Mommy influencers are angry
There is some commotion in influencer land. Especially among all the mothers who vlog, blog, and post.
Here's the thing. RTL Boulevard aired a segment last Monday that painted a picture of the life of a mommy blogger. For this, RTL used Instagram photos from @lizetgreve, @janinebreukhoven, and @florineduif. The segment also featured photos of their children, who are prominently present on their Instagram accounts. However, RTL never asked for permission for that.
What's more, the mothers were completely unaware. They heard through the grapevine that they suddenly appeared on RTL Boulevard. They are far from happy about it. Janine Breukhoven writes on Instagram: “Absolutely no permission was asked to use images of me, and what I find even worse is my children. Additionally, we were not informed about this segment. I am truly shocked by the editing and some statements that paint a totally wrong picture of the phenomenon “mommy influencer”, which I do not find a nice box to be placed in. I also found it very unpleasant to see that a piece was cut and pasted from one of my vlogs from last year. Mind you, a private outing with the family, so no collaboration or partnership. Anyway, I don't want to make a fuss about it or start a discussion. The only thing I would like to ask the editorial team of @rtlboulevard is to never use images of my children on television without permission.”
Lizet writes this: “They edited it in such a way that it seems like I consciously let Zoë say brand names and earn money from my child. It was also a video from which I did not earn any money, that is not at all about Zoë but where she herself wanted to be on camera. But aside from that: when I am working at home, my children can just do what they want to do, and I will not send her out of the frame when she is having a lot of fun at that moment. In vlogs and videos, I keep everything as real as possible, and the children are part of that. Children always exhibit copy behavior, and she imitates me because I always talk about what I am wearing and where you can buy it. I do that to inspire people and to save myself a lot of questions. And Zoë enjoys that. Of course, there is also a revenue model behind it, but the happiness of my children always comes first. People who know me and follow me longer know that my kids don’t have to do anything, that I (almost) always say no to shoots when it comes to the kids, everything is at home with our own people and everything during play. I work super hard and with a goal and vision, so yes, it makes me sad that a program does not take the time to delve into the people they just let pass by. Because what I do also applies to the other mom bloggers who appeared. All mothers put their kids first.”
We understand that it must be a shock for the mothers to suddenly see their own images plus children on national television. And that without permission. You can certainly be upset about that, yes. But the photos and videos of the little ones are on social media. So it can naturally be picked up, once.
We are still waiting for RTL Boulevard's response, keep you posted.
