Kid influencer
A kid influencer or kidfluencer is someone under the age of 18 who has built or is building a presence on social media platforms creating content to generate views and engagements, that is often sponsored. Kid influencers operate in a similar fashion to adult influencers; they share their hobbies and personal activities with their audiences, while also marketing products that align with their brand through paid partnerships. Many social media platforms have an age minimum requiring users to be at least 13 years of age or older to hold their own accounts. This requirement results in many of the pages being run alongside the parent/guardian of the child when they are under the age requirement.
In 2020, influencer marketing company Grin named The Axel Show, Tiana Wilson, twins Mila and Emma, and Greta Thunberg as some of the top kid influencers.
The rise of this kind of advertising has raised many ethical and legal questions, especially since most of these influencers main fan bases are young children. It has also brought up concerns about protecting the child themselves from any corruption and/or manipulation from their parent or the brands they work with.
Definitions and distinctions
Kid influencers differ from several related categories. A kid influencer typically refers to a minor whose likeness and personality form the central part of monetized social media content. By contrast, family vloggers maintain channels run by parents where children frequently appear but are not always the primary focus. This also differs from traditional child acting, which is governed by established labor laws, union protections, and regulated working hours. These distinctions matter because each category interacts differently with digital labor expectations, privacy concerns, and compensation structures.
History
Early advertising
Children have been in the entertainment space for a long time. In 1914, Jackie Coogan was appearing in silent films, and appeared in many films after that. By the time he turned 21 the $4 million he had earned throughout his career as a child star had been wasted by his parents. Coogan sued them, and was awarded $126,000. This led to the creation of the California Child Actor's Bill, which was passed in 1939. Although the Coogan Act originally applied only to film and television performers, updated versions of the law now protect children featured in monetized online content.In recent years, lawmakers have noted that the early exploitation of child actors like Coogan parallels current concerns about kid influencers, prompting states such as California to extend child-labor protections to social-media performers.
When that space flourished, brands started picking up child actors to appear as spokespeople in commercials and paper ads, such as Shirley Temple for Royal Crown Cola in 1944.
In 1940, when television entered the homes of families across the nation, some of the earliest programming was directed at child viewers, including after-school and Saturday morning shows, to help keep kids entertained when the parents were consumed by other tasks.
Between the 1940s and 1950s, as these child-directed shows flourished, advertising took to the silver screen and often featured the same child actors that starred in the popular shows, like Miss France's Ding Dong School and Rootie Kazootie, who would interrupt programming to deliver commercial messages which reduced the lack of clarity between what was programming and what was an advertisement. This began to fizzle out as the very same actors and presenters began to refuse commercial work to focus on creative and theatrical work.
Advertising in the 1960s, 1970s & 1980s
As actors began to shift away from the commercial limelight, brands began to recognize that they still needed children in the advertisements to relate to the children they were targeting. From this an alternative grew, featuring child actors with little to no notoriety. They were often filmed playing with the toy and delivering a maximum of one or two speaking lines. Brands wanted to communicate the relatability of unknown actors who looked and acted like the kids they were targeting, to establish a sense of resemblance which then would turn into desire to have the product. Popular examples of this practice can be seen in commercials for popular toys at the time like G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls.Mommy blogging in the 2000s & 2010s
From the early 2000s to the early 2010s, mommy blogging became a popular form of media for mothers to share their parenting experiences. This community helped mothers feel comfortable with their lives postpartum. The mommy blogging community consisted primarily of white suburban women, although there were exceptions. These mothers shared personal details about their children, opening that private information to the public. Some mommy blogs were then given paid partnerships, allowing parents to profit from their children's stories and images without consent. This content eventually shifted to a video format, known as family vlogging.Transition to influencer marketing
This is just a continuation of those same practices on a different scale. Blending the lines of stardom and relatability, child influencers create a different kind of relationship with their audience that is close knit and connected which they are constantly trying to nurture and grow. Kid influencers, and influencers in general, have built a close relationship with their following that makes their audience feel like they are a part of a community.One of the first to make big waves in the space was seven-year-old Ryan Kaji or better known to his fans as Ryan's World, who began filming videos in 2015 and as of March 14, 2024 has amassed a following of 36.6 million YouTube subscribers. Kaji has a variety of videos on his channel from family vlogs to viral challenges, but his channel is most well-known for his toy review videos in which he plays with new toys and shares his opinion on them. Brands recognized the potential of how powerful a child's influence actually is and acted on the opportunity to tap into their audience to make profits.
Alternative approach
A more common approach into the market has been through the parents of the child sharing content featuring their child on that parent's account. When the child gains enough recognition, parents then create a separate page for them to form their own following and image independent of the parents'. The reason both these approaches are valid is because the parent is still the account owner, but the star is the child.Global trends
While kid influencing is especially prominent in North America and Western Europe, similar content has expanded rapidly in non-Western regions such as South Korea, India, Indonesia, and Brazil. These countries have large digital economies and high youth social-media engagement, yet most lack dedicated regulations governing monetized child content. Researchers note that differences in cultural norms, digital literacy, and enforcement capacity may contribute to a wider regulatory gap outside the Western world.
Kid agencies
When influencers gain a substantial following, many brands may begin to partner with a creator. This can be overwhelming, and the creator may look to find an agent who specializes in influencer marketing to help manage their brand. Influencer marketing agencies can connect their influencers with brands that fit their niche/brand. The agent acts as a mediator between an influencer and the brand to make the process more efficient for the influencer. To fit the influx of kid influencers applying to agencies, some have created specialized programs, like Batterypop's Kidfluencer program, to provide a guided journey into influencer life for kids. The demand for kid-specialized agents has grown as fully dedicated companies like PocketWatch have completely narrowed their scope to only working with child influencers/stars.Criticisms
Parents and guardians of kid influencers have received criticism from child rights advocates and psychologists due to the unknown nature of the internet and the lack of transparency on sponsored posts. The blurred line of paid promotions versus organic content is nothing new amongst the influencer industry; however, the stakes are heightened with kid influencers as much of their audience is made up of children who do not necessarily have the media literacy skills to determine what is an advertisement and what is an unbiased opinion.Abuse of child performers is also a major concern.
In 2019, watchdog agency Truth in Advertising filed a deceptive advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Ryan Kaji, asking the organization to review the influential marketing tactics he was using to promote products to his young audience, as TINA believed he was using deceptive marketing tactics against his vulnerable audience.
Ethical considerations
Many also have taken issue with the ethics of kid influencing, as there is not much research that demonstrates the long-term effects of fame and notoriety with influencers at such a young age. Children are being targeted by influencers and brands in ways that parents do not recognize as easily. Advertising to kids has been regulated by the government in the past, but not necessarily when it is the kid doing the advertising themselves. Parents of kid influencers argue that because it is often the parent doing most of the logistical background work, the kids cannot tell the difference from genuinely playing with toys versus doing so for paid promotion. There are many sides to the argument, but all can agree that there needs to be a discussion about teaching media literacy to children if they are going to be navigating the internet alone. Another concern is time the amount of time spent working. The Coogan Act limits the amount of time children can work. Kid influencers are not protected under the Coogan Act and can work as much as they want or as much as their parents make them.Critics of increased regulation argue that imposing strict labor-style rules on social-media content may interfere with family autonomy, discourage creative expression, or place unnecessary burdens on small-scale creators. These critics suggest emphasizing education and parental guidance rather than government intervention.