> But Ava’s parents allowed her to sell Mr. Justin a couple of selfies that she had already posted to Snapchat.

They were aware and allowed it. But, not knowing the family's financial circumstances, it raises a difficult question of where to draw the line with this kind of thing. The prospect of allowing your underage daughter to sell media featuring her to this kind of guy is sickening, but if $300 is a lot of money to your family, maybe it becomes easier to excuse? What do you do if he offers $10,000 for something else that's even more disturbing, and you're behind on your mortgage payments?

I'm disappointed the author of the piece didn't come right out and say that what TikTok is doing is profiting off of the sexualization of minors (of course the minors get a cut as well, so that apparently makes it okay?). It seems like the only moral path forward would unfortunately be to ban minors from participating, or keep them reaching the levels of fame that would result in them putting themselves (or their families) in a position to have to make the kind of choice I'm talking about above.

> It seems like the only moral path forward would unfortunately be to ban minors from participating

Yes, that.

Kids will hide it from their parents then.

Kids hiding forbidden behavior from parents sounds like a completely novel and unprecedented problem.

The ban needs to come from TikTok & Instagram et al but you know what happens with misaligned incentives…

Going by her father's quote in the article, once her parents realized how much money she could make, they found a way to make peace with the risk of injury and death. Remember Judy Garland and what she had to go through to get autonomy over the wealth she earned as a child actress? Being a parent, i.e. being a fertile member of a breeding pair capable of bringing a child to term and then keeping it alive until launch day, does not necessarily equate to moral purity.

The most surprising thing about this story to me is that there are 14 year olds advertising their venmo wallets.

Two things:

1. It's just "buy me a coffee" but for TikTok, it's not weird until creepy adults make it weird. One creator I follow gets a bunch of people sending her $0.69 for the memes. Lots of people use Amazon wishlists for this too. People with artistic talent will sell merch on Etsy/Redbubble.

2. Oh honey, I will make no claims about anyone but myself but I did this kinda shit when I was that age. I realized I was hot, I was a sponge for attention, and too stupid to realize that having older guys hitting on me and buying me stuff wasn't as cool as I thought. Amazing in hindsight that nothing bad ever came of it.

Not exactly my kind of thing, but a friend of mine was selling pictures of her feet and making six figures (she started when she was 17!). Men and women just live in completely different worlds in their 20s and 30s (until serious relationships/marriage). It's insane to me that anyone would pay for OnlyFans, private Snaps, etc. But here we are, it's literally a billion-dollar-a-year marketplace.

>Men and women just live in completely different worlds in their 20s and 30s (until serious relationships/marriage).

It's important not to overgeneralize, we're talking only about the 99th percentile of men on the desperation scale, and the 99th percentile of women willing and able to profit from them. Despite what you read on the internet most people still have normal relationships! Constructing your worldview from the 1% most extreme forms of human interaction will, in so many words, make you crazy.

This is a ridiculous response to a commonplace observation. Men and women have enormously different experiences in the dating market. 99th percentile encounters are the entirety of romantic interaction. Outside societies that have rigid sex segregation well over 99% of all interaction with potential romantic partners is non-romantic.

The grandparent's example of a different world wasn't the guy picking up the check, it was making six figures by doing something virtually nobody does.

There are lots of areas where men and women live in different worlds. Dating is one of them. The strongest female athlete might be slightly stronger than an average man in terms of grip strength [1]. The best women’s soccer team in the world can’t beat a club side of 15 year old boys[2]. A sub 200 ranked man beat the top 2 women tennis players back to back.

The average man’s and woman’s dating experience are disjoint. The problems the other faces are alien because they don’t come up. Women don’t have any problems if they want to have sex. Men who want to get married and have children do not go looking for long if they’re actually looking.

[1] https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2017/05/04/in-grip-strength-a... [2] https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-b... [3] https://www.tennisnow.com/Blogs/NET-POSTS/November-2017-(1)/...

