712. Like, Follow, Subscribe: The Cost of A Childhood Online with Fortesa Latifi

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: The following podcast episode contains discussions of child abuse, exploitation, sexual harassment, and pedophilia. Listener discretion is advised.

[music]

Sarah: Hello, and welcome to episode number 712 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m your host Sarah Wendell, and it’s time. You’ve been hearing me talk about this book for a while, and I am so excited to share with you my conversation with Fortesa Latifi, author of Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online. Her research into family vloggers and influencers is superb, and I am still thinking about some of the revelations in this book. We discuss the origins of influencing and family vlogging, the benefits and the harms that arise from becoming popular, and the emotional, financial, social, and personal costs of that fame.

If you watch this episode on YouTube, I personally lost count of the number of times Fortesa or I covered our faces while talking. It, it was at least six. And I want to reiterate the warning from the start of this episode: nothing is explained in explicit detail, but because the theme is so consistent, I really can’t timestamp them individually, so I’ve put a blanket warning on this episode.

I want to say a special hello to Jessica S., who emailed me this week to let me know how much she loves the podcast and the site. Jessica especially loves the RT Rewind and the Cover Snark, which are some of my favorites. Thank you, Jessica. Your email made my week.

And I have a compliment this week!

To Moira: You are the human personification of a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark galaxies. You’re interesting, educational, and when someone sees you for the first or even the fiftieth time, they are delighted by your very existence.

Our Patreon community is one of the most wonderful groups of humans on the Earth. Because of our Patreon community, I was able to turn off all dynamic ads before or after new episodes to avoid ads for ICE and right-wing propaganda. Our Patreon community also makes sure that these episodes continue unabated into the future. They make sure that I have an artisan-crafted transcript from garlicknitter – hi, garlicknitter! – [hi! – gk] – and there are benefits for joining our Patreon: one of the most wonderful Discord communities you’ll ever be part of, you get full PDF scans of RT magazine, bonus episodes, and lots more. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches if you would like to join.

All right, are you ready to get started with this episode? I don’t think this book could have come out at a better time. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for doing this? My inner thirteen-year-old is not cool right now.

Fortesa Latifi: [Laughs] Thank you –

Sarah: Very excited to talk to you.

Fortesa: – for having me!

Sarah: Seriously, I’m so excited. The one question I need to ask you is, What does the inside of my brain look like? Because you spent a lot of time there. I think about this stuff all of the time. So I have to ask, I hope it’s really nicely decorated in there? Because –

Fortesa: Yes, it is. It’s very soothing.

Sarah: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Because you’re, I’m like, This person? Living inside my head. Every chapter I’m like, Ooh! The noise I made –

Fortesa: Oh my God.

Sarah: – when I got the email about the book was loud and scared my cat. So –

Fortesa: I love it.

Sarah: – thank you so much for doing this. Would you please introduce yourself and tell the people who will be listening who you are and what you do.

Fortesa: Yes! I’m Fortesa Latifi. I’m a journalist and the author of Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and The Cost of a Childhood Online.

Sarah: I have so many questions, so many things to ask you, but I want to –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – start with the start: how did family vloggers and influencers become your specialty?

Fortesa: Yeah. Honestly, they just are everywhere, you know, and, like, as an internet culture reporter, I was, like, watching, watching, and just, like, seeing them get more and more influence and more and more, like, economic influence even. And I was just like, There’s got to be something here. And then I started thinking about what would it possibly be like for every single moment of your life, basically, to be monetized? And then I couldn’t get away from the question of what it was like for the kids –

Sarah: Yep.

Fortesa: – versus, like, I feel like other reporting has kind of focused on, like, the business of it or the parents, which I do think is important, but, like, for me, it’s like, what is it like to be a kid in this situation?

Sarah: That is a very big question, especially. And it’s –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – so very embedded in everything online at this point.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: Everyone is doing some form of influencing. Like, technically, I’ve been a blogger, I’ve been a book blogger for twenty-one years; I’m technically –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – an influencer because –

Fortesa: Totally!

Sarah: – I influence purchases, but I don’t think of myself that way, ‘cause that’s a term that came after me doing this.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: One of the things I appreciated about this book is that you locate it very much in your experience as a new mom.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: And I had a really interesting experience reading this because I am now an empty nester: both of my kids are now in college.

Fortesa: Oh wow!

Sarah: And my blog started the same year that my oldest child was born.

Fortesa: Okay, fascinating.

Sarah: So my blog and my parenthood were, you know, side by side.

Fortesa: And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Sarah: I don’t think that’s a coincidence either, because I –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – came up around the time of the mommy bloggers.

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: Was it, was it more engaging or more difficult for you? What was the emotion like of, of looking at your own new motherhood, which – sounds like you were writing this in what I call baby boot camp?

Fortesa: Yes, I was. I sold the book when I was seven months pregnant, and I turned in –

Sarah: Oh God!

Fortesa: – the first – I know – and I turned in the first draft when I was seven months postpartum. So the gestation of the book also took nine months. My mom was like, You’re birthing two babies! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, and one of them you have to talk about a lot, and one of them you want to –

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: – not talk about on the internet. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah. No, exactly! Yeah. I think it made me more sensitive, obviously, to all the content, but it also was so engaging because I found myself, even when I wasn’t doing book research, I found myself turning to these mom bloggers and mom influencers because I wanted that, that company of, like, someone else is in this world with me. Because as you know, like, new motherhood is so isolating and, like, I have a wonderful support system. My two older sisters are mothers; I have a great team; but, like, it’s different being, like, in it when it feels like no one else is in it. And I could find these women online that were in it, so I feel like, on one hand, it made me much more sympathetic to them, because I could understand wanting that community? And then on the other hand, sometimes I would see videos where I was like, I actually cannot imagine filming my child in this position and putting it on the internet.

Sarah: Nope. I have had many moments like that in my career –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – in my career on the internet.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: I really appreciated very, very much how your book starts with the mommy bloggers.

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: They were popular around the time I started writing online. You pointed out that the mommy bloggers who were writing at that period of time, you know, between like 1998 and, you know, mid 2000s –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – they were focusing on themselves –

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: – and it was all written essay. And that’s where I started, which is probably one of the reasons why all the reviews on my site are so long – sorry, everybody.

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: But I started writing at length about everything I was feeling and doing, and like you, I found all of these other women doing the same thing. But you pointed out –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – that there’s a bunch of critical differences between the family vloggers and the mommy bloggers. And could you talk –

Fortesa: I do think –

Sarah: – a little bit about that difference?

Fortesa: Yeah. So when I look back at the early mom bloggers, I feel like their focus was really on their experience of motherhood, and their children were almost these, like, secondary characters? Like –

Sarah: Yes.

Fortesa: – they just weren’t, they weren’t the focus, and I think about, like, when you ask people what mommy bloggers they really liked, they’ll say, Oh, I really liked Dooce because she wrote about mental health, or I really liked Natalie Jean because she wrote about infertility, but when you ask people what family influencers they like, they talk about the kids, right?

Sarah: Yep.

Fortesa: And, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – they say, Oh, I really love Everleigh LaBrant, or I love the kids from the Family Fun Pack, and so it’s very different. And then it’s also just like the medium is so different. Like, blogging as a function is, like, mostly written word, right? But, like, Instagram is, like, photos, and TikTok is videos and – you know what I mean? So it’s a lot more kid-centric in that way.

Sarah: I think culturally there are major pivots in how social media has changed. So when I started, it was all text, and we had Twitter –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and it was all text, and we had Facebook before Facebook really had a whole lot of photos. It was text. Well, then we got photos –

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: – and that changed everything. Then we got video, and that changed everything even more, so I feel like there are these –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – three acts of how –

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: – we are performing our lives online. And I, I mean, I am performing part of my life online.

Fortesa: Sure, we all are, I think. [Laughs]

Sarah: Absolutely! But I also remember very clearly thinking – I was pregnant when I started the site, and I was pregnant at a major conference two years later, and so everyone kind of knew I was pregnant –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I announced my birth, and I think there were pictures of my newborns. One of them was jaundiced, so they are –

Fortesa: Aw.

Sarah: – a very different color now. Like –

Fortesa: Poor honey.

