By: Sasha Deans

I just watched a new show on Netflix called ‘Bad Influence’, and it’s intense. It’s all about Piper Rockelle, a famous YouTuber, and her mom, Tiffany. At first, I thought it was going to be about fun behind-the-scenes stuff, but it was actually kind of heartbreaking.

The show talks about how multiple groups of kids who used to be in Piper’s videos said they were treated very very badly. They said Piper’s mom yelled at them, made them do weird things, and even made them feel unsafe and made them work everyday 11am-1am; no breaks. Also, if they choose to leave because they felt unsafe, Piper’s team would find some weird way into shadow banning their channels, so they were blackmailed into staying for so long. Eventually, 11 of them went to court about it!

I liked how the show made you think about what it’s really like to be a kid influencer. Everyone always sees silly fun videos, but this showed that there’s a lot going on behind the camera. It made me feel bad for the kids, and also made me wonder how many other kid influencers in the world might be going through the same thing. Some parts were hard to watch, like with the sexual abuse her mom was doing to the other kids.

Piper and her mom didn’t talk in the show since they are quite literally still making “crush content“*, and are still trying to make money off of Piper, even though she’s 17, so we didn’t get to hear their side very much. Still, it was super interesting and kind of shocking.

*To clarify, “crush content” is where they market the kids by giving them a “crush“. It brings a lot of attention and views and they even audition for the role! Her current “crush person“ is Capri.

If you’re into YouTube drama or like shows that tell the truth, this is definitely one to check out

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s not fun-fun, but it’s important and eye-opening.