11mo ago

A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men

www.nytimes.com A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men

Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more.

Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more.

The ominous messages began arriving in Elissa’s inbox early last year.

“You sell pics of your underage daughter to pedophiles,” read one. “You’re such a naughty sick mom, you’re just as sick as us pedophiles,” read another. “I will make your life hell for you and your daughter.”

Elissa has been running her daughter’s Instagram account since 2020, when the girl was 11 and too young to have her own. Photos show a bright, bubbly girl modeling evening dresses, high-end workout gear and dance leotards. She has more than 100,000 followers, some so enthusiastic about her posts that they pay $9.99 a month for more photos.

Over the years, Elissa has fielded all kinds of criticism and knows full well that some people think she is exploiting her daughter. She has even gotten used to receiving creepy messages, but these — from “Instamodelfan” — were extreme. “I think they’re all pedophiles,” she said of the many online followers obsessed with her daughter and other young girls.

Elissa and her daughter inhabit the world of Instagram influencers whose accounts are managed by their parents. Although the site prohibits children under 13, parents can open so-called mom-run accounts for them, and they can live on even when the girls become teenagers.

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A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men

www.nytimes.com /2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html

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“I think they’re all pedophiles,” she said of the many online followers obsessed with her daughter and other young girls
But you didn't stop posting pictures to the account?
- Ding! Which means the person is low key pimping their child out.
- “But she’s been doing this so long now,” she said. “Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?”
  Money.
  
  The same mum who said this is also now upset that her 17 year old daughter is planning on doing OnlyFans porn. Pretty soon mum won’t get the money for pimping her child any more and now she is horrified at all the pedos.
  Mum also says if she knew then what she knew now she would never have pimped her child on the internet. Kid is 17, so we are talking about maybe 5 years ago? Back in the olden days of 2019, when the internet was a safe fluffy warm place for children.

What the fuck is wrong with people
- Greed, trying to live through their children, lack of basic self awareness, chasing fame, etc.

There are so many levels of wrong to this that it's hard to take it all in.
So the mom admits that she thinks they're all pedos, but keeps posting anyway? There are a few different levels of depravity to that one element.
It's not a popular take, but it seems pretty well established that pedophilia is a compulsive mental disorder. Nothing about that absolves them of their actions, but it gives us a base-line that they are all collectively sick in the literal sense.
"Mom", if one could deign to label her such, is admitting that she is slinging images of her underage child to what amount to compulsive addicts. She's exploiting her daughter's innocence for profit, while feeding into the self-destructive compulsion of others, while simultaneously judging her customers with disgust and contempt.
She's so much worse than a drug dealer. This is the worst kind of abuse and exploitation, and really makes you wonder just how much worse it really is behind closed doors for those "extras"?
The entire situation is just a circle-jerk of depravity.
- It's an unpopular opinion but we need to give credit and support to people who recognize their desires are fucked up and abstain.
  Normal heteros and homos don't arbitrarily pick to be turned on by X or Y, I don't get why it's so hard to understand that natural urge being jacked up.

Simply ban all pictures of children and that's it. There is no good reason to post pictures of your child for the public to see. At the very least, you should be required to censor any faces.
Also, you're definitely exploiting your child if you keep some of the money these perverts pay.
- There are a ton of reasons to have pictures of children on the internet. How would schools show science fairs and sports events to the community without pictures of children?
  There is a middle ground between pretending children don't exist and pimping them out to thirsty pedos.
  
  I thought about these, but the context was social media. I wouldn't ban shools etc. to post these on their own sites, just not on e.g. instagram.
  The problem about any kind of gray area inbetween these two sides is that any sufficiently large social media platform cannot curate them. Either ban all or none of them.
- Also the internet is forever.
  Future employers are probably going to see those photos. I’m not sure how I’d respond, as a manager… but like, their future bosses are going to know their mom slung photos of them as a kid.
  And that’s just not something I want to know happens (nevermind actually happens,) and it’s definitely not something I want to know about a specific employee
  
  Yes, I totally agree with you. Looking back my biggest achievement online is probably not having any hits today when searching my name. To this day you'd only find a rather empty LinkedIn profile with no picture and I wouldn't have it any other way.
- So I can’t share photos of my kids with friends and family who are scattered across the world on facebook?
  
  Maybe just share them privately? Not that hard to only share with specific people.
  
  Nobody is saying you can’t.
  But if you don’t like the idea of some creepy ass dude wanking off to them, or stalking your kid to groom them, you shouldn’t.
  There’s plenty of ways to share those photos without it going on the internet for the entire world to see.
  
  I mean, yes. Why would you share them publicly? You could always send them via a secure messenger app.

Yes, these parents are essentially (and knowingly in some cases) pimping their kids and that is awful.
But let's not minimise the fact that the pedo's are the ones creating this situation. They're the ones sexualising these kids, they're the ones leaving fucking awful comments, they're the ones trying to coerce and threaten, they're the ones curating huge Telegram groups instructing other men how to locate these posts.
And let's also not minimise Meta's role in all this either. Reading that article it was clear that Meta literally don't give a fuck about these kids. At all.
- I can't let you say that. Of course Meta gives a fuck, they would be irresponsible not to. Those kids bring in many valuable viewers they can sell to advertisers.

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ. How could you pimp out your daughter like that? How could you sleep at night knowing that grown men are jerking off to pictures of your child!!??? I feel like I am going to need three back to back showers after reading this.

Children under 13 can't post on Instagram but Instagram allows their parents to post them anyway?? Why is this a fucking option? What if the kid grows up and doesn't want their personal life all over the internet? I hope all these kids sue their parent(s) when they turn 18. A child can not consent to any of this. This is right up there with genital mutilation.

Annie's 12 years old, in 2 more she'll be a removed.
- Somebody better tell her it's the wrong way.
  
  Don't be afraid at the quickness you get laid, for your family get paid, it's the wrong way.

I really appreciate somebody covering this story. It seems child fashion keeps getting tighter and skimpier, but (especially as a man) you can't have an opinion on it because "it's their life/it's their body/it's not sexual you're sexualizing them/etc."
As a content trend, it can be hard to avoid. I'm not even on most social networks, just YouTube and Facebook. I follow a couple of professional adult (age wise, not style wise) dancers on YouTube, and I'll click on various shorts if they look interesting on both yt and fb. With the algorithms doing algo stuff though sometimes it feels like I'm never more than two absent minded clicks away from something that feels obviously tailored to ""a certain crowd.""
I'd love to see more done to fight it but unfortunately with the political trends in America you can't let your kid feel out a different pronoun and haircut BUT freedom dies if you can't monetize your child's body on the internet.

If you use instagram, you support this disgusting shit.

Shit like this is exactly why if I ever have kids I'm not posting anything about them online.

30 comments