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The kids of family vloggers are now old enough to publicly talk about their experiences, and these stories are not pretty: Shari Franke is the daughter of , who ran the YouTube family channel "8 Passengers" about her life with six children. At the moment, Ruby is incarcerated for aggravated child abuse: For years, she has forced her offspring to perform in front of the camera, exploiting their turmoil for views, emotionally manipulating them, enforcing strict rules and punishments - until she teamed up with , head of the counseling business ConneXions, a religiously infused NLP scheme that helped the two women rationalize even more gaslighting and abuse. What happened to Jodi, you ask? Jail. For aggravated child abuse.

Shari is now 22 years old, and her ghostwriters did a good job conveying her young voice and viewpoints - something tells me that in a few years, she might judge some aspects differently, and I'm here to learn about that as well. For instance, she largely exculpates her father Kevin, effectively putting him on the same level as the children: A naive, weak victim who was manipulated by his narcissistic wife. But this is a grown-ass man with a college degree responsible for protecting his kids - instead, he stood buy, remaining avoidant and passive. Ruby, on the other hand, gets all the anger: I'm not saying that Shari somehow has to forgive her, not at all, but her mother apparently has some serious psychological issues (that do not excuse anything, but still: why is the dad the pure saint and she's the pure witch?). Then, Ruby remains strangely attached to the Mormon church that played into her abuse (and her mom's issues), at the end even consulting a bishop about whether she would have to deal with her mom in the afterlife - I'm not saying that being religious is bad, but there's some space for reflection about how NLP and extreme religiosity in some cases connect.

What renders this book so important is that often, the media literacy of recipients is still not high enough to question digital content, especially when it's highly polished influencer videos designed to generate clicks and move product by creating the idea of a perfect family. It's not only that the parents ignore their children's rights, but the parasocial relationship between audience and creators keeps some viewers from even entertaining the thought that this might all be to the detriment of the kids: "But Ruby looks like such a good mother!" Yeah, she apparently looked like it, but even then, you had to look not very closely.

Great literature this is not, but this is not about aesthetics, it's about self-empowerment. So good for Shari that she gets her own voice back to set the record straight about her childhood.