I appreciate that you're trying to approach this topic scientifically but it's a giant nonsequitur to go from references about soccer team performance to dating. If there's a difference in dating experiences I don't see how you're going to uncover it with those citations.

I think that depends on one's specific definition of different worlds. I thought it was a reasonable expression since men and women have very different experiences which are pervasive in the culture.

For example, "going dutch" is getting more popular, but generally men are still expected to buy drinks or pay for dinner. Women have to be more careful about date rape than men. And so on.

"Men and women just live in completely different worlds in their 20s and 30s (until serious relationships/marriage)."

Based on the number of couples who divorce or need a counselor to communicate, it's seems this trend continues during or after many marriages too.

But adults will make it weird (because men), and kids will be oblivious about the risks (because kids), and that’s why parents need to parent.

(because men) is an interesting line to draw.

It’s m both common sense—ask virtually any mom in any country that still believes in that—as well as science: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/harvard-biolo...

100% agree, not saying I was in a place to listen at 14 but you're right.

To add, Venmo doesn't allow anyone under 18 to sign up. It must have been their parents' venmo perhaps, or they lied signing up and due to the empty credit report the venmo system assumed the birthday was correct, also contributing that birthday back to the credit bureau.

I would be concerned to learn my young daughter had a serious online following where her content consists of photos of herself where 3/4 of the followers are boys/men. To be blunt, they are allowing their daughter to whore herself out even if she may not realize it. It is shameful and will ruin her just like every other child star.

I am grateful that my parents denied me access to video games and I will strictly deny my children access to content deem counterproductive. You're not making friends you're making a human being. The idea that a child needs social media or a controller to have a social life is a weak argument made by lazy parents. I feel sorry for this girl and shame on her parents and parents like them.

I get where you're coming from, and it's a nice thought that you could simply "go nuclear" and forbid a teenager from using social media to avoid this kind of thing.

But if you did this you would also be denying your kid access to virtually their entire cultural universe. How would you feel if as a kid you weren't allow to see any of your friends outside of school? Watch any of the same movies, music, or play any of the same games as your peers? It would almost be another form of abuse in and of itself. Unfortunately your suggestion isn't really tenable, just ask any actual parents of teenagers if they could imagine taking this route.

Western parenting has gone completely off the rails if people are comparing banning kids from using social media to a “form of abuse.”

Human beings don’t have fully developed brains until age 25. Controlling kids’ interactions with other humans with underdeveloped brains is like the most critical part of parenting.

> Controlling kids’ interactions with other humans with underdeveloped brains is like the most critical part of parenting.

Do you have kids? Can you explain what you mean by this?

I’ve got three. Studies show that the strongest influence on kids are their peers. Problem is that kids are dumb and irrational—again, undeveloped frontal cortex and with teenagers, hormones—especially in groups. As a result, parents need to carefully control both who their kids socialize with, and the nature of those social interactions. Social media compounds those problems.

Permissive parenting that treats kids like little adults and over-emphasizes cultivation of their individual relationships and preferences does them a disservice. It’s like letting a drunk person drive a car.

> Studies show that the strongest influence on kids are their peers.

Could you please share? The ones I'm finding say that parents are the strongest influence [1] [2] [3] [4].

> Permissive parenting that treats kids like little adults and over-emphasizes cultivation of their individual relationships and preferences does them a disservice.

Parenting that attempts to "carefully control" interactions until their 25th birthday seems like a disservice of equal size. I met some of these kids when I got to University. They didn't fare very well without their parents to control everything. As with most things, the answer is likely in the middle.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826572/

[2] https://blogs.iadb.org/desarrollo-infantil/en/parental-behav...

[3] https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu13se/uu13se06.h...

[4] https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue17/green.h...

> Controlling kids’ interactions with other humans with underdeveloped brains

Do you control their interactions when they go to school? Or literally anywhere without you?

