotions and trauma.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
So that exact thing is the reason why I wanted
to talk about this because I had a moment where
I saw this video on TikTok, and I have to say,
like I was personally triggered by this, this TikTok that
I saw, and it was this video of a black
mom who who was washing her black child's like braids, right,

(34:04):
and so this so she had a camera set up
where she was holding her child over the sink to
like scrub her scalp. And this little girl was like
maybe she's like seven or eight. She is balling her
eyes out, she is so upset. Right, And so I'm
a black woman, I have braids now if I have braids,
For most of my life when I was a kid,
like a lot of black women, my hair has been

(34:27):
something that is like a complicated thing, like a lot
of Black women have complicated feelings about their hair, and
I have many a memory of crying while getting my
hair done, crying while getting my braids taken, you know,
taken out or put in, and I remember quite viscerally
what a vulnerable position that I was in in those times.
I'm not saying that like moms shouldn't do their kids

(34:48):
hair if they cry, but I'm saying I remember that
being an emotional experience for me that I was very
vulnerable in. And I think a lot of black women
know what I'm talking about. And so this child is
sobbing while this is happening. The mom is like, everybody,
millions of people are going to see how you're acting
right now. And the little kid is like, what do
you mean? And she's like, I'm filming this, And a

(35:09):
little girl starts crying even more and she's like, why
are you filming this? And her mom is like, I'm
filming it for a hair tutorial. And even though this
is a little kid, she's pretty, she's pretty sharp. She says,
why don't you film a hair tutorial on your own head?
And it just broke my like something about watching that
video of like I remember what it was like to
be in distress. Now, I'm not saying that was like

(35:30):
a traumatic experience for her. Kids cry for all kinds
of reasons all the time, right, we were all kids once,
we remember, but she's clearly in distress, even if it's
temporary distress. And so her mom talking to the camera
in this moment and being like millions people are going
to see this in the moment really just made me sad.
And the mom was saying like, oh well, like in

(35:52):
the comments of this TikTok, she was saying like, well,
I want to show other black moms out there how
you deal with a stressful hair water and other people
who were supporting her were saying like, maybe she's looking
for a community of moms and wants to build community
in solidar our young line. I could sort of see that,
But ultimately, the number one responsibility of a parent should

(36:13):
be to create a safe environment for your kid and
all of this other stuff, like I can understand maybe
sort of kind of wanting to demonstrate like, well, here's
how I, as a black mom get through a tough
hair washing day, But those are strangers. Your responsibility when
your child is in distress is to provide a safe
environment for that child who cares about these strangers in

(36:36):
your head that you are thinking about entertaining or whatever
via this content. And that's kind of what I'm talking about, Like,
how have we reached a point where folks have kind
of forgotten that your number one responsibility is to your
child and to create a safe environment for that child,
even if that means that this community of fictional moms

(36:57):
looking for support might have to get at someplace else.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Right, And I know, as you said at the beginning,
there hasn't been a lot of research in this. I
know I read one article about how things like this

(37:23):
does a road like the trust a kid has in
their parents, because if it's like they can kind of sense, oh, well,
they're doing this for some other reason, or there might
be a trick behind this, or they might be trying
to manipulate an emotion out of me for someone else.
But also, something that I wanted to go back to
that you wrote about was this idea of.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Feeling like there's a invisible audience.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, this I found this fascinating. So Lindsay Cooley, the
licensed clinical child psychologist that spoke to Morgan Sung at NBC.
Coolly said that adults whose formative years were shared online
may never grow out of experiencing what she described as
the invisible audience. We've all kind of probably felt that
the invisible audience is this kind of adolescent ideal that
everybody is paying attention to you and like scrutinizing your

(38:08):
behavior at all times. Now, most of us probably felt
that way at one time or another in our lives,
but we usually grow out of it as we mature
and become, you know, more self aware and get a
deeper sense of self. Lindsay Cooley says that kids who
are always being filmed for content might have a harder
time breaking out of that mindset because they essentially grew

(38:29):
up on a stage. They grew up knowing that they
had to perform and turn it on. And so if
that is your everyday lived experience, you might have a
much harder time growing out of that phase when you
think that everybody's looking at you, when you are feeling
like everybody is scrutinizing you and feeling like you're being
perceived with eyes on you all the time. And really
I can kind of understand that, like I can understand

(38:50):
why for kids who who are constantly on the stage
of the internet. Why that would then be a hard
thing to kind of break out of.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, that's another issue here is the issue of privacy.
And as we also mentioned at the top, these parasocial
relationships that people can form with children who again probably
never consented to any.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
Of this, right, Yeah, that's something that I find really interesting.
I guess I'll say, is this the way that adults
on the internet can form these parasocial relationships with kids
they don't even know, you know, And I the one
had I kind of get it right, Like they've been
let in on these very intimate relationships with these kids,
and so I can understand forming a bond, right, and

