Happy 10th bday to my beautiful daughter!! @alabamaluellabarker I love u so much! I can't believe your ten! 💝🦄👸🏼❤️🎁🎉 pic.twitter.com/afn5MghDBm
— Shanna Moakler (@ShannaMoakler) December 24, 2015
Shanna Moakler’s 10 year-old daughter, Alabama Barker, used to have an open Instagram account where she posted selfies, things she was interested in, and group shots with her friends. Alabama was on Instagram from the age of nine, and in many shots she’s wearing heavy makeup. (In case you’re wondering who this is, Alabama is the daughter of Shanna and her ex-husband, Travis Barker of Blink-182. They had a reality show together from 2005-2006, after which they predictably broke up got back together then broke up again. Shanna is a former beauty queen who has been in a lot of beefs with other celebrities and has made some very dumb public statements.)
Last month, a YouTube personality named RiceGum made a video about Alabama, stating that he was looking for kids who were too young to be on social media, essentially. RiceGum, who is 19, used to call out a 13 year-old YouTube personality named Jacob Sartorius, whom he ended up meeting and befriending. So he made a video called “The Next Jacob Santorius” in which he used photos and posts from Alabama Barker’s open Instagram. RiceGum pointed out the very adult posts that Alabama was making. She was posting selfies and a lot of information about her day-to-day activities from the age of nine. You can watch the video here. Despite what Shanna tells Life & Style, the video is still public. It wasn’t mean so much as obnoxious, which seemed to be RiceGum’s style, and drawing unnecessary attention to a minor. To be fair to RiceGum, Alabama already had 75,000 followers and her parents are famous so it’s not like he was finding an obscure young person on Instagram. He was pointing out that that Alabama was too young to be posting such personal things to social media. He also noted that Alabama had posted about seeing an R-rated movie, 22 Jump Street, when she would have been nine. RiceGum made it clear that Alabama was violating Instagram’s terms of use, which dictate that users have to be 13 years or older to use it.
Anyway that’s background for this claim that Shanna made to Life and Style about her daughter being cyberbullied and her life being threatened:
In an exclusive interview, former Miss USA and Meet the Barkers star Shanna Moakler opens up about her 10-year-old daughter Alabama’s scary experience with cyberbullying.
Shanna tells Life & Style that it all began when a popular YouTube personality known as RiceGum, 19, posted a video taunting Alabama for her precocious pics, vegan lifestyle and inconsistent grammar.
Within hours of the video going up, more than 3,000 commenters had posted hateful and repulsive remarks calling the pre-teen a “loser,” “whore” and worse.
“My daughter read a lot of this vicious bullying and started crying,” says the 41-year-old. “We had to explain to her that she was safe and these threats were from people who didn’t know her. It has been so emotionally draining and damaging that I now understand why people commit suicide over cyberbullying.”
Shanna explains that she asked YouTube to take down the video (the company did, citing copyright infringement) and called out RiceGum for picking on a minor. “I told him how wrong this was,” the mother-of-three shares.
However, that only made things worse. Commenters claimed they would work together to “find and kill” her and Travis Barker. “People get obsessive and nuts,” she says. “It’s scary.”
“There’s been nonstop harassment,” Shanna continues. “People think they can say anything because they are faceless, but their comments cause a lot of pain.”
Shanna is determined to help put an end to cyberbullying. “I want to make a documentary about this,” she says. “I want to travel the country and talk to school principals to help stop this in the future.”
No one should have to deal with death threats. No one should be called names or have to deal with mocking or bullying online. That needs to stop. At the same time, it is absolutely the job of the parents to keep their kids off open social media like Instagram until they are old enough for it. That was RiceGum’s point and while I think this girl was too young to be publicly called out, he wasn’t particularly mean or mocking, that was all the YouTube commenters, who can be vicious. (Although I looked through the comments that were at the top and I didn’t see one bullying comment among them.) Alabama’s Instagram is now private and I don’t want to blame the victim in any way. How were her parents letting her go on Instagram at the age of nine? That is a parenting fail. Maybe she could be on Facebook, monitored and with a select group of friends, but she’s not even a teenager and she was on Instagram. The story that Shanna is telling Life & Style leaves out a lot of key details. Travis Barker used to brag about how many followers his kids have. Shanna is right though, the trolling and bullying on YouTube, Twitter and other social networks is out of control and these companies need to get a handle on it.
