‘Absolutely heartbreaking’: the dark side of family vlogging

Troubling new HBO docuseries An Update on Our Family looks at YouTube families and Myka Stauffer, the mom who ‘rehomed’ her adopted son

In May 2020, the vlogger parents Myka and James Stauffer tearfully revealed to their nearly 1 million followers that the son they adopted from China just three years before had been “rehomed”. The child, Huxley, who was only five at the time and lived with autism, had been the star in so many YouTube videos sharing the Stauffer family’s joys, struggles and brand partnerships. But in the month leading up to that May 2020 upload, titled “an update on our family”, followers noticed that he had been phased out, old videos featuring Huxley had been removed and comments from followers inquiring as to his whereabouts promptly deleted while Myka continued posting homemaking videos.

After the Stauffers came clean, the backlash was (predictably) swift and unforgiving, calling out the family, which includes four other biological children, for exploiting Huxley to gain clicks and views, packaging his trauma as an adoptee into content, before deciding they were ultimately ill-equipped to meet his needs (“I apologize for being so naive,” a statement from Myka read). However, the internet’s response, much of it furiously leaning into not just critical commentary but also wild conspiracy theory geared for even more clicks and views, became knock-on content perhaps as craven and predatory as the inciting behaviour.