What It's Like to Be the Parent of a Social
Jonas Bridges Atlanta
When then-14-year-old Jonas Bridges ran down the stairs of his Atlanta home shouting  âDad  Iâve got 1 000 fans!â his father  Rob Bridges  hardly took notice. A few days later  Jonas  barreled into the living room again  saying  âDad  Iâve got 3 000 fans now.â Again  his father brushed him off. Several days later   Jonas  told his father  âI have 5 000 fans now and if I get to 10 000 Iâll get paid for it.â Finally  Rob Bridges turned to his wife and said  âDenise  what the hell is he talking about?â What Jonas Bridges was trying to tell his father was that he was rapidly becoming famous on YouNow  a social video platform where he had begun hosting live-streams from his bedroom under the pseudonym âwoahits_jonas.â Before his parents knew what was happening   Jonas  had amassed an army of online fans for  his  vlogs and prank videos. Before they could grasp quite what  his  newfound fame meant   Jonas  had begun raking in serious cash.
 Jonas  is just one of the many teens reaching unprecedented levels of fame via social media. Platforms like Musical.ly  Instagram  YouTube  YouNow  Periscope  and more allow anyone with a phone and internet access to build an audience  and todayâs teens are spending more time on their phones than ever. Ninety-four percent of teens access the internet using their phone daily and 71 percent use more than one social-media platform  according to a 2016 Pew study. The vlogger-to-riches story has become so prevalent in teen culture that  according to a 2014 survey by Variety  YouTube stars are more popular and influential than mainstream celebrities in the eyes of U.S. teens. Parenting these young internet stars  however  is not easy. As social platforms rise and fall  moms and dads across the country with zero experience in the entertainment industry are seeing their familiesâ lives transformed. * * * Parents can go years thinking their son or daughter is just an average teen on YouTube or Instagram until one day a marketing manager at a Fortune 500 brand calls the house asking to collaborate  as happened to one mother I spoke to. Some parents donât become aware until other kids begin asking their child for selfies in public  or when their youngsters begin receiving special treatment at local businesses. John Rivera  the father of Brent Rivera  a former Vine star with 6.6 million followers on Instagram and over 3 million on YouTube  says he didnât think much of the time Brent was spending on social media until he attended a local hockey game with his two sons.
âParenting a social-media celebrity means that the camera is always rolling at the most inopportune times â Rob Bridges says. â Jonas  pranks both  his  mom and I even when we are not in the mood for being pranked ... Itâs kind of like living in a mini reality show.â Some parents embrace this tangential fame more than others. Tiff Lewis  for instance  often âguest hostsâ her daughterâs social-media accounts while sheâs at school  entertaining fans in other time zones. âI would go on Madisonâs Live.ly account and I could interact with her following that were in Europe â she says. âSometimes Iâd have 20 000 to 40 000 people on there and just talk to them. I would do it for almost four hours sometimes.â Other parents attempt to become social-media celebrities themselves. Pam Stepnick and Greg Paul  the parents of Jake and Logan Paul  potentially the two most iconic internet stars working today  both actively court followers on their own social-media accounts. Jake and Logan Paul are two former high-school Vine stars who have amassed giant social-media followings on Instagram  YouTube  and Facebook. Combined  the two have over 60 million followers on social media and armies of followers who call themselves âJake Paulersâ or part of the âLogang.â Related Story The Social-Media Star and the Suicide The boysâ father has more than 180 000 subscribers on YouTube  where he posts pranks and reaction videos to his sonsâ latest drama under the name Vlogdad Greg Paulâwhich he monetizes. On Stepnickâs primary platform  Instagram  she has more than half a million followers and  like Paul  posts pranks and speaks about the controversies that so frequently surround her sons. Jake Paul and his brother Logan frequently feud with their friends  each other  and other top-tier influencers on YouTube. Logan also recently came under fire for posting a video featuring the dead body of a suicide victim. The Paul family has collectively become known as the âKardashians of YouTubeâ for their ability to manufacture drama to stir attention and generate views. But many YouTuber parents abstain from turning the spotlight on themselves  saying raising kids is hectic enough and they donât want to have to compete with their children for brand deals. âI love my job and I have a career  I donât need to be a social-media star â says John Rivera.