My beautiful daughter @alabamaluellabarker she's coming for you Taylor and Selena! 👸🏼 pic.twitter.com/4WeBwrPYJD
— Shanna Moakler (@ShannaMoakler) March 10, 2016
Frontpage image credit: PRPhotos
I don’t want to blame the victim either but I will blame the parents for not monitoring — and probably actually enabling — a nine-year-old’s social media. While IG, Twitter, etc, have their merits, I think the downsides are far greater, especially for those with the tendencies to get so caught up in them that they lose all sense of perspective.
Exactly…Shanna is blaming the wrong people…she should look in the mirror to see who is at fault! OMG…nine years old is still, practically a baby!! Shanna and Travis are the ones responsible for this!!!!! BE GOOD PARENTS!!!!
I agree 100% with you. Too much too soon. The girl looks and acts like a 16 yr old when she is only 10. Our job as parents is to lead our kids in the right direction and her parents, specially the mother, are obviously failing.
My kids are 19, 14 and 12. The only one with social media accounts is the 19 year old. I don’t let my kids have social media accounts until they’re 16. Why? Because when my oldest was 14, she was bullied at school and on her Facebook page. When there was a car accident where some local teens were killed, these bullies posted on my daughter’s page, “We wish it were you in the car and not them!” Not just one, but a pile on by a group. I made her delete her account.
It’s like people lose all sense of decency and kindness because of the anonymous aspects of the internet. I can’t imagine subjecting a child of 9 to that.
IMO, 10 years old is way too young to be on social media. My youngest has female friends who don’t even look as old as this child. They are children!!!
Oh that’s awful Sherry, I’m so sorry to hear it.
Holy Crap Sherry. That is absolutely horrible. I hope their parents were informed and appropriate action was taken.
Even more so, I hope your baby is OK and understand that it is not her fault. You are a good mom for taking care of that.
The ironic thing is, this Ricegum has many underage followers, who have helped him make his “career”. They are the ones posting all over Alabama’s social media, as well as her parents’ social media. Where are the parents of the kids doing this? Not only do they have social media, but they are harassing through their accounts, and Ricegum seems okay with these kids having social media, because they are his fans. My 12 year old doesn’t even *want* Instagram because she says people just look to start problems. I don’t care what her parents did or didn’t do; you don’t take it out on a fifth grader.
The bottom line is the age use is 13, and for a reason. I know many parents who indulge their children in the too much too soon culture, and then blame the predators.
This makes me want to throat-punch this girl’s parents… What the hell is she doing with an Instagram account, other than furthering her mother’s thirsty quest for ‘fame’? I have a 10 year old daughter, and she looks like a 10 year old – this poor kid is being pushed to grow up so fast. Why would a parent want to accelerate/skip over their child being…a child? She has her whole life to be a grown up – let her have a childhood.
I’ve seen pictures of this child looking like a full-grown hooker. Teased hair into a full bun, full face of make up, red lipstick, leather army-type boots, totally bare midriff. Shanna Moakler has never been the brightest … and now we know she can’t spell, lol. Take a look at this:
http://www.thesuperficial.com/photos/the-crap-we-missed-monday-5-2-16/exclusive-at-10-years-old-alabama-barker-dresses-well-beyond-her-age
Full-grown hooker?
Showing tummy doesn’t mean ‘slut’. Wearing combat boots doesn’t mean ‘hooker’. Putting those labels on a 10 year old is… well its not great. Hooker as a term… just… ugh. please no.
I get that you probably mean the look is too adult and meant to be sassy, but man there is a lot rolled into that comment.
Her parents should definitely be paying more attention though, playing dress up with makeup and clothing is one thing, a small child does not understand the workings of the internet, let alone the implications of image/sexuality/public opinion. This stuff should be kept private and not broadcast to the world. What parent lets their child read comments? Every single person who uses the internet is aware that comments can be vicious and hateful. Why would you not monitor that?
