On April 9th, 2025, Netflix released the mini docu-series, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing. The series dives into life behind the camera of the 13-15 year old stars. The 11 former members of Piper Rockelle’s ‘Squad’ had the opportunity to discuss their experiences on a large platform and to have their stories heard. However, the series may have given attention to the wrong side of the story. 

For context, Piper Rockelle is a 17 year old influencer who has been in the public eye since the age of 3 when she started participating in beauty pageants. Over the years her platform, run by single mom, Tiffany Smith, started to grow in popularity. At just 17 years old she has amassed over 12 million subscribers on youtube. In the peak of her career in 2018, Tiffany started recruiting other young influencers to film content alongside Piper. This group of teens would later become known as ‘Piper Rockelle’s Squad.’ The collaborations continued to multiply until Tiffany made the decision to have all squad members move into a house together at only 11 years old. Without the teens parents present, Tiffany created a violent and traumatic environment for the children. From 2019 through 2021, squad members continued to sporadically leave the group and move back home. The reason for most of their absences were all similar, saying that it was a personal choice with no bad blood between them or Piper. Things quickly changed when in 2022, 11 of the former squad members filed a lawsuit against Piper’s mother, Tiffany Smith for exploitation of minors, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse. The teens began opening up about what life was really like behind the scenes of their innocent, silly, and playful content. One member in particular, Sophie Fergi, Piper’s best friend and popular squad member, shared, “It was some of the hardest years of my life and I was only 13.” Then, in October of 2024 there was a 1.85 million dollar settlement. Even though the battle seemed to be over, the teens and their families were not finished with their stories. They continued to speak out against Tiffany on smaller podcasts and YouTube interviews until they landed a three-part Netflix documentary, revealing the scary truth about Tiffany Smith. 

However, did this documentary do its job? Yes, it amplified the voices of abused influencers, having their stories heard by millions in the hopes of preventing the exploitation of minors via social media to continue. On the other hand, it caused Piper Rockelle to resurface and bring her back into the social media spotlight once again. Youtube’s attempt to punish Piper and Tiffany included demonetizing Piper’s account, meaning that she would not be able to make a profit off of the ads within her videos. This is a big deal because this is a main source of income besides the money made from real-life viewers and subscribers. Piper’s salary became extremely dependent on her views, comments, likes, and shares; all of which are provided through the algorithm. The algorithm sees what someone interacts with online so that it can continue to offer similar content it knows that person will enjoy. Because the documentary has gained massive popularity, the algorithm can see that people are engaging with it, therefore promoting similar content; unfortunately being Piper’s. From personal experience, I have seen more Piper Rockelle Tiktoks and YoutTube videos come across my feed than ever before. Immediately following my finishing of the series, 2-3 videos from Piper or about her come on my screen each day. The whole purpose of the documentary was to shed light on Tiffany’s abusive and manipulative behavior and to bring justice to those involved. The documentary did the opposite of YouTube’s intended punishment of demonetization. It helped Piper to continue to make money and keep her relevant when it was originally intended to bring her down.