With social media now an intrinsic part of life and growing up, parents face a host of difficult decisions around how their children relate to it - including children who are creating or appearing in online content. Photo: Derich Anrey / 123rf
There have always been famous children, but in a world of instant social media it's now all too easy to expose youngsters to the world.
Once upon a time it was all about being an astronaut, a firefighter or doctor; but these days kids have their sights set on becoming vloggers or YouTubers.
That's according to a 2019 study by Lego that surveyed 3000 children between the ages of 8 to 12 years old, from the US, the UK and China, as well as parents of children aged between 5 and 12.
That study has informed Auckland University of Technology PhD student Irmine Keta Rotimi's research into the complex world of kidfluencers - the kids who have high profile public social media pages and make money from advertising deals.
"I mean, do you blame them? If I was an eight-year-old and I was watching little Jimmy getting toys each week and getting to play with them I'd be like, 'I want to do that!'" she says.
In a tech-driven world young people are spending more and more of their lives online and the toy industry has taken note.
"Advertisers now know that in order to reach their demographic they have to team up with these highly paid endorsers, these children, to promote their goods and services online," Rotimi says.
Influencing is a lucrative business. Someone with more than a million followers can earn more than $20,000 for a single sponsored post. Those with a more modest following, under 100,000, can still make up to $4000.
But alongside the rise of kidfluencers comes an increasing concern for the online safety of children, prompting some countries to restrict access to the apps.
Rotimi says one of the most commonly discussed concerns about the kidfluencer industry is labour. Current child labour laws don't specifically outline the guidelines and rights of a kidfluencer, so whether it qualifies as work or play is murky.
Rotimi thinks it's both.
"There are contractual agreements with the advertisers.
"Their objective is to sell the toy, to make money, so there are going to be talking points, there's things that the kidfluencer needs to say and do ... there are expectations set by the parents, they're the ones that are working with the advertisers, they are the ones that are also working with the child to make sure they are 'performing' in the right way," she says.
But Rotimi adds that kidfluencers experience genuine excitement and joy creating this kind of content, so it's a complex area of work/play to define.
Alongside the global rise in kidfluencers is the growing concern for overall child safety online. This is leading to countries restricting access to the apps, or in the case of Australia, ban them entirely.
But Rotimi doesn't think a ban is necessarily the best call.
"Because of the fact that the digital world is deeply ingrained, that there are children who do enjoy what they do - we need to acknowledge that.
"We need to figure out ways to best protect and safeguard them as well as empower them in a way that is actually beneficial for them," she says.
Rotimi also questions how much can a government dictate how a parent should really raise their kids.
"There are a lot of moving parts and parties involved and to see a ban would be interesting," she says.
When nine year old Sasha grows up, she wants to be an actor. The almost ten year-old has been filming videos of herself making slime, playing on the playground, and opening toys since she was four-years-old.
"I'd see the people on YouTube and I wanted to make videos like that," she tells The Detail.
It began as, and still is, a hobby, even though she now has more than 8000 followers on her Instagram account.
Her platform is fully controlled by her mum Abhi, who says it was never something that she forced Sasha to do.
"To be honest she never listened to what I said, I would give her a script to say, and she would not say one word of that, she would just say whatever comes to her mind," she laughs.
Abhi has a raft of measures to ensure Sasha's safety online, including monitoring what and how Sasha films.
"The main thing is I want her to be age-appropriate, I'm not putting on make-up and not showing her like a big adult. I am making sure that she is the kid that she wants to be," she says.
Abhi is aware that kids having public social media profiles is controversial but thinks Sasha's platform allows her to become more confident and express her passion of one day becoming an actor.
"I know that whatever we do there are going to be people who look at things in a bad way, and that can happen anywhere, it doesn't have to happen on Instagram.
"I don't want to stop something that she enjoys just because I'm scared of how other people are going to look at it."
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