A mum has hit back at those who are criticising her for making her four-year-old son into a child influencer.
Nina Gonthier’s son Jerome has his own Instagram profile with 97,000 people following along.
Jerome’s account outshines his influencer and model mother’s account by 25,000 followers with the Queensland boy earning a few thousand dollars a year due to his brand deals. Ms Gonthier said the cash is invested in her son’s future.
The mother-of-two, who appeared on The Project to hit back at critics on Monday night, began sharing her life online close to a decade ago.
She decided to document her pregnancy and that is when a lot of kid-centric brands began to send her products to test and review, such as prams and bassinettes.
Things had mostly been smooth sailing but as Jermone’s following grew Ms Gonthier noticed other accounts were stealing her son’s photos and posting them as their own, according to Four Corners.
A fake adoption agency in the United States even had Jerome listed on their website with photos in various stages of his life.
“In the moment, when I was working to get the website shut down, I did lock down Jerome’s profile,” Ms Gonthier told The Project.
“It was a bit of a scary moment and a slap of reality of what it can really be like. But once all that was sorted and the chaos calmed down we went smoothly back into it. There’s always risk in these things.”
However, despite this shocking experience, Ms Gonthier has continued posting and making money on her son’s behalf. But many accuse Ms Gonthier — and other parents like her — of putting their children in harm’s way.
“It’s completely not the case. It’s no different to Best & Less, Big W, Bonds, using kids to advertise their products. For me it’s just the behind the scenes of that and you guys get to see what the reality of that is,” she said.
Ms Gonthier said she doesn’t think she posts anything her son would find embarrassing but as he gets older the decision is ultimately up to him if her wants to continue.
There has been a huge push for regulation in this “kidfluencer” and “family vlogging” space as there are no laws in Australia that specifically govern child influencers. While the Australian market is relatively small in comparison to the US, experts are crying out for one.
Tama Leaver, Professor of internet Studies at Curtin University, told the ABC in 2022 that he would like to see Australia follow France, which has rules regulating how much a child can work online, all money goes into an account they can access at 16 and platforms must take down a child’s content if requested.
Australian Influencer Marketing Council released a code of practice in 2020, and for the Law Society Journal Media Arts Lawyers’ Stephanie Scott said there were current child labour laws that could be tweaked to cover this area.
Ms Scott said there was a “grey area” currently where if the child’s work is managed by an agency then the agency tales care of all the work permits but when it’s managed by a parent, it’s not as clear.