(39:39):
how that line of what is and is not appropriate
and what you are and are not entitled to can
become blurred. There was this mom influencer on TikTok recently
who decided that she was going to stop showing her
kids on social media after sort of providing quite a
bit of content solely about her kids, and her followers
were upset, but they weren't just thought. They weren't like cool,

(40:01):
as your kids do what you feel is best. They
were not happy about that, and they felt really entitled
to see and interact with these kids they don't even know, right,
And so I remember this was around Christmas time when
this influencer announced that and one of her followers made
a video that was like, can we at least see
the children for Christmas? Like I just want to see
them for Christmas? And how they could not accept that

(40:25):
they were not going to be able to see and
interact with kids that they didn't know. And it might
I don't feel like all of these people have bad
intentions or anything, but it is absolutely not healthy for
an adult stranger to feel entitled to see kids that
they don't even know, Like, that's just not healthy, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Of course I have to go real dark with it,
as you're being very kind and be like these are
not They just really like these kids and they think
the relationship is adorable. But here's the prime example of
where we can talk about grooming and what happens when
these relationships are these young kids become sexualized by the

(41:03):
audience or by the followers and not necessarily being done
by the parents that they may be completely innocent of it,
thinking that they're playing cute little dress up matching mommy
type of look which is often a thing, but this
becomes a real dangerous road of grooming and a sexualization
of young children.

Speaker 5 (41:22):
Just I know there was one specific.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
Woman who went through a young girl's accounts, meaning they
were probably really young, maybe with a parent, showing what
kind of followers these accounts had, and they for typically
for a more example, like middle aged men commenting about
how beautiful they are and how all these things are,
like how good they looked in this outfit or all
these things, and how concerning it is that the parents

(41:47):
aren't realizing that compliment is not cute. It's not a
cute compliment and you shouldn't sit there and like them
and say thanks for supporting my child, which has been
the response. And it is so dangerous is when you
see that this is becoming normal exactly.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
So, I do think that there are people out there
that are just like, oh, I just love this baby,
and I have slipped into an unhealthy fixation on this baby.
Perhaps not badly intentioned, yes, but you are so right
that that that there are people for whom they do
have bad intentions and it is about sexualization and grooming
and it's gross, like it like what I'm what I

(42:26):
want to talk about today is like just the tip
of the iceberg with how dangerous and gross this stuff
can get, because truly it's just like very dark. There
is a trend called role playing. No not dungeons and Dragons,
role playing like that. This is what people Annie, I
bet you were like playing what was up? So this

(42:49):
is a this is a trend that I actually have
not heard of until I researched for this episode, where
people on the internet will steal photos of other people
from social media and make new fake accounts of these
people with like made up stories and identities. Now, sometimes
this can be like mostly harmless, other than the fact that, like,
it's not cool to be taking pictures of kids from

(43:11):
the internet, but like some people are doing this just
and it's not it's not necessarily harmful. But in other cases,
some of the backstories and like fictional situations involving the
identity of children and the pictures that they are using
are sexual. And so there's this influencer Katie Rose Pritchard.
She told Good Morning America that one day that she

(43:32):
discovered all these social media accounts made for each one
of her kids, but they were actually strangers pretending to
be her like very young toddler children typing in like
baby voice in captions on Instagram. She told Good Morning
America that she noticed that among these role playing posts
on social media, they used hashtags like kid RP or

(43:53):
baby RP to indicate that's what it is, and that
there's like a massive community of people doing this, some
of whom more describing obviously sexualized fictional situations involving her toddlers,
and probably unsurprising, she was enraged and horrified, and I think,
you know, there's so many different avenues to this, but

(44:16):
one is that it's obviously a social media platform accountability issue.
Katie Rose Pritchard said that she reached out to Instagram
to have this content taken down, and that at first
Instagram told her that people making fake accounts of her
kids and putting them in these sexual fictional situations was
not against their community guidelines, but eventually she kept having

(44:36):
her followers report the content and Instagram did eventually take
it down. So she decided that she was going to
stop posting pictures of her kids on social media, even
though she was an influencer, and this had resulted in
brand deals and partnerships and all of that, but that
it just wasn't worth it, because she was like, even
though Instagram eventually did the right thing and took these
pictures of my kids down, who knows where they could be,

(44:59):
She was like, I'll never know, Oh how far their
pictures traveled. What dark corners on the of the Internet
her kids' images are on and that is really scary.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
Yeah, and you know, just to add a wrench, and
this whole thing is with the ideas of deep fakes
and AI technology which takes straight from content from the Internet,
there are so many disturbing things that's out there just
knowing half of that and that being faked and what
it's being used for. And again, there's no laws to

(45:29):
truly stop this. This is kind of like the freedom
of speech. As long as you're not violating that child
and you're doing images that resemble and say this is
not truly them, all you have to do is alter
something and they can escape.

