When Fans and Creators Fall Out of Sync
It's about more than family vloggers pulling the reverse Pink Pony Club.
What’s going on?
“Why are all of the LA influencers moving to Nashville?” ask TikTokers like Tori Keethe – generally speculating that the creators are fleeing California’s new child labor laws, which require influencer parents to share earnings with their kids.
But dig just a tiny bit deeper, and it turns out this isn’t a mass migration and it really comes down to one creator: Brittany Xavier (5m TikTok followers). Originally known for her fashion content, Xavier has since grown a little media empire including a podcast – and is now moving her younger kids to Tennessee, leaving her teen to finish school in California. (Which of course is a very emotional topic that pretty much everyone will have an opionion about – I personally don’t think it’s that bad?)
And yes, some big-name family influencers like the LaBrant Family (13m YouTube subscribers) and Daily Bumps (5m) made the same reverse Pink Pony Club move – but this was long before the child labor law was passed.
What’s Driving It?
In part, the discourse around Xavier sits in the larger ongoing reappraisal of family influencers. Even in the heydey of family blogging (early 2000s and 2010s) there was skepticism around these parents sharing their kids’ lives online, but it was generally seen as harmless (if lowbrow) entertainment – some family vloggers were even celebrated for bringing attention to topics like miscarriage. Now, it’s widely accepted that “there is no such thing as a moral or ethical [family] blogger.” (Frankly, I’d advise any brand to steer clear of working with family creators.)
Xavier herself is actively engaging with the conversation and pushed back on the idea that her move related to the new California child labor laws – instead, she emphasized that she no longer aligns with California politically. That’s a big shift seeing that during Covid, she shared an interview with Dr. Fauci to dispel myths around the vaccine. Now, she’s openly praising US conservative politics and endorsing JD Vance.
What Does It Mean?
Ultimately, the reaction to Xavier’s pivot isn’t just about evolving attitudes to family vlogging – it’s about our changing relationships to creators in general.
Online creators have always had their haters (that’s why we have websites like GOMI and Subreddits like Blogsnark), and Salon explored the dissonance of liberal people reading (and not hate-reading!) Mormon mommy blogs back in 2011. But now, enjoying the aesthetic of a creator doesn’t seem to be an option if you disagree with their values – if your values don’t align, their content itself feels tainted.
We saw a lot of this after the US election results (“I can’t believe my favorite creator is MAGA!”), followed by the inevitable backlash (“How did you not realize they were conservative?”). Overall, the divide between personal brand and personal beliefs is getting harder to ignore.
A Final Takeaway
The influencer economy has always been complicated: we’ve made them rich and famous, so we feel entitled to a bit of parasociality. But what do creators actually owe us – alignment, transparency, or just entertaining content?