There's no need for this, since parents entrust schools to supervise their children (read: control their interactions) during the school day. Outside of school, making sure you know whom your child is hanging out with, where they are, establishing a curfew, and other such limits are all generally hallmarks of good parenting.

There are obviously limits to the degree to which parents can/should control their kids, but not allowing a kid to interact with strangers on the internet falls well within them. Knowing (and controlling) which of your child's peers they are communicating with is no different from keeping tabs on which home your child is visiting (and staying in touch with friends' parents wherever needed), or which of their friends they're hanging out with at the mall.

I was compelled to chime in on this thread because it resonates with me, personally. I'm an Indian raised by immigrant parents, and growing up one of the most stark observations I made was just how coddled my American friends could sometimes come across — they could more or less get whatever they wanted or do whatever they wanted. My parents established boundaries over the kinds of games I played, whom I hung out with, and the activities I partook in. Not being able to get what you want sometimes, or do what the "cool kids" are doing is just a part of growing up for lots of people. I wouldn't call it "abuse", and that kind of discipline definitely set me up for success in the real world. I continue to have a great relationship with my parents, and intend to raise my children with the same kind of discipline.

This is why parents choose private school, or “good schools.” It’s a proxy for controlling your kids’ social circle. Mine are too young to go anywhere without me, but when I was growing up my parents insisting on personally meeting anyone I’d hang out with alone. They discouraged going to other kids’ houses and would insist on having get together at our house where they could keep an eye on us.

Going back a generation, my dad—who grew up in a village in Bangladesh—noted that other men in the village would notice him during his several mile long walk to school. If he did anything out of sorts word would have gotten back to his father.

Everything you list still exists and is not social media so I'm not really seeing all the parallels here. Also I never said where I draw the line because I don't know. But if I had a 13 year old daughter it would probably be something like you are not posting pictures of yourself online or the phone is gone for 30 days.

Sure, perhaps I was reading too much into your comment. As another comment suggests, there is a big spectrum between disallowing social media entirely and allowing your child unrestricted access. The example you give here makes complete sense. I would just hesitate to ban it entirely in the same way I would hesitate to ban the things I listed entirely.

I think there must be some middle ground between "no life" and underage girls bouncing around on the global Internet and getting venmo for pics by grown men.

Isn't the same more or less the case for every girl who works in cinema or TV or music? Or for that matter school cheerleaders, etc.? The veneer is thicker or thinner depending on the exact medium, but there's no getting away from the possibility that creepy men might be looking. I'm not certain the nuclear option here (ban participating in online spaces until majority) is the right one. I think some kind of tabulation of pros and cons is necessary.

(That beings said, it seems like after such a tabulation this case might be one of those that ends on the cutting floor.)

My cousin's daughter was a super popular teenage social media star. From what I can tell from the family's accounts, the parts of the audience that were creepy men didn't much bother the family, rather it contributed a large part of the narcissistic supply in total. There wasn't any shameful aspect of "whoring out" - the affect felt more empowering, like domination over that pitiful part of their audience. Either way I agree, if your social media presence makes you feel bad you should drop it and find something that adds meaning to your life.

She's an adult now and sounds like is living a healthy enough life given the trauma of having unlimited money and being young.

Videogames are a great hobby, both online and off. As a child and teen I played Carmageddon, Duke 3D, Doom, and all manner of games that would've shocked my parents if they'd been paying closer attention. Younger friends were also playing Mortal Kombat and chatting on IRC.

Ultimately, as long as parents teach the kids to have healthy boundaries and critical thinking they'll be alright.

This teen selling her image directly to creeps strikes as borderline enablement of some mentally ill folks. Yet plenty of parents, mine included, would think nothing of having their kids model professionally.

I understand keeping adult men out of a teenager's social media presence but the point where you lost me is the idea that adolescents seeking the attention of the opposite sex be that online or offline is comparable to "whoring herself out"?

Like what do you think teenagers do in the offline world? What were you looking at when you were 15 or 16?