The trend of family YouTube channels continue to rise as more parents become aware of the digital world and millennials begin to create families. Channels such as Shaytards and Eh Bee Family generating millions of views as they watched these families do funny skits and showcase their daily lives.
This past week, a family channel on the rise, DaddyofFive, released one of their typical prank videos titled Invisible Ink Prank! EPIC FREAKOUT. The video begins with the mother describing their “prank” which was to put invisible ink on the floor and blame their children for it. After doing so, she, along with the father, begins to villainously yell at them for the mess. Cody, the main child targeted, proceeds to freak out and cry as his parents continuously yell at him and his siblings watching. After 4 minutes of witnessing these screams and scared/angry reactions, the parents finally sit the kids down and reveal that it was just a prank. Then had Cody, who still looked visually distraught, recite their outro and social medias.
Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the only video that is deemed question worthy on their channel. Evidence shows that the main victim and subject of their videos seems to be Cody. He seems to have to be most soft-hearted out of the children which explain his constant freakouts when things “go wrong”. Their most popular uploads mostly center around his reactions to his parents and siblings constantly pushing him around and messing with his stuff. These terrible pranks on him include telling him he’s up for adoption and pretending to break his tablet. When it seems he gets distraught, his parents accuse him of not being able to take a joke. There is even a video that shows the father pushing the kid into a bookshelf out of frustration, leaving the kid with a bloody nose.
Multiple Youtube creators including Philip Defranco and Daz Black are calling for Child Protective Services to investigate this family as well as YouTube to shut down the channel.
The family has issued several types of statements following the backlash of the videos. Their first was a video denying any sort of abuse and essentially “blocking out the haters”. They stated that people were only jealous of their success and the kids have the say in what gets uploaded. They even go to say that the kids get rewards and fun things because of these videos. The second video was posted to Twitter thanking people have defended their videos and actions. Once again claiming that the kids helped them even edit them.
https://twitter.com/MikeMartin1982/status/854153934201655296
Their third statement posted on Twitter has a different tone. They apologize for the content and state that will be changed in the future. The twitter picture was also changed from the father himself to a picture of the family.
https://twitter.com/MikeMartin1982/status/854189923011895300
A day later, they have reverted back to their first statement that people were overreacting. They have blamed the media and YouTube creators for pushing a false narrative that they abuse their children. They have also released another video stating that the videos are strictly for entertainment purposes and clearly fake. They have also claimed that Child Protective Services has visited once before and cleared them of any harm.
Update: Maryland CPS has stated they were not aware of the videos and are looking into it. The family has also deleted all the videos except their apology video.