* * * Whether or not they choose to post content themselves  parenting a social-media celebrity does force parents to become adept at a new industryâand the new technology that comes with it. Adopting and mastering new platforms isnât just fun and games for teen starsâitâs key to staying relevant. If your fame comes from the social web  itâs important never to become overly affiliated with even the hottest app  lest it become passÃ© by tomorrow. Thereâs also the volatile nature of the tech companies themselves to account for. If stars donât diversify their audiences  an app could radically change its strategy tomorrow or be mismanaged out of existence  erasing years of hard work. The job of evaluating the flood of new apps can frequently fall to a childâs parents. âTrying to assess which ones would have a compelling position in the marketplace is tricky and does take time â says Michael  Mel Joyâs father. The work it takes to support a young online influencerâs entertainment career often takes away from the time parents spend on their own work.  Jonas âs mom left her career behind in order to help her sonâs. A former real-estate agent  she now accompanies  Jonas  on his travels and stays home during the week to make sure he meets his work and school commitments. No matter how involved parents are in their kidsâ careers  the family dynamic inevitably changes when kids are earning huge amounts of moneyâfrom ads on their YouTube videos  sponsored content  merchandising deals  and brand partnerships. Not to mention that teen influencers are also bombarded with free products. Michael  Mel Joyâs father  says that so much free makeup has arrived in the mail for his daughter that he doesnât know where to put it. It would take ages to even give it all away.
Bridges says he and his wife were able to use the opportunity to teach  Jonas  the financial value of reinvesting in his career and treating it like a small company. Teens arenât used to paying administrative fees or business expenses and so itâs up to their parents to explain that  unfortunately  100 percent of your income canât be spent on fun. School can also be a particular point of contention between teen influencers and their parents. Because of scheduling and travel demands  almost all young influencers are homeschooled  a fact that most parents I talked to accept begrudgingly. A few internet celebrities  such as Brent Rivera  are lucky enough to live near Los Angeles and can still attend high school while juggling work meetings. But even when geography isnât an issue  the social dynamics of high-school life can make it hard for these teens to function. Though they may have fan bases of millions online and spend long hours alone at home producing ârelatableâ content for other high-school teens  many of the online influencers in this piece say they have been subject to intense bullying within their peer group. Kids may be ostracized or judged by their âhometownâ friends once they reach a certain level of success online. Others have the opposite problem  and cause distractions when theyâre mobbed for selfies between classes. Katherine Cimorelli  now 25  has been a singer and YouTube star since her formative years and she knows the toll social-media fame can take on friendships.
When then-14-year-old Jonas Bridges ran down the stairs of his Atlanta home shouting  âDad  Iâve got 1 000 fans!â his father  Rob Bridges  hardly took notice. A few days later  Jonas  barreled into the living room again  saying  âDad  Iâve got 3 000 fans now.â Again  his father brushed him off. Several days later   Jonas  told his father  âI have 5 000 fans now and if I get to 10 000 Iâll get paid for it.â Finally  Rob Bridges turned to his wife and said  âDenise  what the hell is he talking about?â What Jonas Bridges was trying to tell his father was that he was rapidly becoming famous on YouNow  a social video platform where he had begun hosting live-streams from his bedroom under the pseudonym âwoahits_jonas.â Before his parents knew what was happening   Jonas  had amassed an army of online fans for  his  vlogs and prank videos. Before they could grasp quite what  his  newfound fame meant   Jonas  had begun raking in serious cash.
 Jonas  is just one of the many teens reaching unprecedented levels of fame via social media. Platforms like Musical.ly  Instagram  YouTube  YouNow  Periscope  and more allow anyone with a phone and internet access to build an audience  and todayâs teens are spending more time on their phones than ever. Ninety-four percent of teens access the internet using their phone daily and 71 percent use more than one social-media platform  according to a 2016 Pew study. The vlogger-to-riches story has become so prevalent in teen culture that  according to a 2014 survey by Variety  YouTube stars are more popular and influential than mainstream celebrities in the eyes of U.S. teens. Parenting these young internet stars  however  is not easy. As social platforms rise and fall  moms and dads across the country with zero experience in the entertainment industry are seeing their familiesâ lives transformed. * * * Parents can go years thinking their son or daughter is just an average teen on YouTube or Instagram until one day a marketing manager at a Fortune 500 brand calls the house asking to collaborate  as happened to one mother I spoke to. Some parents donât become aware until other kids begin asking their child for selfies in public  or when their youngsters begin receiving special treatment at local businesses. John Rivera  the father of Brent Rivera  a former Vine star with 6.6 million followers on Instagram and over 3 million on YouTube  says he didnât think much of the time Brent was spending on social media until he attended a local hockey game with his two sons.
