Ruby Franke’s carefully curated “8 Passengers” YouTube channel depicts the day-to-day life of a loving, happy and devoutly faithful family of eight living in Utah. The channel amassed millions of subscribers, a part of a surge of “family vlog” content sweeping across YouTube in the 2010s. From the outside looking in, the Franke family was just like any other good old-fashioned American family.
That was until August of 2023, when Ruby Franke’s emaciated 12-year-old son appeared at a neighbor’s front door, begging for water and to call the police. Hiding behind Ruby Franke’s videos of old family recipes and the mundanity of life was constant severe emotional and physical torment levied against her own children.
“The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom,” released in early 2025 documents Ruby Franke’s chilling web of lies and abuses from the point of view of Shari Franke, her eldest daughter. In her memoir, Shari Franke captivatingly dispels the illusions created by her mother in their videos, recounting what it was truly like to be one of the famed “8 Passengers.”
For Shari Franke and her five younger siblings, their lives were one endless cycle of increasingly debilitating abuses at the hands of their mother. The version of their mother that the internet saw was foreign to them. A doting and caring mother when the camera was on, Ruby Franke was violent, harsh and unrelenting when it was off. Survival meant playing along with their mother when the camera was on, even if that meant sacrificing the most private and intimate moments of their lives no pre-teen or teenager would ever want shared with their closest friends, let alone the entire internet.
“There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger.”
– Shari Franke
Shari Franke’s goal in sharing the reality of her life was not solely to paint her mother as evil, but rather to highlight the damaging effects family vlog content has on the children in front of the camera.
By 2017, family vlogging content had increased by 90% across the platform, with countless families propping their children in front of the camera, leaving them no choice but to do as they were directed by their parents. Any semblance of privacy stripped from them in the name of milking them for all the money they possibly could.
Most of the so-called “child influencers” will never see a dime of the money made from the videos for which they were exploited. Currently, only three states have laws requiring money made from family vlogging be saved for the child influencers involved. Even if that figure was raised to all 50 states, Shari Franke says, no amount of money could make up for the trauma her childhood left her with.
I think part of what appealed to so many people about family vlogging channels was that they felt like such a real depiction of what day to day life is for so many people. Sure, this may be entertaining and relatable to watch, but there is often very little consideration given to the children who are central to the content. Their lives are not only being scrutinized by their parents as to whether or not they are “content worthy,” they are also being placed under the watchful and scathing eye of the viewer.
Although not all family vloggers subject their children to the abuse that Ruby Franke did, as Shari Franke herself said, “there is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger.” I truly cannot wrap my mind around thinking that your child’s privacy and autonomy are exchangeable for five minutes of fame and a quick way to make a lot of money. If that is how you view children — like they have a price tag on them — do not have children.
Shari Franke and her siblings deserved better and if there is any good that can come of the atrocities they faced, I hope it is that there is more consideration taken to the rights of child influencers.
mkane10@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @sharilfranke, Instagram
