piper rockelle

and my thoughts on her documentary.

I want to start by expressing the disgust and empathised hurt I felt watching those 3 episodes of the documentary, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, which you can watch on Netflix. I sat through it in one sitting and had to pause and rewind so many times because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this actually happened to them. it’s unreal the amount of abuse those kids went through. I hope Tiffany Smith and Hunter Hill are rightfully arrested.

Spoilers ahead, but seriously, go watch the documentary. It raises a lot of awareness of the dangers of children on social media.

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How messed up of a person do you have to be to encourage your child to sell themself online? Well to Tiffany Smith, it’s something she does without a second thought. If you’re unfamiliar with Piper Rockelle and her presence online, here’s a quick run-through.

Piper Rockelle rose to fame on YouTube by making child-relatable content. It starts with fun videos and challenges. Her content changes depending on what was trending at that time but with their growing fanbase, their content gets more extreme. Pranks go further, becoming more hurtful and risky. And as she grows up, the boundaries are tested even more. Her mother pushes her and the “friend group” they created, The Squad, to do more risky content. Crush content in particular became very popular back then with big creators like Jake Paul filming videos like “HOT GIRLFRIEND WAKES UP IN SWIMMING POOL PRANK” (which I must say, sounds like a title that should belong on another kind of site). Tiffany would then push these children (aged 11 and 12) to touch each other more on camera to follow the trend. This wasn’t the innocent crushes they claim it to be. Tiffany would push them to kiss, to touch each other inappropriately, or well, pretend to at least.

This riskier content wasn’t feeding just their child audience but also the growing predators that began following Piper Rockelle.

Everyone should be aware enough to know that the internet is full of creeps in every corner. That’s why most social media sites have age ratings that function not only to shield the child from content but also to shield the child from becoming content.

Yet Tiffany does the exact opposite. She pushes her daughter to become the star of these ill-intended videos. In one of the episodes, an ex squad member recalls asking her mother “Why do old men like to smell underwear?” She had asked because Tiffany was shipping out Piper’s old underwear to an old predatory fan. Piper was around 10 years old at the time.

Why on earth would you do that? I asked myself as I paused the documentary yet again. I’m 17 years old, far far from motherhood, but it absolutely baffles me that a mother would endanger her child this much for what? Money and fame? Pausing the proper English for a second and excuse my language but-

WHAT THE FUCK? WHY WOULD YOU- HUHHH.

I don’t even want to think about what happened when that package arrived to the man.

It’s so surreal that people care this much about money to put their own child at so much risk. Even now, as Piper approaches her 18th birthday, Tiffany hasn’t stopped putting her in danger. It’s gotten worse in fact, with Piper collaborating with OnlyFans creators such as the Bop House. Who in their right mind would want their still underage kid to make content (which for now is still innocent) with adults who sell porn. This whole collaboration as well as the constant jokes that Piper is joining the Bop House just excites the disgusting portion of the audience. It keeps them waiting around, hoping for the day Piper herself makes similar inappropriate content. The internet often bashes Piper for being in such situations but most don’t realise that Piper doesn’t have much control over what she posts, who she’s with, and what she does.

It’s gotten to the point where I truly believe that Tiffany doesn’t care for her daughter as much as she should. It’s selfish and disgusting that she is getting rich by selling her daughter. She’s selling Piper’s body, spirit, and innocence.

Tiffany is well aware of what she’s doing. She’s well aware of how her actions hurt Piper. And she does not care. It’s horrific how simple it can be put.

But Piper isn’t the only victim, as the documentary discusses.

Every single child that had been in The Squad, or is and was affiliated with Piper Rockelle and Tiffany Smith, is a victim. They’re victims of verbal abuse, sexual harassment/abuse, and more. It’s still unclear how much these children went through as some have not told their stories yet. But from what has been told, it’s already haunting how much abuse occurred undetected.

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And to those asking, “Why did the parents of the other children not say or do anything?” well the simple answer is that they’re scared.

Scared of many things: losing money, their child losing friends, and the fear that more may go wrong if they aren’t there for Piper.

So many people who contributed to the documentary mentioned how they stuck around for that long, mainly because if they were to leave, Piper wouldn’t have anyone else to go to. they stuck around because they knew Piper needed at least one stable adult in their life. an adult who had her best interests at heart. an adult who knew what was right and what was wrong.

While it is true that they stuck around for longer than they should have, and also ignored many red flags, it’s worth noting that it was during a time when social media and the inner workings of it were still fairly new to the average person. Most parents at that time had yet to understand exactly how social media worked, so these parents trusted Tiffany to handle it for them. With this leverage, Tiffany kept them around.

And when they finally left, she made their life hell. YouTube had become a primary source of income for some of them, if not it was their child’s lifeline. it was something their child cared so much about considering how long they had spent on it. these kids were working from 11 am to 2 am every single day. It was all they knew.

Yes, some parents tried to pull their children out of danger. But honestly, they could’ve done more. So much more.

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The last bit that I want to bring up is, “Why won’t Piper leave?”, “Does she not realise how harmful everything is?”

There’s a good chance she’s aware of it all. With social media, her life is everywhere on the internet. She’s obviously seen what others think of everything. But she won’t leave. And I understand why.

To us, we see Tiffany as a monster. Someone who happily puts children at risk for her own selfish benefit.

But to Piper, that’s her mum. That’s the woman who raised her on her own. That’s the person who stuck with Piper her whole life.

And as much as we all agree that Tiffany is a bad mum to Piper, there was a time when Tiffany wasn’t this way towards Piper. And maybe Piper holds onto that.

We won’t know Piper’s reasons for staying yet. We won’t know until she’s ready to share her story. But until then, all we can do is raise awareness of the dangers of social media. We can educate others and push for more laws to protect children online, as well as protect children from being taken advantage of, even if it’s from their parents.

Piper Rockelle, they could never make me hate you.

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