Please Stop Posting Your Disabled Children On the Internet for Clout
An increasingly troubling trend.
As someone who exists in the online sphere, I can’t tell you how many times a day I see children posted on the internet for clout. It’s an increasingly troubling trend. Parents, desperate for internet fame and the imagined wealth, recording their children in every situation you could imagine. Laughing. Crying. Getting Sick. Dying. Nothing is off limits. Kids wake up being filmed, and they go to bed being filmed, and every life experience that they have along the way is likewise sucked up into the glowing buzz of their parents’ social media platforms.
By far, some of the worst offenders in this category are the parents and caretakers of disabled children. In an almost unfathomable act of cruelty, hundreds of thousands of parents across the world document every moment of their children's struggles and sling it up onto platforms like TikTok in order to farm likes and views.
“Jenny has Epidermolysis Bullosa. Can we get to 10,000 likes to show her that she's still beautiful?”
“Ethan had his hardest day ever today. He’s in recovery and still in a lot of pain…the full video is up now on our YouTube.”
“Harper has meltdowns just like this every day. See? This is the reality of what it looks like. I'm showing you the ugly truth.”
Hundreds of parents. Thousands of them. Recording and posting their disabled and sick children in some of the most compromising and vulnerable moments of their lives. It's a hard pill to swallow, and an even harder one to watch. And when you peel back the layers, you get even more upset as you think about it. As you realize why parents are using their children, and what the end game really is.
Think About the Kind of Person It Takes
When one is talking about breaking patterns, ending cycles of behavior that might be harmful, it's helpful to start from the bottom up. It's kind of like when there's a problem in your garden. If the solution isn't immediately visible on the leaves, you have to look at the roots, the soil. The same applies here. When it comes to disabled children being posted online for clout, the parents are the root of the problem.
So, we start here when looking for the solution. Who are the parents building these platforms around their children? Why are they doing it?
It takes a certain kind of person to post their kids on the internet, in any shape or form, and it's important to consider that type of person. Peeling back the layers, revealing motivations, it all comes down to the root of the issue. People who are willing to exploit and expose their children, no matter the dangers.
The Dangers of Posting Disabled Children on the Internet
In the age of Epstein, it's never been more dangerous to post your children on the internet. Dangers lurk around every corner, and with the advent of unregulated AI, the dangers of posting any child online — including disabled children — have never been greater. Even the most innocent of videos, like a first day of school video or a simple lunch-eating video, opens the doors to:
Child predators
Public ridicule
Greater stigma
There is a kind of willing ignorance in the general public. An idea that disabled children aren’t the victims of predators, or aren’t desired by predators, but nothing could be further from the truth. Disabled children are some of the children most commonly targeted by predators, and online spaces are no different. Shameless posting of disabled children bathing, changing clothes, being cleaned, etc., is ambrosia for online communities set on exploiting children in the digital sphere.
Predators aren’t the only downside.
While social media platforms and online spaces have been marketed as marketplaces for the free exchange of ideas, there's very little nuance that goes on in the dialogue of comment sections and 2-minute TikToks. It's horrifically common for viral videos of disabled children to become platforms of ridicule, with thousands and even millions of viewers lining up to make fun of the child. This can create more stigma around their disabilities, and it also creates a twisted sort of digital "freak show” where the parent is rewarded for their child's ridicule.
Why It’s Wrong to Post Children on the Internet
Dangers out of the way, there are also the moral and ethical issues to consider. Posting your kids on the internet may seem like a fun and harmless thing to do, but that's only if looked at through a limited and superficial lens. The reality is that posting videos of children, be they in their worst or best moments, is a violation of their potential boundaries and desires.
Children can't consent
It’s humiliating
Creating access for predators
Children, no matter how excited they may seem about something, no matter how happy they appear to be involved, can't consent. You can apply this to sexual abuse, and you can apply it to being posted on the internet as content. Children, be they disabled or not, are not cognitively developed enough to think through and weigh the consequences of being an internet personality.
Beyond the consent, being posted on the internet is humiliating for many children. That’s because it’s usually their most embarrassing moments that pull the most viewership. Crying. Sick. Confused. Angry. Having their first kiss, having their first period, and shopping for bras. The more humiliating, the more exposing, the more views the content gets. It's a troubling trend, and it should be enough to make any empathetic parent pause.
On top of that, it's worth reiterating how posting kids on social media platforms opens them up to predators. Not just predators who can trade their content on the internet, manipulating it with AI to create horrific CSAM. When you put your kid out there for the world to see, you also give predators the chance to study them, learn about them, and even track them down if they want to.
Now, putting that all together, let’s consider the kind of person it takes to post their disabled child (or any child, for that matter) onto the internet.
None of the above is a secret. As a matter of fact, much of it is corroborated by years of study. So, if we assume that the above is true? What kind of person would film their children for an unregulated internet audience of strangers? What kind of person would willingly want to expose their child to harm in order to get attention or social clout?
It’s not a trick question.
It takes a very specific kind of person to expose their own children to this kind of exploitation and potential harm. Narcissistic personalities. Sociopathic or Psychopathic personalities. The Machiavellian. All of them have the type of outlook on life, and others, to make such an egregious decision. After all, when it comes to these personality types, they are what matters most. Rarely, if ever, do they look beyond the wall of what is immediately gratifying or convenient for them. They will give themselves and others a million justifications.