The first thing a lot of young girls experimenting with being sexy do is the most obvious. The push up bras and bright (and too much) makeup. Things they’ve slowly learned through osmosis that are indicators of ‘hot’. Since Shanna and Travis obviously think that a woman’s place is ornamental, this was always going to be the result.
Her parents seem like idiots. Maybe they are caring idiots, but they are idiots none the less.
Why is a 10-year old wearing make-up and taking “sexy” shots? Mom, it’s in bad taste and is potentially dangerous to post these publicly. There are a LOT of creeps out there.
To be fair – some of the makeup photos are clearly where the girls are being taught how to do makeup – the older girl is likely the one who wanted to do so, and they’re not excluding the younger one.
I still wouldn’t feel okay about having my nine year old wear lipstick to a concert – but hopefully it’s only a special occasion thing. I’m JUST as weirded out about the kids who are in dance and wear full faces of stage makeup, and tiny spandex outfits.
Ugh to all of this.
Maybe I’m an old fart, but a 10 year old has no business being on social media. Nor should she be dressed up to look years older than she actually is. The selfies, the duck faces, the hair, the make-up…it’s just too much for a girl so young. I’m not blaming her because she doesn’t know any better. But I am blaming her parents.
Minimum age for all of these sites is 13. Not cool parents.
If you’re cyber bullying a child online, that’s horrible and inexcusable. I am surprised her parents, who are well known, would let their 9 year old have a public account on any social media forum. There are so many vicious people online and if you have any connection whatsoever to fame, that seems like a big risk.
Some one that young should not be on social media. I have 11, 10, 2 year old kids. They wont be on until they dont have to lie about their age to sign up. That being said, that girl should not be being bullied. 🙁
The sexualization of children this past generation and the parents who let them do it is the most disturbing thing. This little girl is 10 wearing full red lips and posing and all I can think is, she’s a little girl still, and it’s heaven for pedophiles. And she’s not the only one, the sexual poses or come hither poses I see with these kids these days and wanting to be sexy is chilling. Where are the morals, values, self esteem?
At 10-years-old, I was still wearing Superman jeans with regular t-shirts & sneakers because I was a kid. Some of these parents this past generation seem to not want to put in the time & effort it takes to be a parent. They want to be cool or they don’t want to be bothered with parenting. There are consequences & plenty of unsavory types waiting to take advantage. Disturbing.
I agree. Kids already have to grow up way too fast. There are developmental stages they need to go through to become well adjusted adults. When they become sexualized at such a young age, they are robbed of these stages. It will cause problems for her down the road. Very sad.
Revolting. The parenting and the bullying, not that poor young girl.
I’m doing some volunteer work at the moment around the prevention of child abuse, so the first thing I felt when I saw those photos was horror…how could parents post photos of their sexualised child on the internet? Don’t they realise that her images will be used and shared by paedophiles?!
This is entirely on the mom and dad. She wants to travel the country and talk to school principles… ok. I’m sure they will laugh this mom of the year out of the room for exposing her kid to it in the first place.
She shouldn’t have an account. Simple as that. But she does, and that’s on her parents.
That being said – I take MAJOR issue with this guy roasting a CHILD for ‘not acting her age’ on the internet, and for ‘sexy’ photos and things of that nature. Her instagram was public – but he’s a grown man who thought it’d be cool to rip on a child – and bring FURTHER attention to her account. This grown up man – while complaining about her not acting her age – further sexualized the kid by saying “Wow, they grow up so fast, already learning how to, you know, arch their back a little bit, kinda, you know, poke out the behind area.”
That’s a huge issue. She shouldn’t have an account. But you’d be so surprised to know how many little kids have facebook accounts, and twitter accounts, and instagram accounts – this isn’t anything out of the ordinary sadly. While they’re breaking the SM terms of service – they still shouldn’t be subjected to adults commenting on them in that nature.
I agree with you, but this YouTube guy is 19 he’s a kid himself. Yes he is old enough to know better.
Technically an adult, and I get that 19 is young, but it’s not like he’s some 13 year old, you know? This is a guy old enough to be in his second year of college. He’s still got a decade on the little girl, and I just find that so unbelievable skeevy.