âParenting a social-media celebrity means that the camera is always rolling at the most inopportune times â Rob Bridges says. â Jonas  pranks both  his  mom and I even when we are not in the mood for being pranked ... Itâs kind of like living in a mini reality show.â Some parents embrace this tangential fame more than others. Tiff Lewis  for instance  often âguest hostsâ her daughterâs social-media accounts while sheâs at school  entertaining fans in other time zones. âI would go on Madisonâs Live.ly account and I could interact with her following that were in Europe â she says. âSometimes Iâd have 20 000 to 40 000 people on there and just talk to them. I would do it for almost four hours sometimes.â Other parents attempt to become social-media celebrities themselves. Pam Stepnick and Greg Paul  the parents of Jake and Logan Paul  potentially the two most iconic internet stars working today  both actively court followers on their own social-media accounts. Jake and Logan Paul are two former high-school Vine stars who have amassed giant social-media followings on Instagram  YouTube  and Facebook. Combined  the two have over 60 million followers on social media and armies of followers who call themselves âJake Paulersâ or part of the âLogang.â Related Story The Social-Media Star and the Suicide The boysâ father has more than 180 000 subscribers on YouTube  where he posts pranks and reaction videos to his sonsâ latest drama under the name Vlogdad Greg Paulâwhich he monetizes. On Stepnickâs primary platform  Instagram  she has more than half a million followers and  like Paul  posts pranks and speaks about the controversies that so frequently surround her sons. Jake Paul and his brother Logan frequently feud with their friends  each other  and other top-tier influencers on YouTube. Logan also recently came under fire for posting a video featuring the dead body of a suicide victim. The Paul family has collectively become known as the âKardashians of YouTubeâ for their ability to manufacture drama to stir attention and generate views. But many YouTuber parents abstain from turning the spotlight on themselves  saying raising kids is hectic enough and they donât want to have to compete with their children for brand deals. âI love my job and I have a career  I donât need to be a social-media star â says John Rivera.
* * * Whether or not they choose to post content themselves  parenting a social-media celebrity does force parents to become adept at a new industryâand the new technology that comes with it. Adopting and mastering new platforms isnât just fun and games for teen starsâitâs key to staying relevant. If your fame comes from the social web  itâs important never to become overly affiliated with even the hottest app  lest it become passÃ© by tomorrow. Thereâs also the volatile nature of the tech companies themselves to account for. If stars donât diversify their audiences  an app could radically change its strategy tomorrow or be mismanaged out of existence  erasing years of hard work. The job of evaluating the flood of new apps can frequently fall to a childâs parents. âTrying to assess which ones would have a compelling position in the marketplace is tricky and does take time â says Michael  Mel Joyâs father. The work it takes to support a young online influencerâs entertainment career often takes away from the time parents spend on their own work.  Jonas âs mom left her career behind in order to help her sonâs. A former real-estate agent  she now accompanies  Jonas  on his travels and stays home during the week to make sure he meets his work and school commitments. No matter how involved parents are in their kidsâ careers  the family dynamic inevitably changes when kids are earning huge amounts of moneyâfrom ads on their YouTube videos  sponsored content  merchandising deals  and brand partnerships. Not to mention that teen influencers are also bombarded with free products. Michael  Mel Joyâs father  says that so much free makeup has arrived in the mail for his daughter that he doesnât know where to put it. It would take ages to even give it all away.
Bridges says he and his wife were able to use the opportunity to teach  Jonas  the financial value of reinvesting in his career and treating it like a small company. Teens arenât used to paying administrative fees or business expenses and so itâs up to their parents to explain that  unfortunately  100 percent of your income canât be spent on fun. School can also be a particular point of contention between teen influencers and their parents. Because of scheduling and travel demands  almost all young influencers are homeschooled  a fact that most parents I talked to accept begrudgingly. A few internet celebrities  such as Brent Rivera  are lucky enough to live near Los Angeles and can still attend high school while juggling work meetings. But even when geography isnât an issue  the social dynamics of high-school life can make it hard for these teens to function. Though they may have fan bases of millions online and spend long hours alone at home producing ârelatableâ content for other high-school teens  many of the online influencers in this piece say they have been subject to intense bullying within their peer group. Kids may be ostracized or judged by their âhometownâ friends once they reach a certain level of success online. Others have the opposite problem  and cause distractions when theyâre mobbed for selfies between classes. Katherine Cimorelli  now 25  has been a singer and YouTube star since her formative years and she knows the toll social-media fame can take on friendships.