Sarah: – they’re not orange.

Fortesa: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: You can’t look at my pictures of my newborns and be like, Okay, I know who they are. And then eventually I took them down –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – ‘cause I was like, even that is too much.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: And I – part of it was that I run a website about romance fiction where we talk about Fabio –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and it’s called Smart Bitches.

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: That was a lot to saddle my kids with, but also I didn’t want them as part of my brand. So –

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: – looking at all of these family vloggers whose kids are the brand –

Fortesa: Yeah, they are the brand.

Sarah: – I mean, one of them said, They’re the characters of the show. Oof!

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: That is a lot to take in as a parent who is older. And I imagine for, for you, this is very acute. This is all right now. Like, while you’re writing this, were there are opportunities where, like, Oh, are you writing a book about influencers? Do you want a Pampers deal? How do you feel about free diapers? Do you like Disney?

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: How do you feel about Disney? For free!

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah! No, I mean, there are definitely opportunities, and I think it would be more difficult for me to say no to them if I wasn’t, like, if I didn’t have, like, a level of privilege and, like, financial stability, and I think –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – that comes across in the book, that I feel very sympathetic towards a lot of these women and families, because they don’t have that privilege or that financial stability? And so if someone’s offering you, you know, a diaper deal where you get three thousand dollars a month, plus you never have to pay for diapers again, and all you have to do is, like, make a video of your kid in the diaper, like, I can understand how the scales tip.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely. You just did an Instagram post that is, like, living in my brain right now –

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – about how if you are an influencer, you have the only job in which having a child is an asset.

Fortesa: Totally! And I one hundred percent believe that. Like, I love my daughter; she is the light of my life. She did not make my career better; she did not advance my career. In fact, it was more difficult; it’s been more difficult working since I’ve had her. I wouldn’t take it back, but, like, if you’re a mom influencer, it’s a positive to have a baby.

Sarah: Yep. This strikes me as such as, an interesting flip, because one of the, one of the core messages I remember from the early mommy blogging days is like, you know, you got sold a load of bullshit that this is easy and beautiful, and everything –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – about motherhood is bucolic, and this sucks. You feel like you got hit by a truck.

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: Like, there are all of these bodily fluids that you never want to deal with again. Won’t even know where they came from. This is hard; this is hard; this is hard. And yet now we have influencers promoting the ideas that No, this is easy. This is easy.

Fortesa: It’s perfect!

Sarah: It’s perfect.

Fortesa: And you can make it easy by buying my sponsored hydration powder! [Laughs] You know?

Sarah: Yes. How is your sodium today? Be like me.

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: You mentioned that one of the things that mom influencers are doing is making the invisible labor of motherhood both visible and profitable.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: But it’s the performance of the labor that’s monetized; it’s not the actual labor. Do you see positives in mom influencing at all, after doing all of this research?

Fortesa: Definitely, I do! I think that, like, it has made me feel much less alone in my own life? Like, as I was, you know, I remember watching TikToks in the week or two after my daughter was born, and I was like, Wow, every day at sunset, I cry for like two hours, and I just can’t stop crying and I feel like I’m going to die. And then I, like, got on TikTok, and it was like, Oh yeah, this is like a normal thing as your hormones shift, and, like, everyone – not everyone, but, like, a lot of women feel this way. And I felt like, Oh, thank God it’s not just me, or, like, you know, when I was struggling with trying to get my daughter to sleep longer or –

Sarah: So hard.

Fortesa: – she was teething, like, you know, I would go online, and I would see videos of these women who were like, I’m going through this too. And, like, sometimes that, those were, like, sponsored posts and, like, oftentimes they weren’t, and it just made me feel less alone. So, like, I do think that there are positives, but I also think, like, so much of it is monetized that it just can’t be considered – like, they’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, right? But, like, also –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – why would I ask them to perform labor for free? So it’s like, it’s so complicated.

Sarah: Oh, it is very complicated. I remember very well the scandal of knowing that blog posts were sponsored, and –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – we’re supposed to do this for free! Like, no!

Fortesa: Like, it is work!

Sarah: It’s work!

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: But at the same time, you have the commodification of your kid’s childhood –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and assigning a monetary value to that.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: That is also very hard to reckon with.

Fortesa: Yeah, it’s uncomfortable. And I think that parents are reckoning with that. Like, you, you hear in my book, they’re, they’re a little bit defensive about their decisions, you know?

Sarah: They are! They’re very defensive, some of them. Like, I wrote in the margins, Girl. Come on now.

[Laughter]

Fortesa: I know. I know, but, like, I, it’s difficult because I think any choice you make as a parent, you feel kind of inherently defensive about it. You know, like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Fortesa: – if you sleep train or if you don’t sleep train, or if you do formula or if you breastfeed, like, you, you feel inherently defensive about that. And when there’s this cultural reckoning around putting kids online, like, I don’t blame them for feeling, feeling defensive.

Sarah: Oh, I don’t blame them at all. I mean, I remember so very well the, do you do daycare? Are you staying at home? And are you a nanny? And there were ethical and cultural status markers with each of those options.

Fortesa: Oh, one hundred percent. Even on Twitter or X or whatever this, this week, this mom posted a photo, two photos of her child at daycare, and he’s, he looked like he was maybe four or five months, and it, like, ignited this, like, firestorm and everyone’s like, you know, either She’s evil for taking him to daycare, or like, you know, What do you expect moms to do? Or like, like, it’s still now we’re having those conversations, you know? So there’s no right way to be a mother anywhere?

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: But especially online, I think.

Sarah: Can I give you my one piece of parenting advice that I give to parents?

Fortesa: Please!

Sarah: In thirty years, you are not going to be able to tell the difference – and this is what I told myself – between who was breastfed – and I couldn’t breastfeed – or who had formula –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – who had a nanny, who had daycare, who stayed at home –

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: – who had all organic food, who had McDonald’s sometimes. You won’t be able to –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – who watched TV, who didn’t – you won’t be able to tell the difference, but you will be able to tell which children were raised in secure and loving homes.

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: That’s the goal. Like, that’s it.

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: And so looking at that through my, through that lens, looking at the idea of influencing, I’m like, Okay, well, this is neither secure nor loving. I will, I will tip my cards and say, I personally am deeply against children being online.

Fortesa: Okay. Yeah.

Sarah: The only form of generative AI that I support is the generation of children images for entertainment purposes, because the entertainment industry has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted with children. And I’m pretty sure the internet –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – can’t be trusted with children either. And so until –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – those situations are improved, No Kids Online is my opinion. And I understand –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – I’m not in charge here, but you can actually –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – argue with me if you think I’m incorrect there, I’m taking too hard a line.

Fortesa: You know, I think, like, everyone has their own, like, personal stance. Like, it’s interesting because –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Fortesa: – I feel differently about, like, other people’s decisions versus my own decision. Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – I don’t put my daughter online. I haven’t shown her face; I haven’t said her name; I don’t really talk about her; I don’t really write about her. So that’s my, like, personal stance, but I can understand, in other situations, that a different decision is made. But sometimes it crosses this line where I’m like, I really try to be, like, a sympathetic and understanding person, and sometimes I’m like, That I cannot excuse.

Sarah: No. That’s why I stopped reading Dooce.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: This was, gosh, I’m trying to think. I remember when this happened ‘cause I was walking, I worked in Manhattan, and I was walking to Penn Station thinking about this. She had a picture of one of her daughters – I shouldn’t know their names. I shouldn’t know this much about them. This is none of my business. Do I know a lot about them? Yes, yes, I do – And she put a picture of her daughter – this is a very familiar story – she put her kid in the Pack ‘n Play and she’s like, Oh my God, I’m having a shower. So she went to have a shower. And at that time her child had produced, let’s say, a solid deposit.

Fortesa: Ugh.

Sarah: And as kids are wont to do, they were reaching into the diaper, and they were smearing it on the walls and smearing it on themselves, putting it on their face. And her response was to go, Oh my God! And then take pictures of it and put it on the internet. And I, the first thing I thought was, Woman, your child is going to be in middle school someday. Middle school –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – is unavoidable for all of us, and your child –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – is going to be in seventh grade, and this picture of her in her diaper, covered with poo –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – will also be around seventh grade! This is not okay. And I, I could not read her anymore. I was so angry?