I some weird way, he might did them a favor. The girl is allowed to do things that are out of her age range by clueless or fame hungry parents. It is a sad spectacle, and as someone said upthread, a pedophile paradise. Obviously parents are not parenting. The social media companies really need to reinforce their rules.
I have a 12 yr old as a student and she was scolded by the principal because she found out about her butt showing sexy photos on FB. Her mother enables her and doesn’t really care that strangers on FB tell the girl she looks f*ckable. I reported one of the pics (she has an open FB), but they (FB) did not deleted it.
Ennie – there’s a difference between bringing it to the attention of adults and literally saying
“already learning how to, you know, arch their back a little bit, kinda, you know, poke out the behind area”
That is sick. There’s nothing else to it. It’s sick. It IS a paradise for creeps, but when he’s talking like that he IS one of those creeps. There’s SO many other things he could have said, so many other ways he could have gone about it. But you know what he wanted? He wanted to go after the kid of a famous person and do it in a way to get attention – not to bring light to the problem.
He’s 19; that’s not a kid. He’s a little too focused on what this ten year old does. Yes, her parents should have made her life private (her brother’s account is still open) but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s the responsibility of adults to not treat kids as peers. This guy sexualized a child; he didn’t just say, oh, she’s being too mature for her age. And his followers are underage minors with accounts who worship him. Whole lot of irony here…. I feel for Alabama. Many kids like to experiment with makeup, and she has a 17 year old sister.
@Erinn – You’ve summed my thoughts perfectly. I’d like to add that people may be of legal age for ToS while emotionally immature. This RiceGum is a perfect example.
It is a challenge for parents who monitor their children’s activities (on-line and off-line). And, it is a necessity for parents to follow-through. If it becomes over-whelming, then remove the electronic devices. Appropriate age & appropriate maturity by both adults and children are the key in this situation. Social media can’t/won’t even monitor phishing scams unless reported — we parents cannot expect their help. It’s on us.
As an aside, I’m wondering if Travis intends to find RiceGum and beat the hell out of him?
Travis should be beating himself up, in my opinion.
I doubt he’d beat him up over it. I HONESTLY think he did his best to scare the guy – and he attempted legal maneuvers as well (that didn’t end up working) – I think he was angry as hell, and acted out in a poor manor.
It’s not the right behavior, but I get it.
All of a sudden you hear some 19 year old creep talking about your daughter – and like I said above he did it in a skeezy way – not in an ‘oh no child, don’t be doing this!’ kind of way. He’s outright sexualizing her further with his comments – and that freaked Travis out. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first really skeezy comment he’s heard in regards to his kid, and he’s getting the brunt of the anger over it.
I don’t see anything wrong with what Ricegum said. She is arching her back and poking out her butt like adults to look sexy. And doing that lips pursed pose. She’s already posing in an obviously sexual manner, otherwise we wouldn’t be commenting on it. People wouldn’t be this outraged if she was acting, dressing and posing like a 10 year old girl. All he’s doing is saying what everyone here is thinking. Shame on her parents.
I completely agree with everyone about parents, her being on Instagram and bullying.
OMG I just googled Alabama because I remember her having darker hair and some of her Instagram photos pop up. Wow just wow I can’t believe some of the pictures they allowed this 9/10 to take let alone post. They are just 2 examples I can’t imagine what her Instagram look like.
http://ll-media.tmz.com/2015/07/06/0706-barker-inset-3.jpg
http://ll-media.tmz.com/2015/08/17/0817-travis-launch2-2.jpg
I didn’t post those as I didn’t want to draw attention but there are more.
Thank you, CB, for maintaining responsible and ethical journalism. Always love reading your posts!
Also, just fyi, Facebook has a minimum of age of 13 also.
those pics are so inappropriate for a 10 year old. pedophiles on the internet. don’t her parents know this?
OMG………I won’t even let my 4 year old wear a bikini to swimming lessons, I know I am being too uptight but my gosh there are pervs everywhere!! I figure my daughter has plenty of time to prance around however she wants when she is 18.
How can her parents think this is ok? I feel sorry for this little girl.
My daughters never wore bikinis, either. Then at around age 12 or 13, they start to notice that all their friends wear bikinis. I gave in, although they wear modest bikinis. I’ve seen girls that age in little triangle string bikinis. I find that shocking.
