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“My 12-year-old sister wants to be a Youtube Blogger. But I won’t let her.”

First thing’s first, you need to know a few things about my talented, hilarious, creative sister.

She’s never been the type of girl to enjoy sport or the great outdoors. She tried dancing for awhile, we tried to talk her into netball – “all your friends are doing it, c’mon!” – and finally we got so desperate that I take her to the beach each weekend for a swim. You can imagine my delight when it’s cold. We just needed to get her out of the house every once in awhile because she is seemingly glued to the screen of her computer.

So basically, she’s an indoors person.

And as anyone who hasn't been living under a rock will know, technology is taking over aka the perfect provider of indoor activities. I'm only eight years older than my sister, but in those days playing snake on your parents phone was the greatest source of entertainment. Now there are music videos to be watched, shows to live-stream, celebrity gossip to catch up on, and most importantly, total strangers to watch as they do ordinary things on Youtube.

And Youtube is where my problems lie. You see, my sister is a technological whiz. She started an online blog about a year ago, which doesn't have any pictures of her, her real name or age anywhere in sight, but does have her writing about her favourite online game, Fantage, to other fans of the dress up website. She has about 100 followers, most of whom also keep their identities secret. She interacts with her anonymous followers on a daily basis, talking mostly about the game and their hobbies. It's a bit of innocent fun, and for along time that was enough for my sister.

The issue is, she's good at what she does. She's an excellent editor. Brilliant at photography. Exquisite public speaker. Clever writer. And she wants to turn those skills into a profession. She just wants to do it so young, and that's what I'm so afraid of. There is no way of people knowing how the whole world is going to react to them, but I don't think I'm ready for her to find out. I told her to wait until she's 18, sentiments echoed by our mother too, but she sees that as a perfect injustice. "It's SO far away!" she says. True. But for good reason.
I did some research before writing this piece because I wanted to see how far the Youtube blogging takes over a person's life. You know, when they reach the levels of Youtube "fame". Turns out, it changes their entire way of living. They let their commenters see what they look like, who their partner is, what their house looks like (once they've cleaned it), what they put into their morning breakfast smoothie, what mail they've received, which park they go for walks in, which gym they visit, where they holiday, what their mum looks like post-surgery, how they tidy their fridge... and that was just on one young girl's channel.

 

When they go through breakups, acne, illness, grief, marriage, birth, or plastic surgery, the camera is there, steadied to record the moment for their fans. I get it's a way of interacting, but these people don't know you. You don't owe them your right to privacy, so why are thousands of young people giving it away for money?

And why does my sister want that life at just 12?

At the moment the option is off the table. She's severely disappointed, and probably hoping our family will change its mind, but we're not so sure. What would you do?

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