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: But I did not go to, so far as to join or, or, or be-, belong to a snark community. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah. Snark communities are wild.

Sarah: Okay, I have a very definition, different definition of snark, ‘cause we used to refer to what we’re doing as snarking on covers and snarking on romance novels, but it’s different if it’s an object or a cover or, or, like, an image meant to be marketing and entertainment.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: And then when it’s a person and their public performance of their parenting –

Fortesa: [Sighs] Yeah.

Sarah: You had to go spelunking in some –

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – really toxic parts of Reddit. First of all –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – are you okay?

Fortesa: Yeah, whoa. I mean, it was wild. I just, like, I can’t imagine being the, the subject of it. You know, like, I’m lucky that I, like, have, like, a somewhat public persona, but I don’t talk about myself. Like, I only talk about my work, so I’ve never been, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – really attacked in that personal way, but I’m just like, Oh my God!

Sarah: Was it difficult or compelling, or something else entirely? Where were you in the sequence of writing this book where you started looking at the snark communities? Was this a parallel investigation?

Fortesa: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about snark for a while just because I feel like more and more snark communities have been popping up, and I, and especially around the family vlogger world. There was a huge one that popped up a few years ago around, like, the entire Ruby Franke thing?

Sarah: Oh gosh!

Fortesa: And so – yeah, I know, I know. And so I was just always kind of curious about it, and then I thought, I wonder if I could talk to these people. Like, I wonder if they would talk to me. And it turns out –

Sarah: Yeah!

Fortesa: – they would, yeah! And it constantly amazes me how willing people are to share their stories, and obviously I’m very lucky for that. [Laughs]

Sarah: You wrote in the book that a parasocial relationship breakup is inherently lonely because it was a one-sided relationship.

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: That’s brilliant! Can you, can you expand on that –

Fortesa: Thank you!

Sarah: – a little bit? That is so smart –

Fortesa: Well –

Sarah: – as an observation.

Fortesa: – it’s just – thank you! I think, like, a parasocial relationship by definition is one way, right? So, like, you have an obsession with a celebrity or you love this celebrity, but, like, they don’t know that you exist. And then when they do something that you feel wrongs you or has changed your opinion of them, you have to go through this breakup, but, like, you can’t tell them, like, not directly. You can’t, you can’t have that conversation with them like, You did something wrong to me, and so you’re like, it’s really lonely and you don’t know what to do with that, like, love that you had for them. And so one of the ways I think people handle that is by turning to these snark communities and turning their love into, like, hate and snark.

Sarah: And it’s interesting how easy it is to go from one to the other. And in your book, how many people had stories like mine where they were just like one moment, and they were like, All right, now I’m done; I’m out. Yep.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: I, I confess to being mystified by a lot of the snark communities that are dedicated to, like, one family or one person, because this is fan behavior.

Fortesa: It is fan – yeah, it is.

Sarah: This is…

Fortesa: But they don’t consider themselves fans!

Sarah: No! They’re like anti-fans!

Fortesa: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Sarah: Which is still a fan; the word fan is still in there.

Fortesa: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: And they, like a lot of the family – this is the part that blew my mind, or one of the parts – they, like a lot of the family vloggers, are sort of co-opting the language of morality to justify what they’re doing.

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: And they feel like they are, much like the influencers themselves, they are helping people –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – by pointing out the hypocrisy. This, there, there has to be some –

Fortesa: Yeah, they’re, they’re spreading the word.

Sarah: Yeah, there has to be some moral element to, to all of this.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: Why do you think that is?

Fortesa: I think ‘cause otherwise you’d have to face the fact that you’re just spending your time, like, hating on people, and, like, no one wants to be a hater, right? Like, it’s like, why would you spend all this time on this snark community if you were just, like, bitching about someone? But if it’s like, No, people need to know what they’re doing wrong, and I’m the person who can tell them, then it’s like a useful time. It’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – a useful use of your time.

Sarah: And it assigns a value to what you are doing.

Fortesa: Yeah, it’s meaningful. You’re not just, like, talking shit. You’re, like, making sure that kids aren’t exploited or, you know, whatever they see their –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – their motive as.

Sarah: I’m not necessarily a hater, but I do love talking shit. That’s a –

Fortesa: I know, me too! Me too!

Sarah: – full-on activity. I don’t need to justify that; I love talking shit. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah, but I, it’s just like, I don’t know. I feel like that’s what group chats are for, you know? Or, like, that’s what –

Sarah: Yes, that is what the group chat is for!

Fortesa: – like, your sisters are for. Like, I don’t know. I don’t – it’s, yeah, it’s very strange because, especially with, like, the moderators. Like, they spend hours and hours every week, like, sifting through this community and, like, making sure everyone’s, like, abiding by the rules, and they’re very strict and, like, you know, it’s, it’s a lot of time!

Sarah: And as a person who moderates comment sections and a Discord, that’s a lot of work. Like, that is so much mental energy devoted to something that is ostensibly a volunteer position.

Fortesa: Yeah! I mean, you’re not getting paid.

Sarah: There’s no brand deals for Reddit snark sub moderators.

Fortesa: [Laughs] No, no.

Sarah: Wait, what would the brand deal be? Now I want to come up with one. I want to go to, like, the marketing department like, Here’s what you need to do.

Fortesa: Oh my God. I can’t even think of –

Sarah: Antacids?

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah…

Sarah: Weed gummies! THC weed gummies. That’s what it is.

Fortesa: Yes, yes.

Sarah: Do you need to chill out?

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah. Do need to just relax?

Sarah: Yes.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Please have a joint. That’s what you need. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Now, there are a lot of different perspect- – you did so many interviews. Oh my God!

Fortesa: I know. I know.

Sarah: So many interviews.

Fortesa: And there were some that didn’t even make the book. I mean, I, I would have to count, but it was, yeah, hundreds, hundreds.

Sarah: Oh my gosh.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: What were some that didn’t make the book?

Fortesa: There were some smaller creators that I talked to that I thought were really interesting at the beginning of their journeys, but I ultimately felt like they didn’t reflect, like, the ethical quandaries yet because they were, like, smaller. Yeah, I think that was, that was the main thing.

Sarah: It’s fascinating for me to read the mental gymnastics that some of these –

Fortesa: [Laughs] I know.

Sarah: – people are doing. Like –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – I, I always joke, like, doesn’t the cognitive dissonance give you a headache? Because I –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – have a headache from watching you do this.

Fortesa: Yeah, no. And it’s interesting how, how similarly they echo each other. Like, they all are kind of saying the same thing.

Sarah: They’re all on message, and they’re all on brand!

Fortesa: Totally!

Sarah: [Laughs] You know they have a group chat!

Fortesa: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: So what were your interviews like? Were people quick to warm up to you and talk to you about this? Or were most people like, I don’t want talk to a journalist.

Fortesa: Yeah, I think, I think that people were willing to talk to me because they could read my other work and see that I wasn’t just like, I hate these people; they’re immoral; they’re evil; because I truly don’t think that? And I think they were willing to talk to me for that reason? There was definitely, like, a feeling of, they were like, had their hackles raised, like they were, they were on the defense?

Sarah: Yep.

Fortesa: But I think it was helpful also that I was either transitioning into motherhood or I was a new mother at the time, so I could kind of like, you know, understand them on that level. I think it would have been harder if I, if I wasn’t a parent? But I think I’m constantly amazed by how much people will tell me.

Sarah: Really!

Fortesa: Yeah, totally.

Sarah: Like, what are some things that surprised you? Do you have bartender pheromone? Do strangers tell you their business too?

Fortesa: [Laughs] I, I guess so. People have always liked to tell me things. Even when I was a kid, like, people would just tell me secrets. Like –

Sarah: Yep!

Fortesa: – I don’t know, even like in my – I have four siblings, and I was always, like, the keeper of the secrets for, like, the other siblings.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Fortesa: I don’t know! But I think, like, one of the things that really surprised me that someone, that a few people are willing to say on the record is that, I asked them what content does the best, and they said content in which my kids are hurt or sick or upset. And I think that was really surprising to me, that they were willing to say that just straight up.

