Original subtitles

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

HANNAH CHO: YouTubing life is definitely a tightrope.

When you have people rooting for you,

it is literally the best feeling.

But it is scary how quickly it can turn.

(CELL PHONE BUZZES)

HANNAH: For months, fans had been waiting

for an update on Huxley.

Then Myka posted on her Instagram

this bizarre video.

The setting, the bad lighting.

So, I apologize if you guys are curious

or you're reading these horrible comments

and you're not sure what's going on.

We have actually just filmed a video

that we're gonna share with you

-what is truly going on. -(BABY CRYING)

So it just felt like something really crazy

is happening right now.

I'm sorry, I get a little bit emotional.

HANNAH: And she's using this weird filter

with diamonds coming out of her eyes.

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

HANNAH: It was alarming.

And we'll get you guys that video out

as soon as we can.

HANNAH: Must have been losing it a little bit.

She had to have been.

I really think they had no idea what was about to happen.

♪ (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

♪ A million eyes Following around ♪

♪ Do they see anything? ♪

♪ Do they, do they ♪

♪ Want to break you Love to hate you ♪

♪ Need to take you down ♪

♪ (THEME MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

(TRAFFIC WHIZZING)

♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

SOPHIE ROSS: I would never call myself, like, a watchdog.

But that's really what it boils down to, I feel like.

Huxley had, at that point, been in the home

for two and a half years.

It's just Huxley, Huxley, Huxley, Huxley, Huxley

in every single video pretty much.

He was the star of the channel.

And then suddenly...

(CHUCKLES) ...you're just seeing cleaning videos

and bedroom makeover

and all of these videos that did not involve Huxley.

And her followers

weren't really there for the cleaning videos,

they were there for Huxley.

♪ (MUSIC TURNS TENSE) ♪

SOPHIE: It'd be one thing if she was just phasing Huxley

-out of her content... -(MOUSE CLICKS)

...but she was retroactively messing with her old content.

She could have kept ignoring it,

but at this point she had to post a video.

(MOUSE CLICKING)

(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)

(MOUSE CLICKING)

(COMPUTER CHIMES)

-♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪ -(KEYS JINGLING)

HANNAH: That morning, I saw notifications online

about the Stauffers, the Stauffers, the Stauffers.

And I went to their channel and watched this video.

You could just tell something was different,

something was off.

It just felt like something big was coming.

(CAMERA RUSTLING)

-(CAMERA BEEPS) -♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

(MOUSE CLICKS)

So, this is by far the hardest video

-James and I have ever publicly had to make. -Yeah.

I can't say enough how hard Myka has tried

throughout this entire journey

and the amount of effort she's put into this

and helping Huxley as much as she can.

(MYKA STAUFFER SNIFFLES)

There's not an ounce of our body that doesn't love Huxley

with all of our being. There wasn't a...

a minute that I didn't try our hardest and...

(MOUSE CLICKS)

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

I want to believe they're having genuine reaction,

but now they're trying to paint it like,

"You guys, it was so hard on us,"

like they're trying to make it seem

like they're the victims in it.

Once Huxley came home,

there was a lot more special needs

that we weren't aware of and that we were not told.

And we've been trying to get his needs met.

(VOICE QUIVERING) It's really hard 'cause...

(SNIFFLES)

...we truly love him.

MYKA: Numerous medical professionals

have felt that he needed more

and they found somebody that they felt would be

ultimately the best fit.

His now new forever family...

(MOUSE CLICKS)

HANNAH: All of this...

just to tell us that he's not with them anymore.

There was a definite shift.

Suddenly, now it's all about his privacy and his future.

The reason why we can't go into detail

of what actually transpired

is because we're truly going to protect Huxley's privacy

and not let people know

what happened and what-- Everything that went on...

-To make us make this decision. -This decision.

MYKA: That's his privacy,

so we're not gonna talk about that.

-That's not-- That's not appropriate. -(MOUSE CLICKS)

Yeah, there's just holes in all of this.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

SOPHIE: When I saw that video, I was kind of just like shocked.

So at that point, I decided to tweet about it.

"Extremely depressed reading about the influencer

who secretly rehomed him,

blocked people asking about him,

and put out a video making herself the victim."

Shortly after I tweeted about it,

a journalist from Business Insider

picked up the story

and that's when it really started to blow up.

MARGOT HARRIS: She goes on to say,

"To be clear, she pretended he didn't exist for months

and deleted comments from concerned followers."