Speaker 5 (45:43):
The lag because there is no law for it.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
And with the realization that once you put it on
the Internet, there's no ownership, true ownership, as much as
you would like to think there is, there's no true
ownership to the content that you are posting.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Yeah to your point about deep fakes, mom unstarted on
her TikTok has talked about again it's so dark that
I hate to even go there, but like there are
marketplaces for deep fakes. People have been like, here's an
image of a person, not always an adult, sometimes it's
a child. I would like to see digitally manipulated, like

(46:18):
AI generated images of this child in sexual situations. That
is a thing that happens. And I know that it
is dark, and it's like, on the one hand, you
feel awful when someone's like posting a cute picture of
their kid, being like, well, did you know that this
could own wind up on a marketplace? All the dark
side of the Internet. But I have to say the truth.

(46:40):
It's like, what is happening? And I think it's a
reason why more and more influencers are and people in
general are keeping their kids off of the Internet. Like
I don't have kids, but if I was a parent,
I don't think I would put my kids on social media.
I just I think that with all that I now know,
and I didn't always know this, I know this from

(47:00):
research from now that I know all the different really
dark up gross corners of the Internet out there. I
just feel like it would be a safer bet to
not Like, I don't know what it would give me
to introduce that into my kid's life. And this, you know,
this is a growing thing these days. The influencer that

(47:23):
I was just talking about, she wrote on Instagram. I
can be angry at Instagram all day long and nothing
will change until we change. Instagram is not to blame
for the exploitation of my children. I am. They have
no responsibility and usually come back with we have no
control over over what our users posts. They simply do
not care. And it's I think that Instagram is really

(47:45):
abdicating responsibility here. But on the other hand, Katie is
not wrong about this, like it really if platforms aren't
going to do anything to keep young people safe online,
they should. In an absence of them being lee and
doing what they're supposed to be doing to keep kids safe,
we have no choice but to act. And I know
that that is like, it should not be that way.

(48:08):
But if platforms are going to allow the kind of
dark stuff involving kids that they do allow, we have
to be the ones who are making good decisions to
keep our kids safe.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Right well, obviously, as you said at the very beginning,
as a parent, your first responsibility is the safety of
your child. It should be, and that's that's kind of
the intent to begin with. And so even though yes,
you may not be doing any of these dark and
despicable things, you're like, I've I keep talking about it,
but like, I have had nightmares of the darkness that

(48:41):
happens to children, unfortunately because of the things that I
have witnessed personally, Like, that's just a thing that will
always be ingrained in my head. It's terrifying as awful,
and I hate that that's a part of my psyche
and that that's part of the thing that I share
with people. But it is really naive to believe that

(49:02):
everything is sunshine and puppy dogs, because I would love that,
that would be amazing. That's why I can't watch dark
things because I don't want to live in that world.
But I've seen it, and you know, as you've researched
more things, it gets uglier and uglier. And as Instagram
should be held responsible for some things, it is also
that again the parents' responsibility at the very jump for

(49:25):
to protect a child, and unlike it sounds like this
one influencer did an amazing job and trying to backtrack
because you don't think about that. It's an amazing it's
a great thing to not have to think about that,
but then when show face with it, to realize you
need to do some damage control. But there's those out
there who as long as they get the money, as

(49:46):
dark as that seems, it doesn't seem to care, and
there's no law to protect the children, it seems exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
So this is something that really bombs me out, grosses
me out because you might be thinking, like, surely parents
are not knowingly making money off of their kids content
being served up to adult creeps. But I'm sorry to
report that that is what is happening with some of these,
like mom run accounts. Sarah of mom on Chargage told
me that she sees these mom run accounts of young

(50:12):
girls a sensibly a platform to share their their daughters
like modeling pictures or like gymnastics pictures. But when you
click in, as you were saying, the people who are
following that page are grown men. The people who are
saving the images. So if you post something on TikTok
or post something onto Instagram so you can see who
saves it. The people saving that are grown men, and

