YouTube Family Channels/Vloggers

[Marmion]

The only YouTube channels  I ever watch , that might fit in this category would involve the Ballinger family . However , I am not sure if they are any relation to this family of the same name . https://fundamentalists.fandom.com/wiki/Ballinger_Family  .  The Ballingers I am referring to are these two sisters , Colleen , and  Rachel ,and their extended family .   Both of them had attended the school of the dining room table , at least for a time .  Going by this video , it wasn't altogether effective in educating Rachel at least .   

 But I don't believe that either of them are currently adherents of fundamentalism , especially given Colleen's support for lgbt people .  

 

[viii]

I watch sas-asmr and her sister, NE Eat 

[front hugs > duggs]

The only vloggers I remotely follow are The Bucketlist Family (travel blogging family of 5 for those who haven't heard of them). I'm a Disney fan, so I first found them when they did their 30 Days-30 Stays (Partnered with Walt Disney World to stay a single night at each of Disney's properties there) and continued to follow because I love traveling. As they've gotten more popular, you can tell they have more partnerships and more luxurious travel, but I don't think it's too obnoxious. I've also communicated with the mom, Jess, on insta and she seemed very friendly to me.

They are LDS, but don't talk or preach about it. The most I feel like you'll hear from them in their vlogs would be more like, "after we went to church yesterday we did this..." or "the kids made some new friends in church on Sunday", but neither of those things remotely bother me. They aren't modest (Dad Garrett will wear speedos!) I could see them having potentially conservative views in terms of being anti-abortion (though this is absolutely speculation so I have no clue), but they really seem to value the world and all its beauty and cultures. They seem to truly value the people they help and not just have a white-savior complex (each place they visit they try to engage in some form of service, from smaller service projects to larger projects like Healing Waters in Guatemala and working with Effect.org in Nepal to build a school for girls to help fight human and child trafficking there).

The one thing they do that bothers me is create Instagrams for their 3 young children as part of their brand. Their last baby had his own IG before he was even born, and they'll comment from the baby's IG on the family's IG, or share the same posts one most of the 6 instagrams that are part of their brand (one for each family member and one for the family blog as a whole, but there's a lot of the same posts across all the accounts....I only follow the main family account personally).

I do struggle internally with both supporting them by giving them clicks/views because I'm interested and overall they seem like a nice family, but also realize I'm supporting them potentially exploiting their children across a massive audience.

[HermioneSparrow]

I follow Our tribe of many, they're not that known though.

[Stormy]

On 4/2/2018 at 6:44 PM, TooTired2bOriginal said:

@Stormy Myka, yes.  I weirdly like her cleaning videos and find them downright inspirational, but the "homeschooling" (that ain't homeschooling, preschooling...perhaps) and the very publicized & tacky adoption from China, nooooooo. I've got an autistic son myself and would NEVER put up so much private family stuff, especially with the adopted child that I think she alludes to being on the spectrum. Really wrong and invasive of his privacy. 

Reviving this thread to talk about some developments about this and thought I'd piggy-back off of your thoughts, @TooTired2bOriginal. There are rumors swirling around that Myka and James have removed Huxley from their home, either through inpatient therapy or permanently through rehoming. They've dialed back quite a bit on featuring their kids while they work on some "hard" family things (according to their joint Instagram) and there haven't been vlogs for quite some time, but their biological kids have made cameos while Huxley hasn't been seen or heard from in months. His last appearance was in one of Myka's cleaning videos in late March, which could have been pre-recorded far in advance.

While I'm trying to withhold judgement until all the facts are known (if he'd been violent towards the other kids, etc.), Myka's recent behavior in context has been very off-putting. She's posting to her personal channel like nothing's wrong, which I get is a hustle, but she's now deleting posts from people asking about or mentioning Huxley, including those from actual fans who genuinely want to know how he's doing. She can't be trying to protect his privacy since she's still featuring her other kids, and the fact that she's not even giving so much of a "Huxley's doing fine, thanks for asking! ❤️" (it doesn't have to be true), suggests that she's avoiding the topic for a reason. She's also posting a lot about alleviating "mom guilt" and creating a "positive space" on social media, which could be her trying to put up armor for the inevitable fallout if it comes to light that they've gotten rid of their adopted child.

I feel like something is going to come to blows fairly soon, since Huxley's birthday is next month and I'll be curious to see how Myka addresses it (or not). The whole situation is very disturbing, especially considering the whole adoption saga had a uncomfortable vibe from the beginning.

[TuringMachine]

I dunno if this is the right thread for this, but I occasionally watch some videos from the Knorpp family. They're mormons with 9 kids and recently moved from a pretty large rental to a small 3 bedroom house, and I thought FJ needed to see the bunk bed they made for their daughters.

I feel so bad for whichever kid gets the middle bunk.

Edited September 24, 2020 by TuringMachine