Sophie has developed a Twitter following,

and kind of as a side hobby, she exposes influencers

and their bad behavior, what they're doing.

She's a good storyteller and she's very extreme.

She gets to operate a little bit differently than journalists

in that she can kind of just take her first thought

and her first reaction and run to Twitter

and start the conversation, you know,

where writers have to be a lot more careful

and fact checking a lot more and watch their tone.

So, if Sophie's posting about something,

it's gonna get a lot of traction,

it's gonna suddenly be a very fiery debate

and a lot of people are gonna care.

I immediately Slacked my editor and I was like,

"We need to write about this."

I knew that people were going to be outraged

and I knew we needed to write it really fast

because covering influencers, it moves really quickly.

And I knew BuzzFeed would get on it immediately.

STEPHANIE MCNEAL: I had never heard of the Stauffer family.

I knew that once we and others started writing about it,

it was just gonna catapult this story.

And ultimately, you know,

you wanna make sure that you're not causing more harm

to the child at the center of this.

But at the same time,

this was a family that had been so public

and had gotten so many accolades for what they had done

in adopting their child.

So we decided that the public interest was there.

The Stauffers published the video on May 26th.

MARGOT: My article about the Stauffers

came out on May 27th at 2:20 p.m.

STEPHANIE: My article came out that night.

In terms of traffic, this was the biggest story

that I ever wrote for BuzzFeed News.

I had no idea people who had never heard of the Stauffers

would be this interested.

I think it has almost seven million page views

at this point.

-(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING) -(COMPUTER CHIMES)

The story really took off

once the media started to pay attention.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

SOPHIE: It kind of starts going viral.

And suddenly, the BBC

and other international news sites

are picking up the story.

The world couldn't believe it.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

(SPEAKING GERMAN)

(SPEAKING INDONESIAN)

Most of us watching, if not all of us watching,

it just didn't make sense what they were saying.

We've been trying to protect his privacy,

his rights.

How can you protect his privacy when you've done nothing

but milk his whole entire existence online?

Numerous medical professionals

have felt that he needed a different fit.

What kind of medical professional

would advise you to give up your child?

I-- I question their motives.

I question if they ever really loved this child.

SOPHIE: The story gained

so much public interest 'cause it was so shocking.

People just didn't really genuinely think

that the emotions in the video were real.

(SOBBING) Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Oh, God, here we go with the fucking crocodile tears.

Oh, so authentic.

The inflammation that you would normally see

around the eyes as the tear ducts

begin to open up and inflame,

you don't see any of that on her face.

SOPHIE: Myka did receive

a really, really large amount of vitriol.

Do I feel like a failure as a mom?

Like, 500 percent.

Failure as a mom, failure as a human being.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Both you and your fucking husband.

These people are selfish, greedy, fucking pigs.

Yeah, the Internet was pissed.

If you type Myka Stauffer, even just start it, M-Y-K,

it comes up and it's just pages and pages

of videos dissecting what they did,

breaking them down.

Hate videos. It's wild.

This channel, he made 54 videos,

hours-long content of just

ranting and raging about the Stauffers. It's crazy.

STEPHANIE: So, in my experience on the Internet,

-this is how it will evolve. -♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

If you have a compelling enough reason

to dislike you or to be questioning you,

people will start their own dedicated communities

just to investigations.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

STEPHANIE: People just started going back through

hours and hours and hours of footage.

-(TAPE SQUEALING) -(DISTORTED CHATTER)

-We're doing cuddle-fest. -We got shnuggle puggles with the Huxy-bear.

Huxy.

STEPHANIE: And the Stauffers were daily vlogging.

So there was a lot of footage

about what Huxley's life in the home was like.

MYKA: Look how tired he is. He can't even help it.

STEPHANIE: How they treated him.

MYKA: You can't be rocking in that crib like that.

Mommy doesn't like that.

And if you share your life on the Internet,

that means that people can dissect it.

The way that Myka was responding made me feel ill.

MYKA: We are having meltdowns

'cause we've already had breakfast.

-(HUXLEY STAUFFER CRYING) -MYKA: Excuse me.

What do you want? You do?

Okay, we'll get a bite in a minute.

You have to wait. You're gonna sit right here.

Why would you put a child in timeout for wanting food?

You're going to have meltdowns.

It is your job as a parent to deescalate.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

SOPHIE: One of the videos that really caught my attention

that I ended up posting on Twitter,

was when she was talking about

downgrading Huxley's speech therapy.