My one granddaughter is 12 and just has her first bikini, but the top is more than just 2 little triagles. It’s more like a sports bra.
What ist wrong with People? When i was a kid, up until maybe 7/8 we didn’t even wear bathing suits, just naked or only bottoms because neither ourselves nor our parents thought of our bodies of being somewhat sexual. That’s so sick and unnatural to sexualize kids bodies. It didn’t even occur to us!
That’s too bad, I think little girls in bikinis are adorable. I don’t think a one piece will stop a pedophile anymore than a woman wearing a long skirt will stop a guy from raping her.
” I don’t think a one piece will stop a pedophile anymore than a woman wearing a long skirt will stop a guy from raping her.” This. It’s just a few extra inches of fabric.
About the internet stuff, I definitely think 9 or 10 is too young to be allowed access to the darker parts of the internet (the kinds of people, bullying, the threats, the racism and sexism, etc.) that can easily be seen on social media, youtube, etc. Kids that young whether they’re the victim of the bullying or the ones getting online and being part of that problem, just aren’t mentally or emotionally mature enough for that. It just doesn’t seem like anything good can come from the under 13 crowd having access to comment sections and social media. It’s really sad though that this little girl was being damaged by online bullying, threats, and misogyny at such an early age. Hopefully it doesn’t have any long-lasting awful effects.
Oh yikes.
I have a really bad feeling about this.
This girl (GIRL!!!!) is far, far, far too young for these highly sexualized photos. My heart is aching for her.
I miss the days when children were just children and not mini adults. doing adult things.
every woman I’m sure loved to put on makeup and pretend. Thing is we live in different times. And even behind a computer you are not safe. She looks older than her years. And she is doing things that are older. Where do children go from these points when childhood is being left behind earlier and earlier. It’s like if you give your child a phone at 3 what do you give them at 16. There are no more milestones to growing up. I don’t want to sound like an OLD Person. But I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until I was older. then it was something for me to look forward to. Social Media is a dangerous place. And sadly children shouldn’t be allowed to share personal information. The downside to this is she will meet some stranger that knows a lot about her and think that person is safe.
Parents need to be parents and not buddies. Bullies, Racist, and all manner of haters can run rampant behind a screen. They are invisible. Adults need to protect their children and teach them to be safe in this uncharted environment we live in.
LET YOUR KIDS JUST BE KIDS for as long as they can.
I have mixed feelings, because technology has changed this a lot. I was born in 1990. I grew up with consumer technology making big leaps. I wasn’t allowed my own cellphone until I was done highschool, I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until I was 16. But even in the 90s – these are all things my friends were doing already, and it wasn’t like I was hanging around with any kids with particularly rough upbringings. These were the kids who were counselors at christian camp, and who would panic when they got a mark in the 80’s. I always felt like I was being left out on so many things – because I also wasn’t able to go hang out with my friends all that much either because I had incredibly over protective parents. I didn’t grow up hanging out with neighborhood kids – most of our neighbors were elderly. And this was in a small town – not a dangerous city neighborhood. I felt like I missed out on so many things that the other GOOD kids my age got to do.
I think there’s a big difference between growing up in todays world than even growing up 20 or 30 years ago. And honestly – a lot of people seem to forget all of the ‘grownup’ stuff that kids and teens were getting into during past decades. Teens were still having sex very young, they still would change their clothes after they left the house, they would still lie about where they were going and who they were with – and I think the major difference is that now we have access to see a lot more of it because of social media. These things always happened, but they were just better hidden.
There needs to be a balance between only allowing your kids act younger than their peers were, and letting them have some freedom. I wouldn’t be going out and buying my 9 year old makeup – but I’d probably consider letting my 13 year old have a tube of mascara if they wanted.
Very well said, Erinn. There’s a fine line between being protective and sensible and being so restrictive that your kids feel so out of step with their peers that they’re constantly miserable. It’s really hard work! Sometimes I’m really glad I have boys…my teens are on IG and Snapchat and they use it primarily for goofy, innocuous interactions with their friends. It’s the girls who seem more prone to get drawn into the sexual stuff, from what I’ve been able to observe and from what I have heard from other parents.
