“Charlie bit me. Ha, ha. Oh, oh.” In 2007, ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ became one of the most-watched YouTube videos ever. Everyone saw this video, from your fun aunt to Osama bin Laden. “[singing]: Charlie bit me. Ha, ha.” And it launched a whole genre of internet content. [laughing] Parents unexpectedly capturing their kids doing hilariously adorable things. Adults have always been captivated by kids. Duh, they are cute. But as the internet professionalized, the cute kid genre morphed into something new. Now, the internet is producing kid makeup artists, kid power eaters, and kid parody music video stars. “These are Christmas jammies.” “Look at my Christmas jammies.” And then there are kids whose parents just film everything they do. “You have boogers? You’re playing soccer?” One of YouTube’s most popular channels is run by the Shaytards, a YouTube family of seven that lives by the motto, “[singing]: When life’s worth living, it’s worth recording.” But most of the time, life is pretty boring. “Watermelon hat.” [laughing] In order to make a living on YouTube, you have to push out content really consistently. But that content also needs to be exciting. For a YouTube family, that means making normal, everyday life into something that feels sensational. And no YouTube couple has pushed the limits of the family genre more than Sam and Nia. “[singing]: We’re in this together.” The first time Sam and Nia Rader went viral was in 2014, when they installed a dashcam on their minivan, dubbed themselves the Good Looking Parents, and lip-synched a song from “Frozen.” The second time Sam and Nia went viral was when Sam extracted Nia’s pee from an unflushed toilet and then announced his wife’s surprise pregnancy to her. “What did you do? Did you get a dropper out of the toilet? No, you didn’t.” “I did.” — “No way.” At least that’s what they said happened. “Are you 100 percent serious?” “Well, yeah, I just did. That’s what I was doing when I was taking a dump.” [laughing] This is the part where I try to think of what’s not so bad about this trend. “Whoa, oh, man.” O.K., so these family vloggers show the messy, negative parts of parenting — “Ew, yuck.” — not just the idyllic, cutesy stuff. “Gross.” They’ve helped open up conversations about infertility and miscarriage that are often taboo in the mainstream. And some parents have always treated their kids like commodities. But on the internet, that impulse can be blown up and popularized on a massive scale. The result is that childhood itself is being molded to YouTube’s expectations. If the traditional baby photo album crystallizes the warmest, loveliest moments of a person’s young life, the YouTube algorithm seems to be drawn to the extreme highs and lows. Cuteness is fine, but embarrassment also works. Baby Fails is now its own thriving YouTube genre. And if you want your own famous YouTube baby, it would be really convenient if your kid failed like every day. “Nolan.” “You messy baby.” In one particularly disturbing YouTube subgenre, parents dress up their kids like they’re babies and have them suck on pacifiers and fake poop in diapers. “Look, it’s absolutely disgusting.” At least, I think it’s fake. I hope it’s fake. At its most extreme, this genre teeters on the edge of abuse. “We put things on the internet that should not be there.” The parents behind Daddy of Five, a YouTube channel where they habitually played horrifying pranks on their kids, were convicted on misdemeanor counts of neglect of a minor after the videos came to the attention of Child Protective Services. “We just kept going more and more for the shock factor versus reality and to see what could get more views.” “Action.” But even kids who aren’t outright terrorized on these channels, don’t have the same rights that traditional child performers do. The protections of child labor laws or something like the Coogan Act, which saves child actors’ earnings in a trust until they reach adulthood. These kids don’t even get the respite of a distinction between performance and life. They’re being raised to seek validation by emoting on cue and being taught that that’s what family is for. “Get back here. Smile, say something on the vlogs.” That means performing a lot of emotional labor, maybe before you even know what emotions are. “[singing]: When we’re vlogging and we’re filming, we don’t cry.” The Rader’s youngest child, Juliet, has been famous since she was born, “Truman Show”-style. “We’ve got to get a selfie stick because our family’s getting so wide.” Her birth has been seen 14 million times. Now she’s just 2 years old, but she’s already experienced a lifetime of drama. [screams] We don’t yet know what that means for a child’s development, just that millions of other parents and kids are watching. “Hey, I’m Amanda.” “I’m Shane. She writes the videos.” “He edits the videos.” “And if you like the videos —” “Just keep watching and another episode will play.” “[singing]: Internetting with Amanda Hess.”