We're gonna go to a different speech therapist,

not the one that's... (LAUGHS) ...500 dollars a month.

-JAMES STAUFFER: Oh yeah, tell them. -But we're gonna go to the one

that's, um...

It's like 70 dollars for 30 minutes.

Everyone was freaking out because she's talking

about how expensive the therapy is

and then they're noticing

that she's wearing this expensive bracelet.

-Cartier bracelet. -Cartier watch.

-Cartier watch. -YOUTUBER: A Cartier bracelet.

Sixty-five-hundred-dollar bracelet on her wrist.

But you can't afford 500 dollars a month

for a speech therapist?

Not 500 dollars for 30 minutes.

-JAMES: Yeah. -No, no, no.

SOPHIE: It was just very, very interesting

falling into this rabbit hole of this woman

who clearly was just living the life of luxury

while apparently saying that,

you know, she didn't have the resources

to take care of this human being that she had adopted.

(CLICKS TONGUE)

Do I think they adopted Huxley for the views?

I... I think they adopted Huxley

for multiple reasons,

as these decisions are always complicated,

but I definitely think getting more views is a part of it.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

People really, really, really mobilized

to, like, you know, hold them accountable.

People ended up messaging sponsors.

Go onto Twitter. Tag the brands.

One by one, brands were dropping her left and right.

Pretty much every single brand

that she'd ever partnered with.

People had reached out to Fabletics

and I guess Kate herself

to confirm they were no longer working with Myka.

Kate Hudson. That is wild. Is that real Kate Hudson?

"She was terminated. Thank you for your awareness and care."

"We are not currently working with Stauffer family.

Do not have plans to partner with them in the future."

Even Barbie canceled her.

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

Within days of the story breaking,

she was pretty much dropped by every brand.

(STATIC CRACKLING)

SOPHIE: That's it for your luxury vehicles and vacations

because no brands are going to work with you anymore.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

But then the mob wasn't just happy

with the brands dropping them, they wanted more.

It's like they were out for blood.

It was almost like they wanted some kind of pain

or suffering to feel justice.

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

And so they kept digging, and this one sleuther

found this thing that we just all couldn't believe it.

(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)

Back in 2017, Myka had uploaded a video to YouTube...

(MOUSE CLICKING)

...and it was deleted very quickly after.

And re-uploaded.

But the new version was 20 seconds shorter.

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -(DISTORTED CHATTER PLAYING)

(CHATTER CONTINUES)

And so people were like, "What was in that 20 seconds?

What is she-- What is she trying to hide?"

(STATIC CRACKLES)

(CHATTER STOPS)

It almost makes me laugh, because the Internet,

and especially the YouTube community,

you cannot do stuff like that.

You think you can fool them and you cannot.

And if it's ever existed online, people will find it.

And it turns out this is what it was.

-The Stauffers are showing... -(HUXLEY BABBLING)

HANNAH: ...just day-to-day footage and then...

(JAMES YELPS)

Hi, Huxley. What you doing in there, man?

You reorganizing the shoe closet for me, eh?

(HUXLEY GIGGLES)

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

SOPHIE: There are a lot of things you can do on the Internet

and the things you absolutely cannot do

are what some would consider child abuse.

♪ (EERIE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

SOPHIE: And that's what people were alleging was going on here.

The Stauffers were allegedly duct taping his arms.

Duct tape.

Thick silver tape around this boy's hand.

To get him to stop sucking his thumb

and using that as a preventative measure.

I would never in a bajillion years

duct tape my son's skin.

Having tape on your child, duct tape in particular,

what parent thinks that's okay?

Duct tape is something you use to, like, kidnap people.

Once people saw the duct tape on Huxley,

everyone just started picturing the absolute worst.

Wondering, "Hey, are they telling the truth

about him getting placed in a new, loving home?"

They just completely lost all trust

from that point forward.

(STATIC CRACKLES)

Where is Huxley?

They keep saying that they're adamant

that he is not missing,

but then where is he?

This is criminal and they should be arrested.

People started throwing around the most insane,

unfounded conspiracy theories.

This child could be in complete danger.

She could have sold him.

She could have buried him in the backyard

after getting too mad at him one time.

Maybe Huxley was just, like, passed along

on a Facebook group, which is considered trafficking.

They've even told their children

that he was going to kill them in their sleep.

There really isn't any rules here.

And, yeah, everyone was very along for the ride.

Where's Huxley? Where'd you put the baby?

Where is Huxley Stauffer, Myka?

