Directed by Jenna Rosher and Kief Davidson, Bad Influence: The Dark Side Of Kidfluencing is a three-part docuseries about how Tiffany Smith, the mother of hyper-popular YouTube kidfluencer Piper Rockelle, took advantage of the kids that became part of Piper’s “Squad.” Many of the Squad members accused Smith of verbal, physical and sexual abuse, as well as withholding compensation for using their likenesses on the videos that got millions of views. The accusations came out in a bombshell 2022 lawsuit that Smith settled last fall.
BAD INFLUENCE: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDFLUENCING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Video of Piper Rockelle and her “Squad”.
The Gist: In the docuseries, the directors interview Piper’s aunt (and Tiffany’s sister) Patience Rock Smith and her stepdaughters, who were featured in Piper’s videos. They also speak to members of the Squad and a couple of the members’ parents. Experts like journalist Taylor Lorenz are also interviewed.
The first episode paints the picture of how Smith, a single mother, first entered her outgoing daughter Piper in beauty pageants when she was little, and then started exploring the possibilities of social media. A 10-year-old Piper first popped up on Musical.ly, the forerunner of TikTok, then on her own YouTube channel, which quickly grew its viewership.
Smith and Piper then moved from Georgia to Los Angeles, where Smith hired 20-year-old Hunter Hill to play Piper’s “older brother” on the channel. He also shot and edited the videos, and soon began dating Smith. Soon, she hired other kidfluencers to be Piper’s “Squad”, with the stipulation that they hand over their YouTube accounts to Hill, who helped them grow their individual channels.
But what some of the moms of the Squad members found out is that the kids would be filming for over 12 hours per day and weren’t paid. There was no teacher on set; sometimes they didn’t even have time to eat. All of these were in violation of laws put in place in the 20th century to protect the welfare of child actors. But, according to Smith, those didn’t apply to YouTube videos, and these kids weren’t employees.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Bad Influence: The Dark Side Of Kidfluencing feels like a combination of two recent docuseries about family vloggers — An Update On Our Family and Devil In The Family: The Fall Of Ruby Franke — and the kid actor docuseries Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV.
Our Take: The more we watch docuseries about influencers, especially ones that revolve around kids and families, the same narrative seems to come up: The parents are too controlling, then when they see the money their popular channel or feed can make, they then push their kids to their limits in order to create and crank out content to feed the beast. At some point, the curtain is pulled back to show the seemingly friendly parents are abusive ogres and the kids have lost all sense of their childhoods.
Davidson and Rosher are building the same storyline here, but it’s built on a bit of a shaky foundation, given that Smith was never criminally investigated for any of the charges that were levied in the lawsuit, the suit was settled out of court, and she denies all of the allegations. Also, Smith, Piper and Hill refused to be interviewed for the series.
Not that we’re taking Smith’s side; there is likely some degree of truth to what the former Squad members and their parents said in their interviews. At the very least, it seemed that Smith exploited the Squad members and wasn’t exactly the most caring mother to Piper, either.
But this isn’t really a story about a crazy momager getting her ultimate comeuppance, given that now-17-year-old Piper’s channel was active as of the end of 2024, with her videos still getting view counts in the six-to-eight figures. She is still posting on TikTok and Instagram. So it’s not like there was any fall from grace for Piper or Smith.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: A grainy video of Smith forcibly kissing Regan Beast, a friend of Hunter’s.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Sophie Fergi, who met Piper on the set of a web sitcom they both starred in and became close friends. Piper eventually became a member of the Squad and eventually moved in with her mom to a huge Hollywood Hills house Smith shared with a couple of Squad families. She seemed to have a bead on Smith’s emotional issues from when almost the first time they met.
Most Pilot-y Line: We would have wanted to see a little bit more about why Smith decided that Piper needed a fictional “older brother” for her YouTube channel.
Our Call: STREAM IT. While being a bit one-sided, Bad Influence: The Dark Side Of Kidfluencing is still an interesting look at the dodgy world of kidfluencers, and how adults take advantage of kids who are doing the videos for fun, even though the channel is raking in millions of viewers and dollars.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bad Influence: The Dark Side Of Kidfluencing’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About How Piper Rockelle’s Mom Took Advantage Of Members Of Piper’s “Squad” appeared first on Decider.