Sarah: Oh, that makes me sad inside.

Fortesa: Yeah, no, it’s brutal.

Sarah: That’s hard to take in. How hard did you have to sort of school your face during some of these interviews? [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah. No, some of it was hard ‘cause I was like, What are you talk- – like, again, like, so much of it, I feel so much sympathy and I truly –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – can understand how if my life were different, I would make different choices? But, like –

Sarah: Hundred percent agree.

Fortesa: – I talked to this one, this one mother, this one family vlogger who said that she had these, like, pedophilic comments about her eight-year-old daughter on, like, some, some photos, like people asking, like this guy asking to, like, see under her skirt and, like, just really terrible stuff. And then she told me, Oh yeah, but I talked to my daughter about it and, like, whatever. And I was like, Wait, you told her about it? And she was like, Well, I really, like, value transparency, and, like, I think that, you know, whatever, whatever; like, I thought that she needed to know. And I was like, I was, like, trying to understand, like, telling an eight-year-old that. And I was like, Okay, I guess, I guess I could understand the premise that, like, there are unsafe people on the internet, and this is why I’m taking you offline or whatever. Like, this is why we’re making different choices, but there weren’t different choices made. It was just, like, telling her that this had happened. And so that was, like, really difficult for me to understand, ‘cause I don’t, I don’t know what the value of it was.

Sarah: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was more for the mom than the kid. To, to share it –

Fortesa: I mean –

Sarah: – tell it; it has to be. What eight-year-old is going to understand this concept?

Fortesa: Yeah, and then, and then how do you, like, how do you move forward from that? Like, okay, this happens online and it’s really scary and we’re going to continue posting? Like, I just don’t understand what the next step is that justifies that, like, divulging that. I just, I couldn’t really understand.

Sarah: I, I am as baffled as you.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: I – half my neighbors are like eight or nine, and I cannot imagine –

Fortesa: No, yeah!

Sarah: – deciding that this is a thing you need to share with your – ohhh, goodness.

Fortesa: Yeah, I just, I don’t get it. Like, I really, I really try to understand. I really try to be so empathetic and open-minded and, like, I just, some of the decisions that were made by parents that they shared with me in the book, I just was like, I just don’t get it. I don’t get it.

Sarah: The money must be truly incredible is the only thing I can think. That the –

Fortesa: Yeah, I mean, it is for some people. It is. It’s, you know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – hundreds of thousands or even, for top people, like millions of dollars a year. You know, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Fortesa: – people told me that they started and they made on one brand deal what their spouse or themselves made in an entire annual salary. And so it’s like, again, I can understand how, especially in this, like, economically precarious time, how, like, you could look at the scales and understand, like, the way that they would tip. Like, is it a choice I would make? No, but, like, I get it.

Sarah: I understand what you mean, especially with the sympathy, because I was reading the story that you shared about Bekah Martinez, who was, was she a Bachelorette? Was she a Bachelor?

Fortesa: She was a Bachelor contestant, yeah.

Sarah: Thank you. I, I knew I knew her from the, the franchise.

Fortesa: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: And she posted a picture of herself we called double-barrel breastfeeding –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah!

Sarah: – one newborn, one toddler.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: So first of all, congratulations on –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – your hand-eye coordination.

Fortesa: Amazing!

Sarah: That’s hard.

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: But then she posted a picture of herself doing it on her Instagram, and my, my whole body went, No, girl! No, no, no!

Fortesa: I know, I know!

Sarah: No, honey! And I know that what she was doing was like, Check this out! This is amazing! And it’s a completely –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – normal and natural thing that has so much shame built up into it. And hell yeah!

Fortesa: And really cool, honestly, to, like –

Sarah: I mean –

Fortesa: – do two at once.

Sarah: – double barreling is hard, man! I had –

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – lots of friends with twins, and it is no joke!

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: But girl, oh, putting it on Instagram, that’s where I was like, Oh no, oh no, oh no, honey. What, what were the comments like?

Fortesa: I mean, I think for her, the comments on her Instagram were okay, but then she found it reposted on Facebook with like hundreds of thousands of shares and, like, lots of comments there where she was like, she said to me, like, I realized that people were, like, jacking off to this photo of me, like, breastfeeding my kids, and it made me so upset, you know? So it’s like, it’s like, even with the best intentions –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – like, the internet is the internet, you know?

Sarah: Oh, believe me! In the late ‘90s on my original blog –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – I once wrote about the fact that I, I used to dance. I have large calves, and it was hard to find wide-calf boots at that time. So I just wrote –

Fortesa: Sure.

Sarah: – a whole essay about how there’s this basic thing that I want to buy that I can’t buy because I have too much muscle on my legs –

Fortesa: Sure.

Sarah: – and –

Fortesa: Sure.

Sarah: – that’s really annoying. And so I started talking about like, you know, calves and wide-calf boots and why – to probably the end of that site, which I took down maybe fifteen years later, I got email from people – and I didn’t post pictures – wanting pictures of my calves. Like –

Fortesa: And like, it’s a calf! Like, it’s, it’s not even, like, sexy. Like, you know, it’s not like you were talking about how your boobs are too big.

Sarah: No! It was my calves! Like, could you just send me a picture? And I’m like, Ew, gross, no! What? Like, you don’t have to be –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the picture; just send me – I got so many requests.

Fortesa: You should’ve made some money! [Laughs]

Sarah: I look back at this and I’m like, Sarah, you could have started OnlyCalves.

Fortesa: [Laughs] No, you couldn’t!

Sarah: You could have started OnlyCalves.

Fortesa: You couldn’t!

Sarah: You could have been the, like the spearhead of a truly multi-billion dollar industry. But no, I was just like, No, my calves are mine! [Laughs]

Fortesa: Oh my God –

Sarah: …wear my pants and hide them!

Fortesa: – that’s so funny. Yeah, I mean –

Sarah: My calves!

Fortesa: – I think you never know what people will, will latch on to, you know? And that’s, and that’s the troubling thing when it, when it comes to kids, and I think, I just feel so, like, even when I was pregnant, I immediately felt so protective. Like, and, and there is the potential that, like, the family vloggers are on one side; I’m on the other side; and, like, a reasonable place would be to be in the middle? And I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Fortesa: – acknowledge that.

Sarah: Oh!

Fortesa: I totally acknowledge that. But I felt so deeply, like, almost like sickly protective over my daughter. Like, I never announced I was pregnant. I, like, posted after she was born, and I was like, By the way, I had a baby. And I’ve never posted her since, and – well, not showing her face. And, like, she is just so precious to me, and I know these kids are precious to their parents. I’m not saying they’re not, but, like, there’s something in me that just, like, balks at the idea of sharing her with people. Like, I just, I just can’t. There’s, like, something in me that just cannot do it.

Sarah: Because you are so aware, I think, that you can’t control the audience of what you post, and some of that audience means harm.

Fortesa: Yeah, they do. And I mean, I think, I talk about this in the book: there was that bombshell New York Times investigation where they found, like, group chats of pedophiles who were saying, like, Thank God for mom influencers, because there’s this constant stream of kid content. And, like, that was like, when I read that story, like, obviously, I think anyone who reports in this space has the suspicion, but I never wanted to be like an alarmist or like a conspiracy theorist? And then I read this story, and it was like your deepest fears come true, you know?

Sarah: Yeah! Oh yeah! And I, I struggle with that because I already feel, like, frustrated and angry at some of the things that parents share that get put onto my feed. And I want to just, like, sit down and just have a little come to Jesus with them. Like, listen –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – here’s, here’s what you’re doing, and here’s where this is going to go wrong in a hurry, and here’s what you’re not thinking about. But it sounds like, from your interviews, they are thinking about this, and they keep going!

Fortesa: They are.

Sarah: They keep going!

Fortesa: Yeah, well, I think they’re, they’re weighing, you know, the positives and the negatives! Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – a lot of the parents that I talked to said – something that stuck in my mind was this influencer mom who I’ve had really lovely interviews with, and I think she’s a really fascinating, smart person, and she said, I noticed that when I posted photos of my young daughter – I think she was like six, seven at the time – in dance outfits, that they would get, like, more saves and more shares and whatever. And then I said, Okay, so what, what did you do? And she said, Well, I decided to only share that content like once a quarter. Like once, every once in a while. And I was like, Okay. Like, it’s not that they’re not thinking about it.