I’m raising awareness.
I’m giving myself a community.
I’m showing people what it’s really like.
There is no excuse they won't give, and yet the outcome is the same. Research that doesn't get any more funding. Children who become objects of ridicule to a faceless mob. A wheel of vicious consumption that centers, more often than not, around the suffering and struggles of the child.
When we allow ourselves to step back, take our emotions out of the equation, and weigh the reality for its net effects, the pattern becomes clear. It takes a certain kind of person to post any child on the internet, but it takes a special kind of wickedness to build a social media presence on the back of your disabled (and sometimes dead) child.
Why Parents Are Posting Their Disabled Children on the Internet
Pointing the finger solely at a handful of personality types doesn’t tell the whole story. While knowing what someone's personality inclines them toward is helpful, it doesn't fully reveal the motivations of the specific parent type who makes a content business out of their disabled child.
In this community, specifically, motivations get hidden behind deep layers of empathy-triggering masks. The life of disabled children can be incredibly hard and incredibly heartbreaking. Equally so for those who care for them. The road is long and fraught with challenges. There aren't enough resources or support to go around.
And that's where the truly manipulative parent finds their in. For this person, posting their child's journey on Facebook or TikTok is a matter of getting attention, making themselves look like a saint, and gaming the system for an easy paycheck (or so they think).
A Desperate Need for Attention: If you think people don’t have kids for attention, think again. This is one of the most common reasons for all the mommy vlog accounts you see. Attention. Men and women desperate for attention, using their disabled children as a quick means to get a spotlight they've been chasing (fruitlessly) on their own for years.
A Desire to Look Good: There is nothing that will get you the Good Person™️ badge on social media faster than building an account around your disabled children. Parents can demonstrate literal signs of abuse on camera, and it doesn't matter. Whenever they are called to accountability, they will point to the struggles of their disabled child and say, “But I’m a good person for putting up with this.”
Easy Money, Low Skills: The blunt truth that a lot of people don't want to admit is that there are a lot of lazy people who use their disabled children for internet clout. They aren’t physically lazy, no. They’re personally lazy. This type of person sees their disabled child as a meal ticket, a quick and easy way to financial freedom and fame. They use them instead of building a skill or talent of their own.
It's twisted, and it's dark, but it's true. Disabled children are exploited by their parents every day because those same parents want to use them for their own selfish ends. Is this every parent? No. But the patterns are there for those who pay close attention to the overall beneficiary of the content.
When you see the parent who constantly posts their child during a meltdown, that's a parent who wants viral fame, a parent who wants to look good. When you scroll across the page, where all the content is a child's last moments in a hospital bed, that's a parent who is seeking easy attention and a big payday.
A Better Way to Help Children In Need
There are probably groans aplenty at this point. Are you saying that disabled children should be kept away out of sight? Are you trying to take us back to the Victorian times? No, not at all. It's undeniably a fact that some children are helped by the visibility their platforms bring, both to their disabilities and to the realities their parents live every day. Large disability creators have done invaluable work in educating the public and removing stigma around rare disorders and disabilities that have long been misunderstood and maligned.
Do you know what these accounts' success has proven? That there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. There are better ways to help increase the visibility of disabled children and awareness of their families’ struggles.
Focus on the Parenting Side: Children can't consent to having their highest and lowest moments shared, but parents can. That’s why a focus on the parenting side of the experience — specifically, how that parent struggles with the system, the emotional toll, and the daily ins and outs — is both safer for the child and more helpful for the public at large (who are mostly adults consuming the content).
Get Professionals Involved: Believe it or not, people like hearing the gory details from experts. Getting doctors and researchers on camera, consenting adults who are intimate with the worst elements of the disability, can move people and create awareness in equally powerful ways.
Build Real Community: While online platforms can create the illusion of community, nothing beats real-world bonds. Parents of disabled children across the globe often lack the support they need, not only for the care of their children, but also for their own personal care. Building real flesh-and-blood human communities is far more important than an audience of invisible strangers who disappear when the phone turns off.
These are just starting places. Are they a one-size-fits-all solution? Of course not. The answer, as mentioned above, is finding the balance. A balance that sees to the needs of the child, and ensures that they are safe, loved, and cared for throughout. Disabled children shouldn't be hidden away, and their families shouldn't suffer in silence, but there has to be a consideration of where the line truly lies.
So, stop posting disabled children on the internet for clout. Stop blowing up the accounts of parents who are filming their autistic children in meltdown. Stop buying merch from parents who are live-streaming their children in their death beds, having painful procedures, or otherwise struggling with the day-to-day realities of their disabilities.
Every child deserves better than that. Disabled children are more likely to be exploited, preyed upon, and harmed than any other demographic of children. It's time for those of us who have spent the last several years building our empathy and our awareness to stand up and deserve better. For disabled children. For all children. They deserve to exist in a world where their lives aren't content.
What do you think? Can we end this disturbing trend once and for all? Let me know in the comments. Enjoy this take? Join my paid subscribers for weekly deep dives, social breakdowns, guides, and more.
Thank you for covering this. It enrages me when I see a plethora of parents doing this. It doesn't help improve outcomes for disabled children, and only means the parent cannot be fully present in helping them. The trophy child phenomenon has got to stop.