Where is Huxley? Tell the police where he's at.

(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(MOUSE CLICKING)

-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -(PHONE RINGING)

REPRESENTATIVE: So, we received phone calls

and multiple emails

from people that were making allegations

-of possible, um, child abuse. -♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

REPRESENTATIVE: It was unusual.

It makes us scratch our head

when more than one or two or three comes in.

Of course, like, "Wait, what's going on?"

DIRECTOR: This is the police report.

This right here?

Yeah, I've seen this actually.

HANNAH: Delaware County Sheriff's Office.

Some redacted stuff in here.

The blacked-out name is Myka, right?

And it looks like they opened the case on June 1st

which is four or five days after, um, the video went up.

"I advised the Stauffers that our main concerns

from the allegations we have received

are the safety and wellbeing of..."

And I'm assuming it says Huxley.

"...along with the allegations of abuse

and human trafficking of him."

Whoa.

Myka stated they were getting threats every day

and people are threatening to slit her kids' throat

because they think they did something wrong.

That is intense.

HANNAH: "They have had 35 death threats.

They will be moving from their home

in Powell, Ohio."

SOPHIE: "After conducting wellbeing checks

on Myka Stauffer's biological children,

it was determined that there were no signs

of physical abuse against any of the children.

As far as the talk of possible human trafficking against them,

it was determined that the process of his adoption

is being conducted legally." Oh, they're talking about Huxley.

Crazy.

Definitely humanizes them more.

Definitely gives, like, the other side of the story.

I can't say I'm surprised, honestly.

Um, people get death threats

for things way more innocuous than this.

I mean, at this point, I think a lot of the time,

influencers are just sort of advised to get over it,

unless something really seems to pose a credible threat.

It's now treated as, like, a part of the job.

I mean, journalists get it.

I've gotten some crazy messages in my day, for sure. (CHUCKLES)

DIRECTOR:

Mm-hmm.

There are plenty of-- plenty of death threats like that.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Sickening.

It's unfathomable that people would treat anyone this way,

people who are ostensibly concerned

about a child's best interest, and then turning around

and making death threats against this family.

That's unconscionable.

I'm the acting president and CEO

at the National Council For Adoption.

We just call ourselves NCFA.

In May of 2020,

we started getting a lot of media inquiries.

The story had generated a lot of headlines.

It was of concern to many people in the community

and we were being asked to weigh in

and to issue a particular statement on this.

A lot of people were really upset

about the decision because

any time there is a disruption or a dissolution,

that is a failure.

This was a failure.

It represents that there was a breakdown.

Where I would want to caution us is we don't know all the details

in this particular family's story.

And they very well may have been making

a decision that's in this child's best interest.

Dissolutions happen,

and it's important that we recognize that it happens

because there are gonna be circumstances

where the best way to meet a child's needs

is in a different setting,

perhaps a really therapeutic family setting

to provide ongoing support in a way that the prior family

was unable to.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

ASHLEY: I understand the negative opinions

because I used to think that kind of same way.

"How selfish. Adoption's a lifelong decision.

Being a parent is a lifelong decision.

It was a little bit hard

and then you decide to throw in the towel."

-♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -The only reason I know any better

is because it happened to us.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ASHLEY: In 2014, my husband and I decided to adopt a child.

Like the Stauffers, we decided to do

an international special needs adoption.

And our motivation behind it was that

we wanted to give a child a home that actually needed a home,

and not a child that people are waiting for.

And we wanted a child

that probably wasn't gonna get adopted,

or not get adopted soon.

I don't even know which trips these are.

-There's so many of them. -Yeah, your memory is bad.

This is... Oh, actually, now I'm not sure.

In the beginning, when we started the process,

you do get some medical information.

You get as much as they have, a few-page document about it.

Our daughter, she was four and a half years old.

She weighed 15 pounds.

She couldn't walk. She couldn't talk.

Um, she couldn't sit up on her own.

She had a stomach issue that we didn't know about.

-ASHLEY'S HUSBAND: There's a tummy ache one. -Oh, yes. Yeah, it is.

Anything with frowny faces means tummy ache.

ASHLEY: Yeah, she-- she always had a stomachache,

all of her early pictures.

She draws the tummy ache and a frowny face, usually.

At the very beginning,

she just screamed all day, every day...

(CHUCKLES) ...like, just screamed.

Eventually, the tantrums got less and less and less.

But it was quite a long journey from there.

This is what she came in.