Sarah: The, the mental gymnastics. Also, I just need you to know –

Fortesa: I know.

Sarah: – I read that story aloud to my husband, and he was just –

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – Whyyy? Why? I’m like, I don’t –

Fortesa: I know.

Sarah: – know! It’s – mm.

Fortesa: I know. I just don’t understand how, like, you could know that and then to minimize the risk you just, like, do it less, but you still do it? Like –

Sarah: This was –

Fortesa: – I don’t know.

Sarah: This was the same person who said, Well, I can’t control what people do, and if a pedophile took a picture of my kid in the park, I can’t stop that –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – either. And I, and I was like –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – That’s, those aren’t the same!

Fortesa: No, it doesn’t feel the same. [Laughs]

Sarah: Those aren’t the same at all! That’s –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – super not the same. Like, oof!

Fortesa: You know, and other parents said similar things where they’re like, Well, someone in your family could be a pedophile. And obviously, like, it is more likely that your child would be, like, harmed by someone that you know, but, like, we don’t even know the extent of, like, the way that children’s content is being shared on the internet. Like, that New York Times story just blew my mind! And, like, it was something that I, like, vaguely suspected but I was never comfortable, like, asserting because, like, I didn’t have any evidence?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: And then the way that these mostly men – I think entirely men in this story – were talking about, Thank God for these mom influencers, I was just like, Oh God, no!

Sarah: And also there’s an inherent flaw to the logic there that if most people who commit sexual abuse are related to or close to their victims –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – that victim-, that victimization doesn’t happen in a bubble. That person is also very likely consuming pornographic materials and looking –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – outside of their immediate circle for further – like, it’s not like it operates in a state of isolation. The same person –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: – who’s looking at child sexual assault materials is also the same person who may also do assault…

Fortesa: And I guess maybe if they really, like, got to the bottom of their logic, they would think that, like, maybe there’s a consideration that, like, there’s a difference between, like, physical assault and then –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – like, digital assault? Which, like, obviously there is a difference, but, like, you don’t really want either – [laughs] –

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: – you know?

Sarah: And even if the, even if the image to which that person is committing digital assault isn’t prurient, that –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – person is still a victim.

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: They’re still a victim of assault –

Fortesa: Yeah, it’s –

Sarah: – even if they weren’t there and don’t know that it happened.

Fortesa: And I think with all these reports that you’re seeing about the way that, like, AI is turning, like, regular photos of kids into like child sexual abuse material, like, it just – and it’s not only, like, influencer kids, right? It’s, like, anyone whose, like, photo’s online, and I do think, like, at a point, like, there’s only so much I can control as a parent. Like, I know eventually, like, my daughter will get older; she’ll be in school; I’m sure, like, another parent will, like, post a photo of her or whatever. But, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – my job as a parent, as I see it, is to, like, minimize her risk?

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: And, like, that is what I’m trying to do by keeping her offline, and, like, it is, I mean, I understand, like, it is kind of sad. Like, I obviously think my daughter is the most beautiful, charming, sweet child on the earth, and, like –

Sarah: Of course she is!

Fortesa: – there is a part of me that wants to, like, show people and be like, Look what I made! Like, can you believe –

Sarah: Right?!

Fortesa: – how cute she is?

Sarah: A whole entire person.

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: This person is here. Did you see the – I made a person.

Fortesa: And she got ripped out of my stomach and, like, look what we’re – you know what I mean?

Sarah: Ugh!

Fortesa: But, like, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just not worth it to me? It’s not worth it, and I do think a lot of parents are trying to find that middle ground. So what I do is I have, like, my Close Friends list on Instagram that is like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – all, like, my girlfriends and, like, my close, like, family; people that I, like, would send photos to my, of my daughter to; but I just don’t have the time to be, like, texting them photos all day>

Sarah: Right.

Fortesa: So I’ll, like, post on my Close Friends, and that’s, like, the extent of it? And, like, my husband does the same with his Close Friends, and I think if it were up to him, he would probably be a little more lenient, but he, like, respects that I feel so strongly about it. And I do, like, kind of feel bad. Like, I’m like, I understand that he wants to, like, share with, like, the people that, that know him, like, how lovely our daughter is, but, like, in the, like, he trusts me and that I’ve made that decision, and I think that’s a lot of what parenting is, especially in a partnership, is, like, kind of the person who has the stronger opinion?

Sarah: Yep.

Fortesa: Like, my husband understands my opinion, but I think he would be a little bit chiller if it were him?

Sarah: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Fortesa: Like, he would post her once in a while?

Sarah: My –

Fortesa: But maybe even not that, ‘cause he doesn’t really post much.

Sarah: No. It’s not, I don’t think that – I, that, that doesn’t sound like it’s a habit or a form of communication, like –

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: …other people.

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: My, my sister-in-law was in college when Facebook was just for college?

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: So she has always been on Facebook. She has always had it. And she thought we were out of our gourds, not wanting pictures of our children –

Fortesa: Oh, totally!

Sarah: – on Facebook at all. Like, not even one – I’m like, No, not even one.

Fortesa: So was this back when your kids were little or, like –

Sarah: 2005 and 2007.

Fortesa: You were ahead of the curve making that choice, ‘cause that’s only become a popular choice in the last like four to five years.

Sarah: I know, and I was the outlier because I wasn’t –

Fortesa: Totally!

Sarah: – posting pictures of my kids everywhere. But I had a couple of reasons for doing that. One –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I want to ask you about this – they’re kids; they can’t consent.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: There is no consent that is valid from them, and I have to consent for them. So like you said, I have to think in terms of protection.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: I work on the internet and I write about romance fiction, so I get my share of sexism and, and –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – dumbassery.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: And I didn’t think my kids needed to be connected to that for any reason. I might’ve made more money –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – if it was, you know, me and the kids and the romance novels?

Fortesa: Likely you would have.

Sarah: Probably, yes.

But there was also a third reason, and I don’t think this makes a lot of sense now, but at the time it did? I got the internet in college, so between ‘93 and ‘97.

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I got to show up and create my online identity –

Fortesa: Yes! No one made it for you.

Sarah: – with nothing, nothing there before me.

Fortesa: Yeah, totally.

Sarah: It, that was so influential into the person I have become.

Fortesa: Same!

Sarah: Being able to connect with people all over the place who I would never have met, and –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – the things that I’ve learned, even on Twitter! I learned a whole new –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – vocabulary about social activism –

Fortesa: I love Twitter, yeah.

Sarah: – and sexuality, and I miss old Twitter so much.

Fortesa: I know; me too! I miss Twitter so – X sucks; I miss Twitter.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s the only thing I will deadname. I will deadname –

Fortesa: [Laughs] No, same!

Sarah: I’ll deadname that Twitter all day long!

Fortesa: Yeah – [laughs] – yeah.

Sarah: I wanted to give my kids the opportunity to show up on the internet and not have me having littered their identity around for them.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: I wanted them to show up to a blank slate and to not –

Fortesa: Totally!

Sarah: – have me pre-, you know, pre-establish who they are before they get there –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – because it’s also, that’s not my job to tell them who they are. My job is to help them –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – figure out who they are.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: So I never – I don’t, I don’t want to say never, ‘cause I probably, like, posted a couple of pictures, and then I deleted my Facebook in like 2018. Before the pandemic, I deleted my Facebook –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I pulled down everything. And I looked through – there were not that many pictures? Most of the time –

Fortesa: Sure.

Sarah: – it was someone else’s group shot of like a birthday party, and then I was –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – tagged in it.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: Which I didn’t, like, get really upset about, because you can’t necessarily tell which one is mine unless they’re holding a sign –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – like, This child is Sarah’s child! No one’s…

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: It’s a very different thing to be a parent who has always had the internet, who has never not been able to connect with people –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and whose other friends who are parents are also sharing their kids. Do you ever –

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: – feel isolated because you don’t want her to be out on the internet?

Fortesa: A little bit, sometimes. I mean, I think, like, I see, like, you know, peripheral friends that I’m like – I guess acquaintances who have, like, also become mothers in the same time, and they’ll post things about their kid and I’ll respond and be like, Oh my God, my daughter does the same thing, or, like, whatever. But it is, like, kind of the lack of connection because I’m not, like, sharing back?