(50:35):
when you click into these profiles of the people following,
oftentimes it's like not it doesn't take you know, a
detective to see like, okay, this is an image of
a grown man. Who are they following accounts like hot
young bikini girls things like that, Like it's pretty clear
what's going on. And then these men will leave comments
on pictures of their kids that are like wow, what

(50:56):
a hot picture, and mom will go in and like
that comment right, And so it's sort of this weird
thing where it's done under this kind of like plausible
deniability of like oh, it's just a modeling page, like
you're the one sexualizing my kid, but come on, like
you know what this is. I've even seen some of
these accounts go so far as to sell images of

(51:20):
like you want to buy a photo set of my
daughter's gymnastic pictures or even buy their used clothing, like
we know, like we all see what's happening. They can
they can hide behind this is a modeling thing. You know,
this is you know, whatever, it's clear what's going on.
You are making money from exploiting your kid, and that
is just what's happening. I think at the very least,

(51:43):
let's just call it what it is. Don't dance around it,
don't use this this plausible deniability. Everyone knows what's going on.
Cut the crab. You know.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
We recently did an episode on YouTube and this is
a very similar situation happening where there are videos of
young kids, mostly young girls, and getting several comments like
this from grown men and uh as. We've been alluding
to this whole time. There aren't specific laws in place

(52:26):
to protect kids from this.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Correct, that's right, And so when you think about it,
it's kind of weird that there's not right. Like when
it comes to kids making money off of their labor,
we have all kinds of like rules and policies and
regulations in place here in the United States. You know,
media companies that work with kids for like films or
commercials or modeling or whatever, they have very strict labor

(52:50):
laws like I used to do, like child modeling and
child acting when I was a kid. Like, they have
very very specific labor laws. But the Fair Labor State
and Act, a nineteen thirty eight law that addresses excessive
child labor, and the California Kogan Act, which protects child actors.
Neither of those have been updated to include children online,

(53:12):
like the children of influencers, children who are being used
as content, and so it is definitely a situation where
our technology has advanced quicker than our laws have because
they're currently zero laws that in the United States that
regulate how children work on social media and how they
can appear in ads on social media that generate money,
but that actually might be changing soon. Morgan Sung reported

(53:35):
that an eighteen year old college student named Chris McCarty
wanted to advocate for kids' rights to privacy after learning
about that influencer Mika Stealfer, the one who you might
recall we were just talking about, she wanted to adopt
a special needs child. She did adopt that child, extensively
shared intimate content about the health needs of her adopted

(53:56):
child before deciding that those medical needs were too much
and having him quote rehomed. As she put it, well,
that inspired Chris McCarty to start advocating for the way
that kids are used online and like advocating for protections
for these kids. McCarty started the site Quit Clicking Kids,
which is described as an advocacy and education site to

(54:17):
combat the monetization of children on social media, and when
Chris was a senior, they cold emailed like a bunch
of lawmakers and eventually ended up working with Representative Emily
Wicks to craft HB sixteen twenty seven, which is which
is a bill that would protect quote the interests of
minor children featured on for profit family vlogs by requiring
the parents of kid influencers to set aside part of

(54:39):
that revenue from their content into a separate fund so
that their kids could access them into adulthood. And it
would also grant the children of influencers the right to
request the permanent deletion of their likenesses, names, or photos
from any Internet platform or network that provided compensation to
the individual's parent or parents in exchange for that content,
and so platforms under this new legislation, platforms would have

(55:02):
to take reasonable steps to permanently delete video segments of
such children. That was one of the things that like
in researching for this episode and reading the accounts of
young people who were the used solely like they were
the sole focus of their parents' content. One of the
things that they say is I can't delete it from me.
I had no choice in the matter. I was not

(55:23):
able to consent. And now when you google my name,
all this stuff, intimate stuff comes up about me, intimate
stuff about my health, my body, my life all comes up,
and there is no way to remove it. And so
I don't know how this legislation will shake out. I'll
keep you posted, but I do think it's time that
we really had our laws and our norms catch up

(55:46):
with where we are technologically. And I think, you know,
I think it's time.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
You would think that we would have learned through the
child actors stuff, of all the young actresses that had
either the money stolen or gone through so much abuse,
all those things that you would you would have thought, yeah,
we would learn from those mistakes because some of these
young kids making multi millions of dollars, So like you
would think that with that kind of revenue, which is

(56:12):
which is rare, But those are the ones who are
getting the money. Are the younger kids at this point
in time, that we would actually find a way by
now that would protect these kids, because inevitably they're the
ones who kind of bring it to bring it to
as it is, like we're not it's not the older
people who are creating these new things and new new

(56:34):
trends and new ways of communicating. Is the younger kids
who are doing this and learning how to do it
better and or being used for it, Like it's one
of those things that like it should be for them,
So why wouldn't it automatically protect them?

