Being ‘canceled’ is a launchpad to a fresh start
"What do you mean you don’t like farmer Jeffree?"
Keep scrolling for everything we know about the arrest of ‘8 Passengers’ family vlogger, Ruby Franke.
‘Earles Girls:’ Everything we know about Alix Earle’s rumoured reality TV show
For months, internet sleuths have speculated that TikTok star Alix Earle is shooting a reality show with her family.
Rumours about an Earle family reality show started when Alix spent the summer with her family between New Jersey and the Hamptons, despite recently signing a new lease on an apartment in Miami.
Adding fuel to the fire was a TikTok Alix posted this week.
In the video, Alix said goodbye to her sister, Ashtin, before she jets off to Florence, Italy for university.
Users spotted a black cord hanging out of Alix’s pocket, suggesting it may be part of a mic pack.
Fans suspect the show will be titled ‘Earles Girls’ as Alix, Ashtin, and their stepmother Ashley Earle have all been hashtagging #earlesgirls in their social media posts this summer.
ICYMI, the Earle family has a history in the public eye.
Alix’s father, Thomas “TJ” Earle, is the owner and CEO of a successful construction business that has afforded the family a luxurious life.
In 2008, Alix’s stepmother Ashley gained fame as a former escort, in the centre of a scandal surrounding then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
Alix’s followers believe ‘Earles Girls’ could be exclusive to the Unwell Network— Alex Cooper’s new Gen Z-focused talent network supporting creators as they venture into new projects.
Earlier this month, Alix announced that she had signed on to the network, however it has not been revealed in what capacity.
Read the full story via Centennial World.
A new piece by journalists Sydney Bradley and Amanda Perelli investigates how social media has become less social, with Gen Z users shifting to messaging apps and group chats.
Bradley and Perelli argue that social media “fatigue” has pushed average people toward private posting and closed groups.
Features like Close Friends (a private list of people who have access to your content) and the rise of group chats give people a safer place to share memes, gossip with friends, and even meet new people. It's less pressure — they won't mind if I didn't blur out the pimple on my forehead — but this side of Instagram hardly fulfils the original free-flowing promise of social media.
This shift has turned social media into social media— with platforms like Instagram becoming more of an aspirational entertainment app rather than a place for friends to connect.
Even Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, admitted that users have moved on to direct messages, closed communities, and group chats. Regularly posting content is now largely confined to content creators and influencers, while non-creators are moving toward sharing snippets of their lives behind private accounts.
Young people are posting less partly because they don’t feel like their life is “aesthetic” or interesting enough, and partly because Gen Z thinks that posting as if your life is “aesthetic” and interesting is cringe.
This has made way for community apps like Geneva and Discord to flourish among Gen Z. Young people still want to engage online in a social capacity, they just don’t want to do it on a public stage.
Though users are posting less, Bradley and Perelli found that consuming content hasn’t slowed down.
"If you look at how teens spend their time on Instagram, they spend more time in DMs than they do in stories, and they spend more time in stories than they do in feed," Mosseri said during the "20VC" interview. Given this changing behavior, Mosseri said the platform has shifted its resources to messaging tools. "Actually, at one point a couple years ago, I think I put the entire stories team on messaging," he said.
Read the full story via Insider.
8 Passengers’ Ruby Franke arrested for aggravated child abuse
Ruby Franke, the mother of YouTube family vlogging channel 8 Passengers, has been arrested for two counts of aggravated child abuse.
Ruby and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested on August 30th in Springville, Utah.
According to Insider, “a child climbed out of a window at a residence in Ivins, Utah, to get help, which led to the allegations of abuse Franke is being charged with. The residence belonged to Franke's business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, who was also arrested in the case […] The child ran to a neighbor's house to get help, Fox 13 reported, and asked for food and water, according to the statement. The neighbors noticed that the kid had duct tape on their ankles and wrists and decided to call the police […] The child was taken to the hospital where they were treated for ‘severe’ wounds and malnourishment”.
Ruby and Jodi head up the controversial parent “counseling” service, ConneXions.
ConneXions claims to offer a form of healing “that psychotherapy cannot offer you.” Ruby became the face of the group alongside founder Jodi. The two create content about “mental fitness” and “living in truth” centred around disciplinary principles.
These principles have been deemed extreme and unrealistic, encouraging members to choose the group over their children.
Upon the arrest, Shari Franke, Ruby’s eldest daughter, uploaded a photo to her Instagram story showing a police car with text that says, “Finally.”
Shari has previously opened up about her tumultuous relationship with her mother and how Ruby’s involvement with ConnXions led Shari to distance herself from her immediate family.
The Franke family commits themselves to ConneXions full-time and no longer vlogs for the 8 Passengers YouTube channel.
Read more about the dissolution of 8 Passengers via Centennial World.
YouTube’s ‘canceled’ stars are making comebacks with TikTok, podcasts and livestreams
A new piece by journalist Kat Tenbarge explores how being ‘canceled’ isn’t always career-ending for internet stars. For some, it’s the launchpad to a fresh start.
Tenbarge looks at the ‘cancellations’ and subsequent comebacks of three influencers— James Charles, Tana Mongeau, and Jeffree Star.
She notes that after facing multiple public scandals in recent years, all three have bounced back by switching platforms and deprioritising YouTube.
YouTubers faced a mass reckoning in 2020 when “a wave of high-profile sexual misconduct and racism allegations swept the YouTube landscape, entangling many of the platform’s breakout stars across genres like vlogging and beauty content.”
All three creators faced accusations at this time.
Though James, Tana, and Jeffree have not stopped posting on YouTube, they are more committed to different platforms now and are finding immense success with this strategy.
Their comebacks highlight how, even on the internet, where past misdeeds can follow people indefinitely and “cancel culture” supposedly dominates, popular creators can shrug off what once seemed like career-ending controversies — or even use them to their advantage.
Crystal Abidin, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia, told Tenbarge that the emergence of TikTok as a dominant platform has made it easier for influencers who already had big-name recognition to stand out in a sea of new creators— even if these influencers are highly controversial.
“As a result, people are passively absorbing more content but not necessarily finding it memorable. In order to stand out now, you need to be the kind of influencer or event that is ‘Google-able’ or ‘Google-worthy,’” Abidin said. “I need to know so I’m going to Google it or search it on YouTube, and that drives up the engagement for what you’re doing.”
James, Tana, and Jeffree’s moving to new platforms has given their careers a second life with a new audience base.
“To people who watched [Jeffree] back in the drama days, they’re like, ‘What do you mean he’s thriving?’” drama channel, Spill Sesh, told Tenbarge. “Everyone on TikTok watching is like, ‘What do you mean you don’t like farmer Jeffree?’”
Read the full story via NBC News.
The career & controversies of Scooter Braun: Hollywood’s most notorious talent manager
This week’s infinite scroll podcast deep dives into the career and controversies of Scooter Braun, Hollywood’s most notorious talent manager. This episode was inspired by reports that Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, J Balvin, Idina Menzel, and Demi Lovato are all leaving Scooter’s management stable SB Projects. We recap his career history, explore several of his public controversies with high-profile clients, and look at all the theories about why the Scooter Braun empire appears to be crumbling from the inside.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.