- 1 day ago
WHEN the Penny family went viral on social media, they could never have imagined what would happen next. After starting their content creator journey during Covid lockdown, parents Laura and Simon have posted daily videos documenting their everyday lives ever since. They've involved their three children Lexi (15), Will (13) and Ivy (5) in everything from dance trends to "plate up" videos to shopping hauls, all of which has now become a "side hustle" for the family. This in turn has caused a backlash in their comments section - with many accusing the parents of "exploiting" their children. But as Laura explained to Truly, "The kids love making content with us, they want to do it. We would never force them to do anything that they don't want to do." When their eldest Lexi turned 13, the parents even helped her set up her own separate account so that she could record makeup tutorials and her following quickly snowballed, now sitting at over 180,000 followers. Laura and Simon were always cautious with Lexi's account, setting parental controls to keep tabs on the messages and comments Lexi received. As Simon explained, "We're not foolish, we understand there are risks out there." But they were "shocked" to learn that Lexi's images had been taken by a stranger and "doctored" - their 15-year-old daughter had been deepfaked. Laura admits that they did initially question whether they were to blame: "When we first became aware it was a bit like, 'Oh God'" - the parents reported the images and successfully had them removed, but Lexi did see them and found them "strange." Laura and Simon gave Lexi the freedom to choose whether to continue and did not consider banning her from social media - a decision they stand by to this day. But Laura's sister and Lexi's aunt Nicky was initially sceptical about the family's very public social media presence. So when she visits today - and with Laura still not sure how she feels about "the deepfake situation" - will Laura's previous feelings of guilt bubble back to the surface?
Follow the family:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566957957331
https://www.tiktok.com/@thepennyfam
https://www.youtube.com/@Ivy_Harper
https://www.instagram.com/thepennyfamily1
Follow the family:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566957957331
https://www.tiktok.com/@thepennyfam
https://www.youtube.com/@Ivy_Harper
https://www.instagram.com/thepennyfamily1
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FunTranscript
00:00Our 15 year old daughter got deep faked.
00:02But we won't ban her from social media.
00:04We're a family of content creators.
00:06How do you feel knowing that thousands of people watching the world?
00:10People accuse us of exploiting our children.
00:13Family vloggers just don't sit right with me at all.
00:15Money talks. Poor kid.
00:17I started my account when I was around 13.
00:19I think she's got 180,000 followers now.
00:22So how do you react when you became aware of actually being deep faked?
00:26Do you have any feelings of guilt or regret?
00:31Right, do you want to grab the stuff out of the fridge?
00:33I'll cut these up.
00:34Is this how your normal day begins?
00:36Pretty much, yeah. Breakfast.
00:38Get everybody sorted and ready and dressed.
00:41Ready for school?
00:42Yep, ready for school.
00:43Well, Ivy.
00:45Normal kind of family stuff.
00:48Have I done breakfast?
00:49We are family content creators.
00:51We have over 800,000 followers and our children are TikTok makers.
00:55Do you record content on your stations every day?
00:57Yeah, we record every day. We always do a plate up in the evening because people ask for it.
01:02They're like, oh, is the plate up happening tonight?
01:03We like doing it as well. It's just a bit of fun.
01:05Yeah, just a bit of fun, isn't it? Do you want some honey?
01:08Yes, please.
01:09Lexi, what are the dishing up videos?
01:11Well, mum basically gets everything in the bowl and then the camera goes up there and then you can see
01:16down everything.
01:18Is your mum a good cook?
01:19Yeah.
01:20Yeah, that's it.
01:21We try and capture moments and share it. That's kind, isn't it, Will?
01:28And then we do lives as well. We go live on different platforms, don't we?
01:31That's kind of a good way to talk with people as well.
01:33Just interact with people.
01:34This is where the magic happens.
01:37And I am so hungry.
01:38How do you feel knowing that thousands of people watch what you're doing?
01:44She's famous, doesn't she?
01:46She does. She tells people she's famous.
01:48Oh, look at that.
01:49You're so happy.
01:51Yummy.
01:52Our family life is pretty crazy. There's always a child needing to be somewhere and another one needing to be
01:57somewhere else.
01:58We're busy, aren't we?
01:59Yeah.
02:00What's your favourite video you've recorded with your family?
02:04It's probably one of the collaboration ones. We get to go somewhere.
02:08Like your cinema or...?
02:10Our family is a blended family. So between us, we have five children.
02:17I've got two from a previous marriage, which are Lexi and Will.
02:20I had two grown up children.
