What started as vlogging and dancing videos has now developed into a historic internet scandal. This scandal is centered around Piper Rockelle’s mother and cameraman, Tiffany Smith and Hunter Hill. Tiffany Smith is facing allegations of sexual harassment. This is not just the case for Rockelle, but many other kid influencers.
Piper Rockelle has been an internet sensation since she was eight, and in August she will be a legal adult. Her mom has and continues to exploit her. First on the former app Musically, then YouTube, and now Tiktok, Instagram, and even her own app, Rares.
“The 14-year-old was taking selfies in her bikini and posing in crop tops sipping on a Philz coffee for her 6.1 million TikTok and 8.3 million YouTube followers, blurring the images out, writing ‘rare’ on them, then posting them to social media asking people to join her fan club,” said Decerry Donato in an article from 2021, Influencer Piper Rockelle Launches a Web-Based App for The Creator Economy.
In the recent Netflix docuseries Bad Influence: Dark Side of Kidfluencing, it was alleged that Tiffany was selling these explicit photos of her underage daughter.
More recently, Piper made TikToks with BopHouse influencers, who are known for being OnlyFans stars, implying a soft launch of Rockelle’s account when she is of age.
“It is about Piper because one thing about me is I’m never gonna do anything associated with a minor. It is ridiculous that the Bop House would even do that, when there’s so many other people you could collab with that are of age,” said Joy Mei on her TikTok about leaving the Bop House.
Part of the reason Mei left this content house is due to filming with a minor who is exploited enough already. It is well known that the girls in the Bop House are a part of OnlyFans and not exactly family friendly, which Piper’s channel is.
For Piper’s mother to do that is irresponsible and deeply concerning. Her behavior is greedy and is expanding her teen daughter’s audience to not only that of young girls, but creeps as well. Tiffany allegedly also has multiple sexual assault charges against her from Piper Rockelle’s ex-squad members.
“A group of 11 teens filed a complaint against Smith in 2022, alleging that she abused the teen content creators with whom she and Rockelle collaborated. The lawsuit was settled in October 2024,” said Zoey Lyttle from People Magazine.
Helping to create Piper’s content is Smith’s alleged boyfriend Hunter Hill, who poses as Rockelle’s cameraman, editor, and “older brother”. For the audience to see Piper’s “brother” kiss her mom as her boyfriend was strange especially due to their 15 year age gap.
In Rockelle’s older videos, Tiffany would mask insults to Piper’s squad members through the infamous character Frank—a now-deceased pug. . . There was another character like this, but off camera. It was one of their 15+ cats, Lenny. He was allegedly used by Tiffany to let out her sexual thoughts toward the kids, including Claire and Reese RockSmith who are Piper’s cousins.
“The teen creator felt especially compelled to speak out after she [Claire] and her 10 fellow plaintiffs — including her 13-year-old sister Reese — compared stories and realized the extent of the abuse they suffered,” said Lyttle.
“We didn’t pursue this lawsuit to change the industry, but to bring awareness that predators can be found in any field. This was about holding the person who harmed our kids accountable,” said a mom of one of the squad’s teen boys in an interview with the New York Post.
Unfortunately it is not just Piper who has been the target of controversy. Some family vlogging accounts include the Ace Family, LaBrant Family, and 8 Passengers, who had an intense documentary about them too, etc.
“A new Hulu docuseries [Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke] is taking a deeper dive into the case of Ruby Franke, the former YouTube vlogger [8 Passengers] and mom of six who was arrested for child abuse in August 2023 and sentenced in February 2024 after pleading guilty to aggravated child abuse of two of her children,” said Yi-Jin Yu from ABC News.
On a larger scale, many child actors have been victims of toxic culture of the entertainment industry: Amanda Bynes, Shirley Temple, Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin, etc. Laws even have been put in place from the experiences of child stars, such as the Coogan Law since 1939.
“In January 1, 2000, changes in California law affirmed that earnings by minors in the entertainment industry are the property of the minor, not their parents. Since a minor cannot legally control their own money, California Law governs their earnings and creates a fiduciary relationship between the parent and the child. This change in California law also requires that 15% of all minors’ earnings must be set aside in a blocked trust account commonly known as a Coogan Account,” said SAG-AFTRA.
Child actors still get education whether there’s a tutor on set, homeschooling, or traditional school. Child influencers, however, like Piper, are taken out of school to spend most of the day making content as there is unfortunately more gray area in the laws protecting them.
“The Fair Labor Standards Act, a 1938 law addressing ‘excessive child labor,’ has not been updated to include child influencers,” said Angela Young from NBC News.
As of last year, there was California’s “Kidfluencer” Bill (AB 2388). Very similar to the Coogan law but it is up to the parents to have a segment of their kids’ earnings, not the government.
Due to recent law changes with child influencers and the exploitation of them, family influencers have been leaving California, such as the LaBrant Family and some TikTokers.
‘Kidfluencing’ brings opportunity for fame and wealth; yet it leaves children susceptible to ongoing exploitation, harassment, lack of legal protection, and lack of consent; all of which results in a loss of innocence in current and future generations.
