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      in Television

      Kids, Inc.

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      A pair of documentaries are calling attention to the dangers of child influencer content. But regulation can be difficult in an industry that blurs the line between work and home.The scenes leave a pit in your stomach. In Netflix’s “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing,” two early teenagers are pressured to kiss by adults — a parent and a videographer — on camera. Hulu’s “The Devil in the Family: The Ruby Franke Story” shows the dramatic footage of Franke’s 12-year-old son showing up at a neighbor’s door with duct tape markings around his ankle, asking them to call police.The pair of documentaries, released this year, shine a light on the perils of child-centered online content. “Bad Influence” examines claims of abuse and exploitation made by 11 former members of the teen YouTube collective “The Squad” against Tiffany Smith — who ran the YouTube channel, which drew two million subscribers — and her former boyfriend Hunter Hill. Both denied the allegations, and the suit was settled for a reported $1.85 million last year.Ruby Franke, a mother of six, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in 2023 after denying her children adequate food and water and isolating them as she built a family YouTube channel that amassed nearly 2.5 million subscribers before it was taken down. She will serve up to 30 years in prison.Concerns about the treatment of child entertainers have abounded since the days of Judy Garland and through last year’s “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” in which former Nickelodeon actors described performing under harmful and sexually inappropriate conditions. Less examined is the working world of child influencers, who are now speaking out about the harsh, unsafe or emotionally taxing constraints of being broadcast by their parents.Viewers may be tempted to ask, “Aren’t there laws against this?”“We have pretty documented evidence of the troubling pipeline for Hollywood and child actors, but we don’t have nearly similar numbers for child influencers, primarily because the phenomenon of influencing is so young,” said Chris McCarty, the founder and executive director of Quit Clicking Kids, an organization dedicated to stopping the monetization of minors. “A lot of the kids are too young to even really fully understand what’s going on, let alone, like, actually speak out about their experiences.”Child entertainer laws — which in some cases make provisions for minors’ education, set limits on working hours and stipulate that earnings be placed in a trust — regulate theatrical industries. The world of content creators, where an account with a sizable following can generate millions of dollars a year for creators, is largely unregulated.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      After “The White Lotus,” Lorazepam Lives On in Memes and Merch

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      “The White Lotus” Season 3 may be ending, but the medication that has become synonymous with it has found a new life in memes and merchandise.Etsy has been flooded with hats and candles asking the question: “Has Anyone Seen My Lorazepam?” Social media is rife with videos of people enunciating “lorazepam” in a faux Southern drawl. Lorazepam even made a cameo on a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live,” when the actress Chloe Fineman raucously shouted the word during a sketch.As anyone even loosely familiar with Season 3 of “The White Lotus” may know, this sudden tsunami of references to a prescription medication used to treat anxiety is not a sign of mass desperation. Rather, it’s a manifestation of an unceasing fan obsession with Victoria Ratliff, a character on the HBO TV show, the current season of which ends on Sunday.Played by Parker Posey, Victoria is a wealthy North Carolina woman on vacation at a wellness resort in Thailand, who, despite the idyllic setting, regularly expresses a need for her lorazepam, a drug known for being tough to quit.A massage? It could make her “very stressed out” and “claustrophobic,” Victoria says. The lorazepam helps her “to really relax,” she tells a masseuse.A party on a yacht? “Certain social situations make me anxious,” Victoria drawls at her eldest son, Saxon.Her daughter Piper’s decision to make a major life change? “I don’t even have my lorazepam,” a distraught Victoria declares after her bottle goes missing. “I’m going to have to drink myself to sleep.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Judge Declines to Revoke Young Thug’s Probation After Social Media Post

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      The district attorney’s office in Fulton County, Ga., had cited a post in which the rapper referred to a gang investigator as the “Biggest liar in the DA office.”A judge declined on Thursday to revoke the probation of the Atlanta rapper Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, after prosecutors moved to have him punished for a post on social media in which Mr. Williams referred to a local gang investigator as the “Biggest liar in the DA office.”In a brief ruling on Thursday, Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker declined the motion from the district attorney’s office of Fani T. Willis without explanation.Atlanta prosecutors had filed a motion on Wednesday arguing that Mr. Williams had violated the terms of his probation, writing that he “has engaged in conduct that directly threatens the safety of witnesses and prosecutors, compromises ongoing legal proceedings, and warrants immediate revocation of probation.”Mr. Williams, 33, pleaded guilty late last year to participation in criminal street gang activity, in addition to drug and weapons charges, ending his role in a sprawling racketeering trial that became the longest criminal proceeding in Georgia history. (The two of the six original defendants in the trial who refused plea deals were found not guilty of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.)At the judge’s discretion, Mr. Williams, who had faced up to 120 years in prison if convicted, was sentenced to time served and 15 years of probation, with an additional 20 years of prison time possible if he violated the agreement. The strict terms of the probation barred Mr. Williams from metro Atlanta for 10 years; required him to undergo random searches and drug tests; and instructed him to refrain from promoting any gangs or associating with known members, potentially complicating his career as a touring rapper.In response to the filing by prosecutors on Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr. Williams, Brian Steel, said in a statement: “This motion is baseless. While intimidation and threats of violence are never appropriate, Jeffery Williams has done nothing wrong. We look forward to seeking a dismissal of this petition.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ChatGPT’s Studio Ghibli Style Animations Are Almost Too Good