ASHLEY'S HUSBAND: Yeah. The outfit she was wearing

when we picked her up.

Yeah. She was four,

wearing this little number.

CHILD: Wait, you still have that?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

CHILD: I think it still fits me.

ASHLEY: Mm, I doubt it.

It's been in your closet this whole time.

I think we went into the second time very confident,

thinking, "Okay, we've done the hardest that it can be."

You know, we've done screaming all day long.

And even though it was hard, it had been so rewarding

and it was just something we really wanted to do again.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ASHLEY: The second time we adopted, we met him.

He was in general very calm.

It seemed like, "Okay, this is a good fit."

After we signed the paperwork, we headed home.

And within two days, we started to notice that

things were not what we thought they were.

♪ (MUSIC TURNS TENSE) ♪

ASHLEY: I don't feel like it's appropriate

to share a lot of the really hard things,

but it just went downhill from there.

What made me realize that it was the end

and it needed to be the end,

I wasn't functioning anymore, I couldn't remember anything.

(INHALES)

I couldn't put a sentence together sometimes.

I was just scared of what I might do

if I was pushed any further.

(VOICE QUIVERING) I started to, like,

have thoughts of harming him.

And I know now, obviously, I would never harm a child...

because I would do literally anything else not to,

including find a better place for them.

♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

CHILD: One, two, three, four, five.

-One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten. -(CHUCKLES)

(CAT PURRS)

ASHLEY: I'm sure the Stauffer family

had different challenges than what we've experienced.

But I do know that there's more to the story than just,

you know, what you can show in a few videos.

Myka, she kinda said the same thing.

JAMES: You're not having a good day today.

We never tell you guys the truth.

And that's why you don't see Huxley a lot in the vlogs.

(HUXLEY FUSSING)

He's probably having a meltdown.

-Are you done? -(MOUSE CLICKS)

ASHLEY: They made some choices that I wouldn't have made

in terms of, like, privacy.

But people were saying, "Oh, it didn't seem that bad.

I could have handled that. Why can't they?"

The thing that's interesting about them

is that people say both things.

They say, "How dare you post his tantrums on YouTube?"

But also, "From what we've seen, it's not that bad."

So it's like, okay, so you want them

to show everything

so that you can judge

whether or not it was bad enough. (CHUCKLES)

But also, if they do that, that's bad.

There's really no winning in that situation.

We'll never have a full picture of what was going on there.

No one's ever gonna know, right?

You don't know until you've lived it.

♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ASHLEY: People were just accusing them of being

the worst kind of people.

So I posted a Reddit thread.

-(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING) -(MOUSE CLICKING)

ASHLEY: "The title makes it sound flippant,

but I'm low-key terrified to say anything about it.

The story is big right now

about a YouTube couple who 'rehomed'

their internationally adopted child who had autism.

Last year, I had to do exactly that.

Please, no death threats."

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

Probably the biggest issue

with the fact that these situations do happen

is the fact that people don't talk about them.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ASHLEY: People do think that everything's gonna be

rainbows and butterflies

and their child's gonna be perfect,

and all they need is love and a little bit

of medical attention, and then...

that will erase all kinds of trauma.

I did feel like someone needs to share from the other side

because it's not always true.

And it hasn't been my experience.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

-(BIRDS CHIRPING) -♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

HANNAH: What's so interesting and fascinating

about the Stauffer story in particular

is that we all have things that trigger us.

For me personally,

they were gonna shine such a positive light

on adoption and maybe heal some of my own wounds.

As an adoptee,

you're literally starting your life out

being thrown away, to an extent.

And I know we have to say positive things like,

"They wanted a better life for you,"

your biological parents.

"They couldn't provide for you. Maybe it's a war-torn country.

Maybe you had medical stuff that they couldn't pay for,

so they were hoping for the best."

But you start your life knowing that you were not good enough,

not loved enough, not worthy enough.

You were already a burden.

So then when you see an adoptee and you're rooting for them,

like, that they're gonna have a family that loves them

and kind of makes up for that loss

they've already experienced,

and then the message is that it was too hard

or it just wasn't the right "fit for us."

Like, it's not a shoe, okay? I'm sorry it didn't fit

and then you just can return it to the store

and just not think about it anymore.

So it kind of affirms that,

um, we weren't wanted to start with

and then we still aren't wanted

even after someone tells us we were.

I think that's what's hard.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

RYAN HANLON: We ought to recognize

the difficulty here, the complexity here.

