Blog #7 McMillan

Kid influencer??? Am I reading that right? I had never really heard of that before starting this blog. And after seeing how much they make, I am beginning to think I know what my future kids will be doing. The only kid influencer I could really think of knowing before this was Lincoln and his dad from the What’s Inside YouTube channel. I was also aware that there are many family YouTube accounts but I wasn’t aware of kids like Ryan.

I chose to analyze Ryan’s account because he was listed as having the largest following. Having very little background knowledge of channels like this, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I imagined that Ryan would be the star of the channel with his parents or an editor doing most of the heavy lifting. I also figured they would post about every week or so with toy reviews and some vlogs. After watching some videos on his channel, I’d say I was pretty close in my assumptions. Ryan is the main star of the channel alongside both of his two sisters and his mom and dad. The family opened their own production company, Sunlight Entertainment, in 2017. The channel uploads videos daily and from what I gathered from their website, they have editors specifically for their channel.

 

Taken from Ryan's website

With a basic understanding of how things work, we can now look into the kind of content they create. I was surprised to see that there really weren’t as many toy reviews as I anticipated. The original article even called the channel Ryan’s ToysReview. However, of all the videos posted in the last month none of them were explicitly reviewing toys. The most common kind of video is a DIY experiment or fun activities to do at home. This likely is due to the Coronavirus creating a need for many families to find things to do around the house. Another kind of video that was often posted was a travel vlog. These vlogs centered around the family going to things like a children’s museum or a pet café.

The level of interaction between Ryan’s family and his viewers is virtually zero. In fact, the comments are turned off for all of his videos. I was surprised by this and wanted to see if it was normal, so I checked out some of the other kid influencers on the list. What I found was that the older kid influencers tended to have comments on, while the younger ones opted for disabling comments. This shows that Ryan, currently eight, is very on par for YouTubers like him. However, this makes interaction with fans very difficult. His Instagram, run by his parents, shows more of the same theme. While users can comment on their posts, I didn’t see any replies from the account.

Ryan's current subscriber count

Ryan and his family have a recipe for success. After all, you can’t get 24.6 million subscribers by accident. This recipe revolves around the relatability of the channel. Ryan is a funny, and very normal child, as are his two sisters. The parents seem normal and always have fun things for the kids to do. Although at times the content is scripted, most of the videos are Ryan and his sisters actually having fun. Another relatable aspect of Ryan’s channels comes from what they do in their videos. DIY projects, crafts, local travel vlogs and in-house activities are all things that pretty much everyone can do. This means that parents and kids alike continue to tune in to see things that they themselves can do. Another reason parents continue to let their kids view this content is because of the educational value. Ryan often posts educational videos or at home science experiments that are great for kids to watch. In fact, one of Ryan’s most popular videos, over 17 million views, revolves around him explaining tsunamis.

Ryan's latest two videos

However, with so much attention being drawn to Ryan and influencers like him, can this negatively impact their growth? The internet can often be a cruel and unforgiving place, including YouTube. YouTube has reported  that in a year they received over 215,000 flags by users deeming videos as hateful and 27% of these reports resulted in the video being deleted (Vega-Castaneda & Castaneda, 2019). Although none of these flags are likely from Ryan’s channel, it shows how hostile and unwelcoming social media and especially YouTube can be. One of the most hostile places on YouTube can be the comments section. Ryan’s parents do a good job of controlling this danger is by disabling comments on Ryan’s videos. This blocks a lot of potential hate and stupidity from Ryan’s view.

Besides dodging hate, privacy can also be a potential danger for Ryan. Ryan uses social media in very different ways than average teenagers, granted he is about ten years younger but the ideals remain the same. Marwick and Boyd (2014) describe how most teenagers try to create a “lite version” of themselves online to avoid sharing too much (pg. 1060) Most teenagers would never post 20 minutes worth of themselves hanging out, much less do it every day. And this is exactly what Ryan does. However, Ryan and his parents are very much in control of what gets posted online. This contrasts with teenagers who are the mercy of what their friends and family post of them (Marwick & Boyd, 2014). This again shows how despite a potential for danger, Ryan and his family are able to avoid it.

           

There could also be some potential downside to allowing your own children to view this content. First, it could result in unrealistic expectations and desires. Ryan does a good job of avoiding this but if a kid influencer was to post their luxury vacation and all the cool toys they have, it could easily make a young viewer very jealous. Secondly, spending a lot of time watching a screen is not always good for children. These influencers have thousands of hour’s worth of content on their channels and if not careful, a child could be tempted to binge watch. However, if used responsibly, channels like Ryan’s are a great way for your kid to learn something new while still having fun.

Overall, I’m glad I was introduced to this new aspect of YouTube I had never been exposed to. Has Ryan gained a new subscriber in me? No. I’m not exactly the target audience. But, I do appreciate the work Ryan and his family are doing and I recommend the channel to anyone with a child or looking for a quarantine binge.  

References

Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2014). Networked privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in social media. New Media & Society 16(7), 1051–67. doi:10.177/1461444814543995

Vega-Castaneda, Castaneda. (2019). Hate, violence, terrorism, and social media. Teaching and Learning about Difference through Social Media.