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: But also, like, I am really lucky that I have, like, a lot of really close, like, mom friends, like, in my actual life and, like, my sisters are moms and, like, I think – but I can understand, like, wanting to share, and there were moments, especially in my pregnancy and right after birth – I had hyperemesis during my pregnancy, so I threw up –

Sarah: Oh, no.

Fortesa: – like ten times a day. I lost a bunch of weight; I was hospitalized a bunch of times; it was terrible. And then I had an extremely traumatic birth?

Sarah: I’m so sorry.

Fortesa: And right afterwards – thank you! It’s, it’s wild how many, like, women have had traumatic births. Like, once you start the conversation it’s, like, so com- – and that’s a whole ‘nother conversation. But right after that and during that, I was like, Wow, there is a part of me that just wants to go on TikTok and be like, This happened to me; did this happen to any of you?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Fortesa: And, like, there was that part of me, and I think I could have, because it wasn’t, like, directly related to my daughter, but, I mean, I don’t know.

But in my, in my book, I talked to Shannon Bird, who was a former mom blogger, and she, when her son was like, I think he was eight or nine years old, he came home from school and he said, Can you delete your blog, because kids at school are printing out my birth story and making fun of me for it. And, like, he didn’t have, like, a, like, crazy – like, it was just a birth, you know. Like, it wasn’t like – but they were still, like, using that against him and, like, I don’t know. It just, I feel like as I’ve gotten older, the more I feel that, like, privacy is really sacred and, like –

Sarah: Yes.

Fortesa: – I don’t want to tell people everything that has ever happened to me.

Sarah: You can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube, either.

Fortesa: [Laughs] No, no.

Sarah: No. Like, I am a bozo out here on the internet –

Fortesa: [Laughs] I mean, aren’t we all?

Sarah: – under my own name; this is my real name. Like, my name is Sarah Wendell –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I probably –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – should have picked a penname, but I didn’t.

Fortesa: I mean –

Sarah: I pay a service to remove me from public directories. I have to pay to attain privacy. Otherwise –

Fortesa: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – I’d spend all my time filing takedown notices.

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: Once that’s, once that’s out of the tube, you can’t, you can’t put it back in.

Fortesa: No, you can’t take it back. No.

Sarah: You can’t take it back.

Fortesa: No. And I think I have become a lot more aware of that.

But I love that point that you made about your kids being able to make their own online presence, because I think –

Sarah: Mm-hm.

Fortesa: – I was born in 1993, and so I was in middle school the first time I got social media, and I think it would have been MySpace back then. And then once I got into, like – [laughs] – I know – and then once I got into, like, college and stuff, it was like, you know, Facebook and whatever. But then I really started my career, my writing career, on Tumblr in college.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Fortesa: And, like, I was able to just, like, become my own self. And, like, I think – obviously there are some things that I look back that I’m like, Ehhh – you know, I was going through a really bad breakup and I just, like, wrote everything and I told everything, but, like, I don’t really regret it? Like –

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: – it’s fine, and also, I made those choices myself? And then still, now, I’ll get messages from people on Instagram who are like, Oh my God, I read you on Tumblr, or like, I remember you from Twitter like five years ago. And it’s, like, fun that I got to make those choices myself.

Sarah: Yes, exactly. That nobody put that information out for you. Like I said, seventh grade comes for us all.

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah. My God, the most brutal year.

Sarah: It’s so –

Fortesa: Excuse me.

Sarah: I had to tell both of my kids, Look, this just sucks. There is no way around it: middle school –

Fortesa: You just have to get through it.

Sarah: – middle school stinks. It’s –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – the pits. I’m very sorry. And that’s what…

Fortesa: That’s the worst.

Sarah: …other kids, like, No, middle school’s the worst, man. You just got to get through it.

Fortesa: I know. My oldest niece is, like, now entering middle school, and my –

Sarah: Oh!

Fortesa: – younger ones are getting ready, and I’m just like, I’m just like, my sisters and I are like, We’re so sorry! Like, it’s, it’s, we’ve got to do it. But it’s like, my mom, when I used to be, like, doing homework as a kid, I would be like, Why don’t you have to do homework? And she’d be like, I already did my homework. And it’s like, I already got through seventh grade, you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s the wooorst! Oh, it’s so bad.

Fortesa: Oh yeah.

Sarah: I – previous to reading your book, I will say that this changed my perspective. It was very easy for me to look at influence who I thought were over-sharenting –

Fortesa: Yeah, sure.

Sarah: – which, sharenting is great word, by the way. It was easy for me to look at that and be like, Do you think of your kids as people? Do you think of your kids –

Fortesa: Sure.

Sarah: – as autonomous beings, as people? And having read these interviews – which are so good, by the way; like, you, the –

Fortesa: Thank you.

Sarah: – very, very good interviews.

Fortesa: Thank you.

Sarah: They do care about their kids; they do love their kids.

Fortesa: They do!

Sarah: …also love that they are able to do this form of media that provides so lucratively. Especially the chapter on teen moms, that really changed…

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – attitude on a lot of things. So (a) thank you for schooling me on my, my being –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – a butthead, but also, that really complicates the question of, of consent!

Fortesa: It does.

Sarah: Because they are –

Fortesa: It does.

Sarah: – they are below the legal age of consent as well!

Fortesa: They’re kids, and they’re having kids, and, you know, their parents are having to consent for them at their doctor’s appointments, but they’re consenting for their children. Like, it’s just like a mindfuck.

Sarah: And like, like you said on Instagram, having a child is an asset if you are an influencer.

Fortesa: Totally.

Sarah: Having an influencer career is one of the few options for women who are in that position where they have no support, where they have –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – very little ability to make an income, because once you have a child, well, you’re already, if you’re already a woman, you’re making less. And if you’re a woman of color –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – you’re making even less than that, and then if you have daycare, you’re making no money. Like, none.

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: You’re probably in the red. And this is the best option for them. That is such an indictment of many –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – things wrong with our culture.

Fortesa: Totally. That the most vulnerable among us, their option is to get online and kind of sell their lives and share their children, and, and that’s the way? And I think also, like, and I get into this in the book, I think our society’s fascination with teen moms is really, says something weird about us? And I haven’t quite nailed it down, but I do think one of the teen moms that I talked to said, I think people like to suffer. They think we’re dumb little girls who got knocked up, and they want to see us suffer.

Sarah: They do!

Fortesa: And I do think that’s part of it! I think we want to feel, we want to feel superior to someone. But as I said in the book, like, these girls, now women, are buying houses and cars in cash. I’ve never done that in my life!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Fortesa: Who am I to feel superior to? You know, I’m thirty-two years old. I can’t do that!

Sarah: Yep. And yet they are actually living an, a very opulent and wealthy life, some of them. Like –

Fortesa: Some of them, yeah, totally.

Sarah: – they are, they have an incredible amount of resources at their disposal now. The cost is no privacy for them or for their children. And I can understand now, especially having read that chapter, why that seems alluring!

Fortesa: I mean, imagine like you’re a teen mom and, like, you know, the statistics say you’re more likely to live in poverty; your child is more likely to become a teen parent themselves; you’re less likely to finish high school or attain any degree of education; and, like, what are you supposed to do? Like, be a waitress in this economy?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Fortesa: To, to take care of an entire baby? Like –

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: – if I were a teen mom in this day and age, I would one hundred percent look to TikTok and be like, I might as well give it a shot, you know?

Sarah: Yeah! What, what – you, you don’t, you don’t have any-, literally anything, you don’t have anything to lose!

Fortesa: No.

Sarah: And a lot to gain.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: Oof! So one of the things that we talked a lot about off and on and that was common and commonly comes up in your book is the idea of consent.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: That kids cannot consent. And – ‘cause they can’t. And a lot of the influencer parents were like, Oh, they want to, they want to do this! And that, that one story of the family who stopped, and the kids were like, What do you mean we’re normal and we have to, like, get jobs and do chores and, like, go to school? Like, what is –

Fortesa: And get paid like seventeen dollars an hour for, like, construction when they’re used to like thousands of dollars for a brand deal. Like, yeah, that would be really hard!