02:22And then we've got Ivy.
02:24How would you describe each of your parenting styles?
02:26I think our parenting has sort of blended together more recent years.
02:31We try and empower them to make their own good choices.
02:35Go on then Ivy.
02:36Shopping hall.
02:38There we go. So me and the kids have been shopping and they want to show you what they've got.
02:42Come on then.
02:44When and why did you start recording videos of your family life?
02:47The first one was actually in lockdown.
02:49And you did that football one in the living room, didn't you?
02:51Was it that long?
02:52Yeah. And then we didn't post anything for ages.
02:54And then there was another trend.
02:56One wash, baby.
02:57Check it out.
02:58Perfect.
03:00Lexi at time filmed it in here.
03:02And then the kids were like, oh, let's see if we can get a hundred followers.
03:05Before we knew it, the kids were like, oh, mum, we're going to hit a thousand.
03:08And then it just grew from there.
03:11How do you decide which kids are going to be in what videos?
03:15Whoever wants to.
03:16I was going to say, they sort that out.
03:19Generally, if they want to be in it, they're in it.
03:21If they don't, then they're not.
03:22We never really worried about including the kids in our content.
03:25I think for us, maybe we look at it slightly differently as an opportunity, maybe.
03:29Yeah, I mean, it's opened loads of doors to them and to us as a family.
03:33It's a side piece of work, isn't it?
03:35A job.
03:36A side job.
03:36Yeah, like a side hustle.
03:38Yeah.
03:38Yes, there is a financial element, but they earn their own, they earn their own money.
03:43Which sort of videos get the most views?
03:45Do you find it's controversial stuff that is most engaging?
03:49We don't, like some of the viral ones that we've had.
03:52So we had your start of school one, didn't we?
03:55Right then Lex, are you ready for your first day back of school?
03:58And people were in uproar about how short her dress, her skirt was.
04:02That had something like 5 million views or something ridiculous.
04:06Yeah.
04:06And I actually stayed up and watched 900,000, a million.
04:12I was like, what?
04:13Just because you've got a kid who's wearing a new uniform.
04:16What is the response like in the comments section for the stuff you've got?
04:19We have had a few judgmental comments, haven't we?
04:22Family vloggers just don't sit right with me at all.
04:24Okay, well, they're on your feed, so you must be looking at family vloggers.
04:29Sad bunch of ****, putting their entire life on video for all to see.
04:33Seriously, ****.
04:35Wow.
04:36That's a good one.
04:37That was a good one.
04:38People accuse us of exploiting our children, but the kids love making content with us.
04:42They want to do it.
04:43Money talks.
04:44Poor kid.
04:44People see us a snippet of our life, don't they?
04:47They have no idea who we are, what we do.
04:50You know, behind the scenes.
04:51We would never force them to do anything that they didn't want to do.
04:54And occasionally...
04:55Yeah, they don't.
04:56Yeah, Lexi will say, I'm not going to pay up today.
04:58And it's like, absolutely fine.
04:59You don't have to.
05:00This is my room.
05:00Put my phone there.
05:03Record basically all my videos.
05:04When and why did you decide to set up a separate TikTok account for Lexi?
05:09I always feel that if we said, no, you're not having social media, they're going to do it anyway.
05:14Okay, so I got sent this bracelet the other day, and I'm going to give you guys a bracelet tour.
05:17And there's got loads of different jewels in there.
05:19I'm going to show you guys all of them.
05:20But we've set it so that it's on my phone as well as hers, so that everything that she posts
05:25is managed by us.
05:26I first started kind of experimenting with makeup. How old was that, like, 11?
05:30Yeah, probably about 11.
05:31And then as I was, like, 13, I kind of got onto, like, TikTok and stuff.
05:34I started my TikTok account when I was around 13.
05:36And you can kind of see, if you scroll back down, you can, like, watch as my account's grown from
05:40having, like, 5,000 followers to, like, 180,000.
05:44Do you have any concerns about strangers watching Lexi's videos?
05:48We have had concerns.
05:50We're not foolish.
05:51We understand there are risks out there and exposure to potentially not very nice things.
05:57One of our followers messaged us to let us know that there's somebody on Facebook that is stealing Lexi's image.
06:03And they're, like, AI-ing it a little bit.
06:06Oh, yeah. Yeah.
06:06I've never seen anything like it.
06:07They've made, like, her boobs bigger.
06:09Yeah.
06:10Changed her face slightly.
06:11So it still looks like Lexi.
06:13You could tell it had been...
