Imagine growing up with millions of eyes on you at all times. Every tear you cry, every step you take, all turned into content watched all over the world on the internet. Now imagine the same scenario, but you can’t leave. 

This was the life for the almost 30 different kids who were a part of “The Squad”, a group of kid influencers all constantly watched by Tiffany Smith.

On Wednesday Apr. 9, Netflix dropped “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing.” This documentary covered the unsettling lives of kid influencers using the case of popular kid influencer, Piper Rockelle as its main example. The documentary, although providing significant insight on the lives of the victims of Tiffany Smith,  ultimately failed to reveal all sides of the story; however, it acts as a reminder of what can happen when online influencing goes too far.

Backstory:

From a young age, Piper Rockelle was good in front of audiences. She started off doing pageants at only three years old and quickly grew better with every competition. Her mom, Tiffany Smith, pushed her to be the best and put lots of effort into these pageants. This slowly escalated into acting jobs, dancing, and singing, all things that would put Piper in the eyes of the public. As time went on, Tiffany quickly caught on that these were only the beginning of Piper’s success. “When Tiffany began to see Piper become successful in pageants, she wanted to go ahead and see what she could do with social media,” Tiffany’s sister, Patience Rock Smith said. 

In 2014 a lip sync app called Musical.ly rose to fame, so Tiffany took this as an opportunity to increase Piper’s popularity.  While it started as a fun activity for Piper, it quickly escalated into a daily routine of nonstop filming. Tiffany’s main focus was on Piper advancing socially, but this took away from other things like even going to school. Piper then started making friends at her jobs, and they started to create videos together on Youtube. These videos quickly surpassed up to one million views each and started to give Tiffany ideas. Over time, Piper started to grow popular. People became interested in her life, and in 2016, she moved to LA to pursue her dream of becoming an influencer.

While Piper was in LA, a new person became featured in her channel, Hunter Hill. Hunter was a 19-year-old posed as Piper’s brother, but in reality, he was Tiffany’s younger boyfriend who quickly became her partner in Piper’s growing success. “He was Piper’s brother off camera as well, he really was this guy who was there for Piper in this childish way, not in a stepfather way, but then I think secretly doing stuff with Tiffany,” Raegan Beast, a friend of Piper and Tiffany said in the documentary..

Ultimately, Piper made friends who wanted to be influencers just like her, so Tiffany started to recruit these kids along with their parents into “The Squad,” a group of kid influencers working together creating videos to have fun and grow their popularity. But what these kids thought was a fun activity with their friends turned out to be an experience they would forever regret.

What cameras didn’t show: 

Tiffany and Hunter carefully orchestrated what happened behind the scenes of Piper’s channel and “The Squad.” They ensured consequences for anyone who left it. They would raise hate campaigns against the kids who left the squad and log into their Youtube channel and tank their views. As a result these kids would rapidly lose subscribers as soon as they left. “There’s a whole world of dark arts that goes behind these channels. It’s an entire underbelly of the media ecosystem that you don’t see. There’s these people buying bot networks, paying people to mass report accounts, get them flagged, get them down ranked,” Taylor Lorenz, an author familiar with online scandals said.

Their channels were never the same ,and the kids received so much hate from all over the world. “I think it’s forever tarnished, everything I worked for, everything I cared about and was motivated to work on. Getting sabotaged by people who I thought wanted to help me, by people that I trusted,” Sawyer Sharbino, former squad member said. 

Many former squad members shared stories about their encounters with Tiffany:

“I don’t remember what led up to this conversation, but I remember Tiffany asking me inappropriate questions. I remember not even knowing what she was talking about. I was 11,” Corrine Joy, former squad member said. 

“She took her hand and she started to move it on like my face, my chest she just started to move her hand around and I took her hands off me and broke free and I just unlocked the door and ran,” Tiffany’s niece, Reese Rock Smith said. 

“I remember being so scared and so I started locking my door, but my door had one of those slits where you could stick a penny in it and lock it from the outside so she would stick a penny in it and she would still come in” Sophie Fergi, former squad member said.

The kids talked about how their experiences with Tiffany still scared them to this day and how paranoid they are because of it. “It still affects me to this day that like, I don’t know if I should say this but I sleep with like a knife by my bed, cause like I’m still scared of someone breaking in my room or coming in my room because of that,” Fergi said.

Hunter would link their YouTube videos to illegal and inappropriate sites, which would get their videos deleted and overall impact their names forever.”The internet is written in ink, not in pencil,” Matt Sarelson, the squad members lawyer for the case said. 

“We discovered the stories that the parents told were just the tip of the iceberg. What we have is 11 kids with stories that all line up, and what they did to these kids is shocking,” Squad attorney Jeremiah Graham said. These 11 kids went through mental, verbal, and sexual abuse with Tiffany Smith being the perpetrator. 

Tiffany faced abuse allegations from many other former squad members, who claimed she abused them in various ways. When the kids spoke up about it to their parents, they took action and sued Tiffany and Hunter for abuse and exploitation in 2022. They later settled the case for 1.85 million between all the kids.
Problems in the documentary:

Despite being the central figure of this series, Piper’s side of the story was not included. In spite of being asked to appear in the series, Piper denied it for unknown reasons. Fans speculate whether it was really because she found the claims made against her mother to be false, or if she was forced to deny due to her still being a minor under her mothers care.  Regardless of Piper being in the series or not, little reference was made to Piper’s situation, almost disregarding her side of the story. Referring to Piper throughout the series would have ensured a more fair portrayal of her experiences and allow for a more well rounded documentary as opposed to the majority of people in the series telling similar situations. 

Along with that, many claims made in the series were disputed, for example claims made by Johna Ramirez, mother of former squad member Jentzen Ramirez (declined to participate in this series). While Jentzen has spoken about his situation under Tiffany, he claimed in a video posted on Tiktok that many of the claims his mom made in the series were false. “I majorly majorly disagree with a ton of Tiffany’s actions,” Ramirez said. He continued to say, “I also do not agree with how Netflix portrayed the events relating to my mom.” This incident along with others led to questions in the accuracy of the series and many people wondering if the stories had been fact checked, a major misstep on Netflix’s part if the claims turn out to be false.

Where are Piper and Tiffany now?:

Piper and Tiffany denied participation in the series and have denied allegations made by former squad members now, and throughout the lawsuit. “Obviously we didn’t do anything that was alleged, but sadly, money is a big motivator for certain personalities in this world,” Tiffany said in a statement to People before the release of  “Bad Influence.” Along with Tiffany, Piper has also made subtle remarks about the situation siding with her mother. The two continue to post on social media and have remained popular with viewers along their journey.

Caution to the next generation: 

There aren’t enough laws protecting children from being exploited online and this series showed that. “I spoke about this to get my story out, warn other people and spread awareness on situations like this,” Fergi said. With so many kid influencers joining the business and starting to make these same decisions, there need to be more laws in place. Many laws are made for kids in the acting business, but in this new age, it’s important for lawmakers to take into account new generations that are more social media based . These 11 kids speak out and warn others to push for more protection to ensure this situation can’t happen again, or as often as it does today.