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Exactly? Like I love c kids on the Internet as
much as anybody else in a healthy way. But like
corn Kid, I don't know if you guys remember corn Kid.
He was just like a door, a little kid who
was interviewed at a state bear eating corn and he
was like when I had it with butter, everything changed
and he was like an overnight sensation. And I remember
thinking like, oh, what happened to corn Kid? How's he doing?

(57:11):
And Corn Kid is quote retired, and I just loved that.
You know, somebody in his life was like, hey, this
you We've had this overnight unexpected viral fame, but you
can retire. You know, this doesn't have to be something
that you know, do. This doesn't have to be something
I think I think I did see that he was
on cameo, But this doesn't have to be something that

(57:32):
you you know, make your entire identity and You're just
a kid. You don't you don't have to, you know,
decide to go into internet, social media stardom, entertaining strangers
because you had this one viral moment. And so I
really that really hurtened me to see that somebody in
his life gave him a space and the language of
being like, oh, yeah, I'm retired as corn kid, uh

(57:55):
to make a choice for himself and protect his protect
his identity, protectic piece. Because I do think, like, yeah,
the Internet is forever, and I really feel for these
kids who don't get a choice in becoming these Internet
stars and have to live with it for life. And

(58:17):
I think, you know, I do think the tide is
turning a little bit. I think that we're seeing more
and more one more and more children who were used
in this way as content speaking up about what that
experience was like for them. And I think we're seeing
more and more influencers stop showing their kids on social
media or do so in ways that are a little
bit more thoughtful. Right, So you'll see influencers not showing

(58:38):
their kids' face or including their kids and their content,
but just showing their hands the back of their head
so that it's not just you know, performing on command
for the entertainment and monetization of your platform, right, And do.

Speaker 4 (58:54):
You know, I think people took a page out of
the big celebrities who realize who lived in the limelight.
We're like, we're not putting our children through that and
go through everything to try to cover at least like
protect their identities.

Speaker 5 (59:07):
And I've done so much.

Speaker 4 (59:08):
Better recently, I mean not some, but you know, and
that they're learning this could be really damaging, like you said,
and that Quaran kid so cute. He literally I think
they asked him much later after everything went viral, like
what do your friends think of that?

Speaker 5 (59:22):
And they're like, my friends don't know. They don't know
anything about.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
This because the parents did such a great job in
keeping them isolated away from all of that because they
didn't want him to be scrutinized, made fun of or
any of that. Because so many of them because he
kind of I guess is it a meme?

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Was the amazing gifts?

Speaker 4 (59:37):
Maybe eventually became that that so many of those goods
who were gifts or memes were really humiliated as adults.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Yeah, Like I think it was BuzzFeed doing a series
of what happened after these people became memes. They actually
have a really good one. If you remember the girl
this is going to maybe date me and people who
are younger going to be like what the talking about
girl who was photographed with pigtails and headgear holding goosebumps
books if she is a very her story is very fascinating.

(01:00:09):
But yeah, it's like these these people that we see
on the Internet, and because we're engaging with them through
a screen, we can kind of forget that they're real
people who have to go on to live real lives
in the real world. They don't just exist frozen in
time in this meme where we first encountered them. They
are real people, yes, her.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Well, as always, this has been so informative, Bridget, thanks
for bringing it to our attention. Thanks for making the
time to come on, and I'm sure we'll update on
this one because clearly we all have a lot of
thoughts about this, so I would love to come back
to this one.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Well, where can the good listeners find you?

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Well, you can find me over at my own podcast.
There are no girls on the Internet. The episode that
we did with mom uncharted souoney interesting. She's just a
really interesting person. I would definitely recommend checking it out.
Follow me on Twitter at Bridget Marie, on Instagram at
Bridget Marie and DC, or on TikTok at Bridget Mixed Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Yes, love it, love it. Go check all of those
things out if you haven't already. Listeners, Uh and yes,
thank you again, Bridget. Can't wait to do this again
next month. Update on the food as well.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
Yeah, maybe we'll do it from Mexico City, but you
all come visit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Oh, I would.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Love do it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
I just heard an invitation. I'm coming come.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
The bags are getting packed, the bags are getting started
in Mexico.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Oh, I can't wait.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Listeners, if you would like to contact us that you
can our emails, Stuff Medium, Mo and stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
You can find us on.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Twitter at MAMSA Podcasts, or Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Ever told You.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina the best,
the best, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never told you the protection.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
For more podcast to my Heart Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
You can check out the radio app Apple Podcasts wherever
you listen to favorite ships