Influencer parents have found a new and terrifying way to exploit their children via SuperFanVerse, which allows so-called “superfans” of children to spend tens of thousands of dollars for exclusive pictures and videos of them.
Influencer parents who monetize their minor children on social media are receiving heightened scrutiny lately. Several high-profile controversies, including the arrest of former family vlogger Ruby Franke on charges of aggravated child abuse, have highlighted the dark and exploitative side of family vlogging. Now that some children who grew up on YouTube, including Ruby’s daughter, Shari Franke, are speaking out about the dangers of vlogging, attitudes are slowly shifting. States like Utah and California have taken small steps to set up legal protections for child influencers, similar to the protections for child actors, including requiring parents to pay their kids. However, these laws still don’t get to the root of the problem: children can’t consent to having their lives put on social media. There’s also the fear that parents will find loopholes to avoid compensating their kids or maybe even turn to more obscure platforms and practices, such as SuperFanVerse.
Parents monetize their kids in a particularly disturbing manner on SuperFanVerse
Most people aren’t aware that SuperFanVerse exists. The site’s official Instagram page boasts just 59 followers. However, it appears more than a few influencer parents have discovered the obscure site. The site essentially allows creators to “monetize” their fans. It works in a similar fashion to Instagram and YouTube’s paid subscriptions for “exclusive content,” where fans can pay to have access to content that regular subscribers can’t see. On SuperFanVerse, users can set any rate they want for a subscription. They offer monthly, three-month, six-month, and year-long subscription rates, which allow their followers to access otherwise hidden videos and photos. The site has strict rules against sexual content, so users are really just paying for the average content one might see on YouTube or TikTok.
The strange thing about SuperFanVerse is that many of the users are minors. It allows children under 18 to join with a parental consent form. These minors’ accounts include disclaimers in the biographies that they’re “managed” by a parent. What’s even stranger is that some of these children’s subscriptions are going for over $1,000.
On TikTok, mom.uncharted sounded the alarm on SuperFanVerse. In her video, she shared screenshots of a 13-year-old girl’s account. To protect the minor, she didn’t reveal their name or profile picture. However, she included screenshots of the subscription tiers, which included a yearly subscription for a staggering $13,200. The three-month subscription costs $835, while the six-month costs $3,450. It’s evident that this child’s fans are not fellow children and preteens. Their “superfans” are adults. What’s more disturbing is that these children’s parents are perfectly fine with allowing adults to spend thousands of dollars on their children’s pictures and videos.
After learning about SuperFanVerse from mom.uncharted, I made a profile on the site. Right off the bat, my “suggested” creators were largely minors and exclusively female. It’s not hard to identify minor accounts due to the “account managed by parent” disclaimers. If I searched “model,” “gymnast,” or “dancer,” the top accounts that came up were from minors. Of six random minor accounts I pulled up with the parent disclaimer, half included profile pictures or cover photos with a child in a two-piece bathing suit or leotard. A profile that included a cover photo of a child in a two-piece bathsuit had the highest subscription rate of all the profiles, with the year-long subscription sitting at $10,740. The subscription tiers for the other profiles ranged from $10/month to $5,000/year. The screenshots below confirm parents’ involvement and management in these profiles and the outrageous subscription tier rates.
The parents involved in these accounts can’t claim they don’t know the dangers of using SuperFanVerse. It’s not a coincidence that most parent-run accounts include profile pictures of children in swimsuits or highlight their involvement in gymnastics, dance, and modeling. The only people I can think of who would be willing to pay $10,000 for photos and videos of a child doing gymnastics, modeling, or dancing are predators and stalkers. Although SuperFanVerse doesn’t allow sexual content, it does allow photos of children in swimsuits and leotards. Meanwhile, it has been proven that predators make use of regular family vlogging content on YouTube and have posted family vlogging content on pedophile websites and playlists. A lot of family vloggers have been accused of purposefully including thumbnails with their children in bathing suits because they knew it would boost their views. With SuperFanVerse, though, predators don’t have to do the work of skipping through family vlogger videos for the content they want. They’ll have parents hand it directly to them, so long as they pay $10,000.
Published: Mar 10, 2025 01:43 pm