Sarah: Where do you fall on the consent line, having done all of these interviews? I know you –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – talked to politicians, you talked to moms, you talked to people who are writing legislation, which I want to ask you about. Where do you fall on this?

Fortesa: Yeah. Consent is very difficult in the, in the realm of, like, children, because children can’t really consent to most things that we do for them?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: Like, I think about, on the most basic level, like, I named my daughter. She didn’t, like, consent to the name I chose for her, and she’s going to have it the rest of her life! You know, or I, like, choose to, like, vaccinate her; she can’t consent to that! I choose to – you  know, whatever, all of these things. And so I think it’s really complicated, but what I think is difficult about the concept of online consent is that we know now that it can follow you, and it’s not something that you can get away from. I think the best thing that parents can do if they are posting their kids online is to think, Would this upset them when they are eight years old, when they are twelve years old, when they’re sixteen years old? And, like, we won’t always be right? [Laughs] Like, my husband jokes with me, he’s like, Our kid is going to hate you for not being a mom influencer, because you could have made a bunch of money, and you could have given her a YouTube career. She’s going to hate you for that. I’m like, She honestly might, you know? And, like, that is the work of parenthood is to, like, make decisions that, like, your kids are going to have to reckon with later?

Sarah: Yep.

Fortesa: But I think the difficulty with the influencer kids’ reckoning is that it happens in public. Because, like –

Sarah: Yes.

Fortesa: – I get to reckon privately with, like, whatever I think my parents did or didn’t do wrong –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – but, like, they are in public.

Sarah: Yes. And not only are they in public, but the public has opinions on your parenting. You are parenting –

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: – with a large audience, a whole Greek chorus of –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – people who want to tell you how to parent. I used to joke that it does not take a village to raise your child; it takes a village to tell you how you ought to be raising your child…wrong. [Laughs]

Fortesa: That’s so real?

Sarah: Isn’t that so true? Like, whatever it is –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’re doing it wrong. All right, so just let yourself off the hook.

Fortesa: Oh yeah, yeah, totally.

Sarah: [Laughs] You know how people choose like a word of the year?

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: My, my word of the year this year is the Hook, as in let yourself off of it already. Come on.

Fortesa: I’m going to try to stamp that in my brain.

Sarah: Yeah, just, just let yourself off the hook. It’s –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – okay.

Now, some states have legislation to protect earnings…having read your explanation of the calculations of how that earning is, money is determined, that’s –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – that’s some math that I can’t do.

Fortesa: No, me neither!

Sarah: It’s like this much time and this many minutes and this percent –

Fortesa: Divided by last month’s earnings times this month – yeah, it’s, like, very, very complicated.

Sarah: The, the, the part that will always make me furious is how many of these kids have grown up and realized that there is nothing there –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – that it was all spent.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: That part makes me insane.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: But what do you think legislation to protect child influencers and to protect their income would look like? Is it even possible?

Fortesa: I mean, it, I have to say the optimist in me says, like, it has to be possible; like, there has to be a way? But I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t profess to know what that way is. I do think that the states that are undertaking this are, like, doing so with the best of intentions?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: But, like, as I write in the book, like, the Utah formula took up like an entire page, like –

Sarah: Oh gosh!

Fortesa: – and I think even a, a parent with the best of intentions, like, how are they supposed to make sure that they’re on point with that unless they have, like, a forensic accountant? So, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Fortesa: – I don’t – you know, and, like, maybe the point isn’t to, like, have the parents follow the formula exactly, but the point is to set something into law so that if the kids realize there is no money for them, that they have, like –

Sarah: Recourse.

Fortesa: – the law backing them up. Yeah, they have recourse? So I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think we’re there yet. [Laughs]

Sarah: No, definitely not. And if you’re going to – I mean, who, who has the Ex-, Excel skills to build the spreadsheet that’s going to make those calculations?

Fortesa: Not me.

Sarah: I mean, even if you could get a feed of your data directly from YouTube to put into some sort of accountant software, how do you even build the formulations to make it consistently work and know that you’re –

Fortesa: It’s also like what counts –

Sarah: …is the law?

Fortesa: – as the likeness of a child? Like, if you’re –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – showing the back of their head, does that count as their likeness, or if they –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – run through the frame for a millisecond, do you count the millisecond? Like, it’s just, it’s so complicated, and I think that speaks to how difficult this, this industry is to understand, because, like, let’s say a mom influencer posts a thirty-second Instagram Reel, she makes a hundred thousand dollars off it, which happens, and a child is in it for ten seconds. You look at that and you’re like, Okay, she made a ton of money, but it wasn’t that much work. But how much work actually went into that thirty-second Reel? Like, they could have been filming that all day –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Fortesa: – in which case – you know what I mean? Like, who knows?

Sarah: Yep. The, the output, it, it’s like when you’re recording an audiobook, one finished hour could be the result of five hours of work before you –

Fortesa: I learned that a few weeks ago. [Laughs]

Sarah: Isn’t that incredible?

Fortesa: Yeah, no, it was wild. I was like, Oh, I have so much respect for everyone who’s ever recorded an audiobook. I was exhausted!

Sarah: Oh, it’s, it’s very tiring to just –

Fortesa: Yeah!

Sarah: – keep talking and talking and reading and talking –

Fortesa: Ugh!

Sarah: – and thinking about what you’re saying as you say it, ‘cause you’re performing. It’s so tiring.

Fortesa: Yeah, it is! I didn’t realize it was a performance. That is something –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – I didn’t realize until I did it.

Sarah: And it’s interesting, because in the, in the realm of influencers, everything that they’re doing is a performance, but they are selling it –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – as real life. But it’s all –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – a performance!

Fortesa: One hundred percent.

Sarah: So here is my thought on the legislation: I think that the legislation question is actually about a different legislation. The solution, I think, to child influencer protection and protection of their income, that legislation would be universal basic income; free child hair, childcare; subsi-, subsidized health care; and the ability to not have to rely on this income so much that it’s your only option to support your family. That is actually the legislation –

Fortesa: Imagine that world.

Sarah: – would –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – solve a lot of this, because there are influencers in other countries –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – but they are not, to the, they are not as – to my knowledge; I haven’t watched all of them – but –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – they’re not as, I want to say exposed and exposing –

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: – as American influencers are.

Fortesa: Yeah. I, yeah, I find influencing to be a uniquely American pursuit in that way, because we never feel like we have enough, and we don’t have enough in a lot of ways –

Sarah: We definitely don’t now, yeah.

Fortesa: – like, so many of us. And so I can understand, like, looking around and being like, Well, this is my best option right now.

Sarah: Yeah.

Were there some things that were said where you were just like, I can’t believe you said that on the record to a person –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – on, that I’m taping this?

Fortesa: That you know is recording? Yeah.

Sarah: Like, you know I’m taping, right? Like –

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: – yeah. Were there anything, were there things that were said where you’re just like, I can’t believe you said that?

Fortesa: I think the admission that a child in pain or in peril or in a vulnerable situation gets the most views, that was really stark to me for them to know that and to admit it. And then a former family vlogging parent who chose to remain anonymous told me that parents not only know that pedophiles are watching their content, but they’re coming up against the line of catering to them. And they –

Sarah: Mm-hm.

Fortesa: – and they kind of, they kind of push that a little bit, and they see their, their content do better when they do that.

And then I talked to this YouTube strategist who told me that family vloggers, if, like, someone’s kid gets, like, sick or, like, breaks their arm or whatever, like, the other ones are, like, jealous – [laughs] – because they’re like, I know that’s going to do so well. Like, of course they’re growing! Their kid got, broke their arm or got sick or whatever. And I’m just like, Ohhh no!

Sarah: No!

Fortesa: Like, I don’t understand. I don’t understand.

Sarah: That really just upends all of the value systems of care –

Fortesa: Right, right.

Sarah: – and the duty of care. Like, this really messes –

Fortesa: And I think about that!

Sarah: – with duty of care. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah, I think about that. Like, my daughter’s been sick the last few days and, like, she’s been really upset and, like, having a hard time. And, like, I just look at her and I’m like, Imagine if I was filming this right now. Like, what would she – she’s only a little bit over a year and a half old. If she were crying and seeking my comfort and I were filming her, I think she would, like, swat the phone out of my hand.