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      An update to ChatGPT made it easy to simulate Hayao Miyazaki’s style of animation, which has flooded social media with memes.Animated movies, like those from the famed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, are not made in a hurry. The intricate hand drawings and attention paid to every single detail can make for a slow, potentially yearslong process.Or, you could simply ask ChatGPT to turn any old photo into a facsimile of Mr. Miyazaki’s work in just a few seconds.Many people did precisely that this week after OpenAI released an update to ChatGPT on Tuesday that improved its image-generation technology. Now, a user who asks the platform to render an image in the style of Studio Ghibli could be shown a picture that would not look out of place in the films “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Spirited Away.”On social media, users quickly began posting Ghibli-style images. They ranged from selfies and family photos to memes. Some used ChatGPT’s new feature to create renderings of violent or dark images, like the World Trade Center towers falling on Sept. 11 and the murder of George Floyd.Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, changed his profile picture on X to a Ghiblified image of himself and posted a joke about the filter’s sudden popularity and how it had overtaken his previous, seemingly more important work.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      How ‘Severance’ Is Shifting the Work-Life Balance Narrative With Innies and Outies

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      As “Severance” nears the end of its second season, the show has created a “cultural moment” that is changing the way people discuss work-life balance.At his job at an apparel store in SoHo, Thomas Lanese uses phrases that he would never utter outside of a work setting, like, “I’ll shoot this email to you by end of day.” Sometimes, he said, it feels like he is living two separate lives.It is something fans of “Severance” might relate to. In the buzzy show that concludes its second season on Apple TV+ next week, the characters literally live two distinct lives.Their “innies” (no relation to belly buttons) are their work selves. Their “outies” exist anywhere outside of work. They have chosen to work for Lumon Industries, a biotech company where they are “severed” from their personal lives, and their innies and outies have no idea what’s going on in each other’s worlds.The terms have now found a life outside the show, with innie used as a shorthand for being at work. Your innie can’t stop eating free candy in the office even though your outie is trying to cut back on sugar. Your innie wears unsexy clothes like knee-length pencil skirts even though your outie wears crop tops and miniskirts. And your outie parties late at night because your innie has to deal with the hangovers.“When you’re at work, you kind of put on this different facade than you do at home or you do with your friends,” said Mr. Lanese, a 26-year-old sales associate and game designer. In January, he posted a satirical video on TikTok remaking a scene from the first season of “Severance” that has received almost three million views. In it, his innie is visibly disgusted as he discovers cringe traits about his outie. For example, his outie has run three Disney 5Ks as Mickey Mouse. He captioned it “realizing that your innie would not be friends with your outie.”“It’s almost a form of disassociating,” Mr. Lanese said.

      @thomaslanese I cant wait for season 2 #severance #appletv ♬ original sound – Thomas Lanese

      @masonide #severance ♬ original sound – grapo We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Some Vegans Were Harmed in the Watching of This Movie

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      A film critic who provides “vegan alerts” for animal cruelty goes beyond onscreen violence. Milk and eggs are problematic, too.Inside a dark theater in Midtown Manhattan, Allison McCulloch watched “Kraven the Hunter,” an origin story for the obscure Spider-Man villain, while jotting notes on a white piece of paper smaller than a Post-it.Fur clothing.Taxidermied animals.Characters eating steak.McCulloch is the Roger Ebert of vegans, a dedicated cinephile who cares as much as anyone about acting and cinematography — and more than almost anyone about onscreen portrayals of dairy, poultry and beef.In the short reviews she writes for the app Letterboxd, she includes her overall critique as well as “vegan alerts,” flagging signs of animal products in a one-woman quest to highlight animal welfare onscreen, even in details most viewers would overlook.“People might think a glass of milk is innocuous,” she said. “It’s not. It’s full of violence.”Some of McCulloch’s vegan alerts for “Kraven the Hunter,” with Aaron Taylor-Johnson: “Sergei catches and eats raw fish” and “tiger rug.”Columbia Pictures/Marvel, via Sony PicturesMcCulloch has documented her opinion on 24,082 movies on her Letterboxd account, putting her in the top 100 out of the app’s more than 18 million members. Movies starring animals are almost a lock for vegan-friendly ratings, with films like “Flow” and “Kung Fu Panda 4” getting four stars.“Kraven the Hunter,” about a criminal-tracking vigilante played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, flopped by traditional measures (“incomprehensible plotting and dodgy one-liners,” Robert Daniels wrote in The New York Times). But it worked on some level for McCulloch, who was surprised by how it framed Kraven as a kind of conservationist who shares a supernatural connection with the creatures he encounters, and hunts criminals instead. She even gave the movie one “vegan point” for Kraven’s decision to not shoot a lion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Inside the Sean ’Diddy’ Combs Hotline: The Makings of a Mass Tort

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      In a room full of cubicles, workers in headsets read from their computer screens, addressing callers who dialed a 1-800 number. They have a script.“Were you or your loved one sexually abused by Sean ‘Love’ Combs, known as Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy?”“If the abuse occurred at a party, please list the name of the party. What kind of party was it?”Their employer, Reciprocity Industries, is a legal services company located in a low-slung building in Billings, Mont., more than 2,000 miles from the Brooklyn jail where Mr. Combs awaits trial on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.For years, the company has helped seed litigation by fielding complaints from people hurt by natural disasters, weedkillers or abusive clergy.Now it’s the central collection point for sexual assault allegations against Mr. Combs.When a call related to Mr. Combs comes in, Reciprocity employees walk callers through a questionnaire that asks them to share the details of their complaints, including potential witnesses.Janie Osborne for The New York TimesSome complaints come in through the phone, others arrive online in response to ads promoted on Facebook and Instagram. (A news conference where a backdrop displayed the hotline in large red numbers made headlines last October.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More