Tribeca Festival 2024 Review: “An Update on Our Family” – The Dark Side of Family Vlogging!
Social media has been a continuing growing platform for creators building diverse communities to suit every interest imaginable. There is an audience for almost anything, including family vloggers. These are couples who document their day to day lives and activities with their families, including mundane activities like grocery shopping and getting the kids ready for school. What may seem dull to some, is a form of entertainment for others who form a bond with the families they watch, feeling like they are a part of it.
Myka and James Stauffer began family vlogging in 2012, building their family in the process before their audience’s eyes as they developed a loving community of people around them on YouTube. In 2017 Myka and James decided to adopt a young boy from China whom they named Huxley. When Huxley begins to disappear from their YouTube videos unexpectedly it raises more questions and conspiracies among the internet asking the question, “what happened to Huxley?”
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Rachel Mason’s documentary An Update on Our Family is a three part docuseries focusing on Myka and James Stauffer’s story as well as an exploration on the culture of family vlogging. The docuseries interviews previous fans of Myka and James’s YouTube channel as well as brands they worked with, other family vloggers in the industry, and other adopters of young children.
What elevates the documentary from the ones typically seen on streaming platforms is that the docuseries is able to create a basis of information before diving head first into its subjects. It sets the scene of Youtube family culture, influencer culture, and business making on YouTube to create a better understanding of the subjects and the actions they take. An Update on Our Family explores its subjects from various angles from multiple people and perspectives to give a more well rounded outlook on them.
In the second part of the docuseries we get a better look at Myka and James as a couple and their personal journey navigating YouTube and family vlogging from 2012-2020. As the series progresses it becomes easy to look at the it becomes easy to look at the Stauffer’s as the villains of their own story, allowing views, click, and subscribers to dictate major decisions they make in their lives.
However, Mason treads lightly to let the story unfold the way it happened, allowing for multiple perspectives ranging from a journalist who loathed the Stauffer’s, friends and fans who try to look at both sides of the story, and even adopters who empathize with the decisions the Stauffer’s eventually make. The docuseries never feels like a hit piece but doesn’t shy away from how the culture of influencers and “famous” vloggers often use their business in unethical ways.
During the conclusion of the docuseries, Mason provides more detailed insight and opinions regarding adoption from adopters and adoptees. It opens up the conversation about the mental and emotional struggles adopted children often go through that brings them into their adult life, regardless of whether their childhood was happy. Hannah Cho, a previous major fan of Myka and James’s Youtube vlogs opens up about her own adoption in a way that allows the audience to see a correlation between Hannah and Huxley’s story and how the choices Myka and James made may have more repercussions on Huxley’s future than they bothered to think about.
As far as a docuseries, An Update on Our Family feels relatively well rounded in the topics it brings forward while focusing on one instance in the family vlogging world. It begs questions regarding how family vlogging and the choice of parents to incorporate their children’s experiences, faces, and lives on the internet will affect them later on in life, but these questions remain unanswered.
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Time will tell the impact these videos will have on internet children and Mason informs the audience that not everything can be answered in the present, which makes a documentary more intriguing knowing that the story will continue to unfold even after the credits roll.
‘An Update on Our Family’ Rating – 3.5/5
Follow Steph (the Author) on IG – @cinemasteph_7
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