Sarah: Yeah!

Fortesa: Like, I, I wonder what she would do, and I’m not going to test it, but I’m very curious. Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Fortesa: – I feel like she would be like, Dude, what are you doing? And she’s only –

Sarah: No!

Fortesa: – a year and a half old, you know?

Sarah: Speaking of kids and consent, No!

Fortesa: Yeah, literally no! Yeah!

Sarah: No, you, not the phone, you, help!

Together: Yeah!

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: One of the things that blew my mind that I was like, I can’t believe you said that with your whole face, was the Family Fun Pack? I even wrote this down:

>> We don’t have a stopping plan because it’s really unethical to just leave your fans in the dust when they’ve been following you for thirteen or fourteen years.

That’s the unethical part. That’s –

Fortesa: [Laughs] That’s, that’s the worry.

Sarah: That’s the unethical part. Is it now? Wow.

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah, I know! I know.

Sarah: It just – oof! – it is a real interesting sort of tense dynamic between empathy and sympathy and –

Fortesa: I know.

Sarah: – What the hell are you doing?

Fortesa: I know. The entire time, and I, and I write about it in the book, I just kept, like, going through, like, from side to side, like, trying to figure out, Okay, maybe I can understand this, but this doesn’t make sense to me. But – but, but, but, but – and it was just like constantly ping-ponging. Like, my mind –

Sarah: Yeah.

Fortesa: – was just, like, thrown the entire time.

Sarah: Yeah. I do like very much when you pointed out that people’s arguments held no water.

Fortesa: [Laughs] Thank you.

Sarah: This is, this is the weakest argument I’ve ever heard.

Fortesa: Oh yeah.

Sarah: Now, in a terrible, terrible way, I will say this is an interesting time for your book to arrive, because it seems like we are still not fully able to talk about the content and the meaning of the Epstein files, how horrific they are, how many young people are being exposed in these, in these documents, and you took a very close look at the really rough examples of exploitation and harm.

Fortesa: Yeah.

Sarah: Do you think, in your, in your research, that it’s possible to have a reckoning in our society with how many pedophiles there are online and off? Do you think that we get closer to being able to acknowledge that?

Fortesa: I think the difficulty there is that, like, if you ask any, like, person, they would say, like, pedophilia is the most disgusting thing on earth. But then again, like, we have all these redacted files, and we have Pam Bondi saying, If we, if we prosecuted everyone in the Epstein files, everything would fall apart; the system would fall apart. And it’s like –

Sarah: ‘Kay? Sounds great!

Fortesa: – right: then let it fall apart!

Sarah: Don’t threaten me with a good time.

[Laughter]

Fortesa: Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, it’s, it’s difficult sometimes for me to feel like, Oh, people are really interested in protecting children. And I write about this in the book, too, that, like, at some level, I think a lot of this is like misogyny towards, like, the women who are making so much money on this content, because, like, we aren’t interested in protecting kids in so many other ways. Like, we –

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: Like, we aren’t outing the people in the files; we aren’t passing gun control laws; we aren’t passing, you know, universal health care. So it’s like, Are you really trying to protect the children? Or is it like #ProtectTheChildren? You know what I mean?

Sarah: I’m going to, I’m going to hide my, my terrible doings behind the banner of protect the children when it’s –

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: – actually the opposite. Yeah.

Fortesa: Right.

Sarah: And if, if you are truly interested in protecting children, that also comes with protecting their parents.

Fortesa: Yes.

Sarah: Like, it’s not just an isolated – like, this is a family unit. Like, we all need protection from this level of harm and – what’s the word I’m looking for? – predation.

Fortesa: Yeah. Totally.

Sarah: But they’re, they’re really – I mean, I hope, my hope is that your book pushes people a little closer to a, a much larger general realization of, Hold up, this is fucked! Like –

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – We need to address this. This is, shit is fucked. Let’s fix.

What do you want people to take away from your book?

Fortesa: Oh man. I mean, honestly, my dream is just for people to read it as closely as you did and to understand that, like, I really do feel a lot of sympathy, and I also feel a lot of, a lot of ire and a lot of, like, frustration with a lot of these parents. Like, there are videos that I’ve watched that I will genuinely never get out of my head? And then –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Fortesa: – there are also, like, stories where I’m like, Yeah, you were living in poverty before this. And I think, like, to really understand this issue, we can’t look at it as black and white?

Sarah: No.

Fortesa: Like, we have to understand the nuances, and I hope that people take the time to, like, sit with those nuances.

Sarah: I think that’s really good, and I think that’s called the exegesis of your book.

Fortesa: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: I am essentially a books podcast, so I do always ask this: what books are you reading right now that you might want to tell people about?

Fortesa: Oh my gosh, I am a big Ann Patchett person. Like, huge.

Sarah: Hell yeah! Hell yeah!

Fortesa: Like, who’s not?

Sarah: Right?

Fortesa: And I just read Run by Ann Patchett, and I think it’s an older, I don’t think it’s recent in any way, but it, I fin-, I, like, requested them all on Libby, and it just came through, and I read it, and I sent it to my sisters, and we’re all just like, we read it in like a day. So Ann Patchett Forever; I read everything that she writes. She’s coming out with a new book this year. I’m thrilled. So yeah. That’s what I’m reading right now.

Sarah: You’re both releasing books in the same year! Look at you!

Fortesa: And, and we were both on the Washington Post‘s list of Most Anticipated Books of the Year. [Laughs]

Sarah: Ah! So you, you got, probably got the last one that came out…

Fortesa: Yeah, I know. That made me so – I literally, I ordered a copy, and it’s like the Books section, and it’s like, I was like, Oh, well, bye. See you never, I guess.

Sarah: Well, now that’s an artifact. You better preserve that, because gone now. Oof.

Fortesa: So sad.

Sarah: Ugh, the worst.

Where can people find you if you wish to be found?

Fortesa: Yes, definitely find me. Like these influencers, I’m posting all the time. I am everywhere at Hi Fortesa, H-I-F-O-R-T-E-S-A [@hifortesa], and you can find my book wherever books are sold.

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this interview. I had the best time reading your book, and I’m so excited for more people to get to read it? I hope –

Fortesa: Me too.

Sarah: – there are a lot of – and if there are people listening who want to read this book and talk to me about it, please do!? Please!

Fortesa: Yeah, same, same.

Sarah: Please do, please do!

Fortesa: [Laughs]

Sarah: We’ll start up like a, like a little quiet text about it. It’ll be great. [Laughs]

Fortesa: Yeah, yeah. Totally.

Sarah: Thank you so, so much for doing this.

Fortesa: Thanks for having me!

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Of course I want to thank Fortesa Latifi for sitting down with me and taking this deep dive into her book. I am still thinking about this book? This topic is both close to and sort of far from our normal discussions, and I really appreciate your joining us for this episode.

I usually end with a bad joke, but this was a bit of a heavier episode, so I have two, two bad jokes! Ah-ah-ah.

The first is from a Reddit user named besottedcoot, which is a tremendous username.

What do you call a middle-aged dinosaur with joint problems?

Give up? What do you call a middle-aged dinosaur with joint problems?

A mykneesaresaur.

[Laughs] Did you have a kid who was obsessed with dinosaurs, or do you know a kid who’s obsessed with dinosaurs? I had a kid who was obsessed with dinosaurs. I think I’m going to tell them this joke, and they’re going to moan and groan and be like, Mom, that’s terrible. But will that stop me? No. No, it will not.

This second joke comes from Kate H. in the Discord by way of Bluesky. Thank you, Kate! This joke is particularly excellent because on Wednesday night we begin Passover, where all of the bread shall be unleavened. Chag Sameach if you are celebrating.

Why should you be careful of the free synonym buns at the bakery today?

Why should you be careful of the free synonym buns at the bakery today?

I ate one, and got thesaurus throat I’ve ever had.

[Laughs] The sorest throat! Oh no! You’re so bad, and I love them so much! Thank you very much for this joke, Kate H.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week! And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, which is still an amazing show, and I should probably relisten very soon, thank you for listening. You’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]