I do see boys and girls trying to “act older” with references to drinking and pot. My one son has become a pretty vocal anti-drug/underage drinking advocate and it’s nice to see him get lots of support from his peers when he gets on that soapbox.
Somehow I don’t think Moakler and Barker have the interest or even the capacity to deal with such complex stuff, they seem more concerned with themselves.
I think it’s also hard right now for Barker because he’s touring heavily, and prior to that they were in the studio. He also works with a lot of artists. But that’s no excuse for his downtime, or for not noticing what his kid is doing. I assume Shanna has the kids a lot more than Travis – based on his schedule, and you would think that when you’re in the same building as they are, that you’d have closer tabs on them. That being said – Shanna is just… that kind of person I think. She is clearly aware of her insta account, she tags her in photos as well. But Shanna is kind of a mess (so is Travis of course) and I feel like she’s more concerned with being a friend than a mom to her kids when it counts.
As far as regular kids go – I think the boys are less likely to be the ones sending the photos, so much as the ones requesting them – if that makes sense. I think there’s a lot of encouragement coming from them towards the girls to send the photos – and a lot of photos getting screen grabbed despite snapchats attempt to stop that.
Lisa I wholeheartedly agree that parents need to be parents and not buddies.
We gave our older one mobile this Easter. He’ll be 9 this year. He hasn’t asked for it although several classmates have one. I convinced my husband to buy one so that we can let our son going somewhere, meeting friends an so on on his own. He can call for help when he needs us and I don’t get the feeling I’m overparenting.
He doesn’t have any social media profiles, nor will he get one till he’s 18 and responsible for his own stuff.
I think at 16 he’ll get more freedom to decide for himself. I think teenager value freedom more than Things.
I’m clearly invested in this story because I just clicked on Shanna’s Instagram and saw that she posted the article about the “bullying”. Clearly this is not about her daughter. This is about Shanna, who using her own daughter, so Shanna can get attention. She taking a page right out of the Kris Jenner book of parenting.
This makes me want to vomit, I have a beautiful 9 yr old daughter and she has never expressed any desire to wear make up, or be on insta, or care about anything like that. Reading books, writing stories, playing, watching tv, school, thats what normal kids are up to. This kid does not stand a chance, very sad.
I agree. I was born in the seventies and when I was ten I’m not sure make up was even on my radar. I was wearing overalls and climbing trees. I didn’t know a single ten year old who gave a damn about fashion or what their hair looked like. I can’t believe how sexualized kids are now, and especially how a parent would think it’s okay to have a little girl made up to the nines, posing on the internet. My Instagram is private, I will never get why everyone seems to want everyone else to see their lives all the time. This kid is ten but till I read it, I assumed from the pics she was sixteen or something.
A child that young should not have a social media account IMO, but with this day and age (and who her parents are) I am not surprised at this. Her account should have been made private from the get-go if she wanted an Instagram account and her parents should have access to monitor it. I have not seen the pics, but judging by the other commenters, they sound like a little girl trying to act like a big girl. God knows what she puts on SnapChat. I bet money she has an account with that as well.
Why is a 9/10 yr old wearing a full face of makeup and having an online account? Wtf is wrong with her parents?
Total parenting fail. Obviously if you let you 9 (?!) Year old on instagram there will be jealousy and hate. And no 9 year old can handle the hate and trolling that social media has. Way too young. Shame on travis and shanna.
First the girl is way to young to have access to social media. If at all it must be supervised.
That’s major parenting fail.
Second- she is made up like a teenager. If she meets s.o. secretly and lies about her age this alone will be a huge problem.
Third- if that were my daughter I’d close her accounts altogether , give her the time to grow up and deal with the damage during that time. And then, only then I’ll let her re-open them.
Based on pictures of her I’ve seen in the past with multi colored hair, heavy make up and crop tops I thought she was like 14-15. I seriously choked on my water when I read 10, which means she had to have been 8 and 9 in the old pics I saw. With that said, I think everyone is free to BE. However, she should not be on social media broadcasting herself 24/7 the way she was. It’s dangerous for various reasons. It creates a mentality of seeking validation from outside people for the shallowest reasons before she’s reached any level of maturation. It screams, “give my daughter body issues!” A child’s social media should ALWAYS be private, because there is no reason strangers should have full access to your child when you’re not around. Just negligent.