06:14Yeah, it's been shopped.
06:16...doctored from her image.
06:18Lexi, those photos, have you seen those?
06:21Did you go and show you them at the time?
06:22Oh.
06:23Yeah, I've seen them.
06:24It's a bit strange.
06:26Like, I'm...
06:27I'm a bit bored.
06:28But I'm not, like, extremely bored because it's just...
06:29There's nothing to gain from it.
06:31I think we were just kind of shocked as to why somebody would do it.
06:36Obviously, we wanted to get it taken down.
06:38We did report it.
06:40Facebook took it down.
06:41And we did talk to Lexi about being deep faked.
06:44But it didn't seem to bother her.
06:45She was very much like, ah, okay.
06:48It's been a little bit of a learning curve.
06:49But it hasn't made you want to stop posting, has it?
06:52I've made so many friends for it.
06:54And I've had so many opportunities.
06:55I've been invited to, like, events.
06:56I've been to parties.
06:57I've met so many people for that.
06:59And, yeah, I really enjoy doing it.
07:01Do you have any feelings of guilt or regret for what happened?
07:05I think when it...
07:06When we first became aware, it was a bit like, oh, God.
07:09Is this because of what we're doing?
07:12Yeah.
07:12But I've not ever considered banning them on social media.
07:16I do think that kids are going to do what they're going to do,
07:18whether you like it or not.
07:22Hello!
07:23My sister's coming over this afternoon.
07:25She didn't really agree with us posting our children on social media to start with.
07:29So what did you think when we first started posting content?
07:32I have to be honest, I was concerned.
07:35I was worried.
07:36You know, what negative effects are they going to feel from it?
07:40I think my sister was just unsure about what could happen.
07:44And I'm not really sure how she feels about the deepfakes situation.
07:48When you heard about the deepfakes of Lexi, did you feel like we were to blame?
07:52What, you two?
07:54Yeah.
07:54No.
07:55No.
07:56Because whoever it was could get pictures of anybody from anywhere.
08:02But did you feel like because we allowed her to post, do you think that could have...
08:07She'd post herself anyway.
08:08Yeah.
08:09Even if it wasn't on your page, it would be on her own page.
08:11Yeah.
08:11That's how we've looked at it, isn't it?
08:13Like, that could happen to anyone, couldn't it?
08:15On any...
08:16You could be walking down the street and they take a photograph of you.
08:18Yeah, exactly.
08:19So do you think we should be banning the kids from social media?
08:22You could try.
08:24If you tell somebody that they can't do something, they're going to want to do it even more,
08:28aren't they?
08:28But if they can do it in a safe way with guidance, then I would 100% go that way
08:34rather than doing it on their own.
08:36And I guess Lexi probably learnt from that, didn't she?
08:40Yeah, exactly.
08:40Of why...
08:41Just be careful.
08:43...what you post.
08:45What would you say to people who are judging or continuing to put your kids online?
08:49I respect people's opinion. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
08:53And if you don't want to put your kids online, then don't do it. It's up to you.
08:57And if you don't like watching mine, then don't hurt yourself through it.
09:00It's, you know, it is a choice. You don't have to.
09:03I don't have any regrets not banning social media.
09:07I think overall, it's a really positive experience for us.
09:10Yes, we have had a little bit of negativity, the deep fake stuff, but it's minute in comparison to...
09:15And it's here to stay, isn't it?
09:16Yeah.
09:16It's going to grow, whether the platforms will change, but it's not going anywhere.
09:20I'd like to think that, you know, Lexi can use her platform for the future.
09:24She can earn money through her platform, see where it takes her.
09:28And, you know, she might turn around and say, I've ordered that, don't want to do it.
09:30And that's absolutely fine.
09:32Do you think you'll ever stop making content with your family?
09:35No, probably not.
09:36Unless we want it, but we don't want it.
09:38Yeah.
09:39It's like part of our routine now.
09:40It's not like a, oh, we've got to go do this now.
09:43It's a, let's go do this now.
09:44Are you excited about the future?
09:46Yeah.
09:46It's always exciting to think about what's to come, where the kid's going to end up,
09:50will they take social media with them?
09:52Of course it's exciting.
09:53We started this, what, two years ago?
09:55It could all end tomorrow, but, you know.
09:57But it's been an adventure, isn't it?
09:59Yeah, it's been good fun.
10:00Yeah.
10:01Yeah.
10:01Yeah.
10:03Yeah.
10:04Yeah.
10:05Yeah.
10:12Yeah.
10:12You
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