I think there’s a responsible way to let a child express themselves as far as colored hair, make up, etc and an irresponsible way…they come off as really, REALLY carefree parents.
I was born in the mid 80’s. Growing up and being a teen is difficult enough…now all these teens have the Internet and social media?!?! I CANNOT imagine the Hell this could have been. I’m an adult who doesn’t even have a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram because I’m a more private person. Over sharing annoys me. LOL
There are so many things wrong here. First off, 9 or 13 is WAY to young for social media! Second, her parents are willing to let her have social media, THEN they allowed her to have it public?! Do you realize how flipping dangerous that is?! There are a lot of creeps in the world. Third, they clearly didn’t have the talk with her about posting private information or your current location. This all could have ended on a dateline special. Al of the things I have mentioned above are the parents fault.
I am the mother of a baby boy. I am terrified to have more children because I’m so scared it will be a girl. Girls are forced to grow up so fast. Rape culture is terrifying. I plan on talking to my son nonstop about no means no. I just don’t know if I’m up for the challenge of having a sweet baby girl that the world wants to put all these outside pressures on. It seems like less of a challenge with boys. They wear jeans or t shirts. Some of the clothes they sell at the mall for youth size 6 girls looks like something I wouldn’t even wear at 21 years old!!!!! And I didn’t dress super modest either! Everyone just sexualizes even little girls. TERRIFYING!!! I would be so protective.
My friend had her Instagram deleted years ago because she put a web domain URL in one of her pictures and comments. Apparently you’re not supposed to do that. My other friend recently had his Instagram disabled because he used too many of the same hashtags repeatedly. Yeah, that’s a thing too. But this girl who obviously started her Instagram account at 8 or 9 years old and is clearly violating the terms still has an account. Could it be because her parents are famous? Not only should her Instagram be deleted (forget setting it to private) she shouldn’t have one to begin with. She shouldn’t be posting selfies. She shouldn’t be wearing make-up. She shouldn’t be wearing crop tops. Blame the YouTube guy all you want, but we know who’s really at fault here. Alabama’s parents need to get some self-awareness and see what the hell they’re doing. Instead of raising a child, they’re raising a famewhore and we know how well that turns out. I seriously weep for kids today. Their heroes/role models are people like Kylie Jenner? And that’s just freaking sad.
This may be slightly off topic, but I was discussing social media and kids with a friend of mine recently (my 11 year old son wants a phone) and she said she found a pic on her 13 year old son’s phone of a naked girl who turned out to be his classmate! The school was informed, parents met etc… but he told her that that wasn’t the first pic he had received from girls his age. And that it’s common if a girl likes you she will send a naked picture. At 13! It just makes me very sad for this generation of girls.
I wish I hadn’t read this. It’s scares me to death.
Shanna has never been the type of mother you turn to and say, “you’re such a good mom!” Her own mentality has always been at the level of a middle school girl.
She’s not the only parent in this equation. Travis is a fool, and he was the one running his kids’ accounts. Alabama and Landon have TWO parents, and since Travis endlessly criticizes Shanna (who I don’t care about), then he should be the model parent he seems to think he is.
I follow both Travis and Shanna on IG and I watched the show all those years ago, mostly because I thought Travis was hot. This child dresses like an 18 year old complete with a face FULL of makeup, high heels, crop tops and short shorts. I remember watching the show all those years ago when the kids were babies and Shanna regularly slept till 3-4 in the afternoon and her and Travis fought about it all the time. These kids are going to end up just like Lindsay Lohan and the Kardashians, completely vapid and materialistic. Shanna is exactly that but she doesn’t have enough pull to really get any press. It’s her desperate attempt to be relevant in a world in which our attention span lasts about 15 seconds. I feel badly for those kids.
I don’t think a child should have that much access to social media
a 10 year old should not have a FB,twitter or IG
So much wrong here from the overly made up child having a public IG account to a grown man calling her out, to her being bullied and so forth. What really struck me about all of this is the mom seeing this as an opportunity to promote herself.