The challenge for any parent to make a decision that

they're not gonna stay together as a family.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to respond compassionately,

people chose to respond out of anger or hatred.

Inaccurate and very defaming remarks

that can destroy people's lives.

And impacts not just these parents

but the children as well.

That's something that's gonna be following

this family and these children throughout their lives.

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

-Can you say, "Mama"? -CHILD 1: Mama.

-Can you say... -(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)

(HAROLD EARLS GROWLS, LAUGHS)

-(CHILD 2 SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) -Oh.

RACHEL EARLS: Babe, what are we gonna do?

(HAROLD LAUGHING)

Social media has created

these beautiful moments in our life

and has connected us to our followers, right?

Our Earls fam. And it's been an amazing thing.

It also has a terrible side to it,

and that is the cyberbullying.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

CHANNON ROSE: It's a little blue snail!

Something that's really scary

that family channels have to deal with

are people that will just literally do everything

in their power to try to hurt you.

I remember one night, in the middle of the night,

I got a knock on the door and it was the police.

-OFFICER: An anonymous person called us... -TRAVIS DEAN: Okay.

OFFICER: ...and said that somebody was on Facebook Live,

-saying they were gonna... -CHANNON: The police are like,

"We've gotten a call saying that you're performing

sex acts with your kids,

we need to check on them. Are they okay?"

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

CHANNON: I had to wake up Snow when she was just a baby

and bring her downstairs to show the police

that she was totally fine and not being abused or injured.

A lot of times when the police get these calls,

maybe they think that it's a neighbor calling

or a family member or a friend.

They don't realize that these are people

we've never met before in our lives.

Now, every time I get a knock on the door,

I'm scared and paranoid it's gonna be the police

trying to, like, take my kids away or, like...

who knows what stories someone called to tell them.

-...the back yard. -Is this thing on? (LAUGHS)

HAROLD: We're-- We're humans.

We're not just, like, actors on a screen.

And so I think that's part of the problem,

is they see it as entertainment,

and the real human often gets left behind

in the drama and the strife that's caused with it.

(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)

SOPHIE: When the story blew up,

the names and the faces of all of the children

were blasted everywhere.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

And it's really...

sad and tragic to think about the effect that

this had to have had on the rest of the children.

DIRECTOR:

Yeah, no. I don't really-- (LAUGHS)

I think that the responsibility lies on, you know,

the parents being shitty human beings, honestly.

♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

STEPHANIE: There's a lot of darkness

in family YouTuber communities

and the response to them.

In this case with the Stauffers,

people definitely took advantage of this

for their own YouTube channels.

-(MOUSE CLICKS) -I started talking about it

and the channel kind of exploded.

Five thousand likes and I'll do a part three.

Myka made sure to exploit her child's

entire adoption journey.

Don't forget to subscribe down below

and give this video a thumbs up.

(MOUSE CLICKS)

♪ (MUSIC TURNS TENSE) ♪

SOPHIE: There are now thousands, maybe even millions of families

just like the Stauffers,

vloggers and YouTubers that are

putting their children's faces out there.

I'm pregnant.

YOUTUBER 1: We got a daughter!

BOTH: Aw.

-YOUTUBER 2: Let's go, everyone. -(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)

SOPHIE: The business of family vlogging

and mommy vloggers

is still booming

and probably will be for a long time.

Give this video a big thumbs up.

(COMPUTER CHIMING)

SOPHIE: Obviously, there is a demand

for this type of content.

-(OVERLAPPING CHATTER) -YOUTUBER 1: Yes! Yes!

YOUTUBER 2: Of course he will.

-Come on. Let's go. -YOUTUBER 1: Higher. Let's go.

YOUTUBER 2: Let's go, let's go...

I think there are a lot of ethical issues

with monetizing a child's entire childhood,

especially if you don't protect their privacy,

and you're doing things

like sharing their embarrassing moments,

sharing their trauma, all of that kind of stuff.

♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

STEPHANIE: I think the shame is that

instead of channeling this moral outrage and saying,

"You know what? Maybe this is the time

to seriously take a look at family YouTubers,"

people just yelled about the Stauffers on the Internet

and sent death threats.

Which-- Okay, but that didn't help any other children.

Let's put some laws into place.

How can we make this safe for kids?

While there are laws for child actors for instance,

there aren't really laws in place for the children

of influencers, mommy vloggers.

They are working.

They are making money for adults.

(IMITATES DRUMROLL) Sponsored by Welch's Fruit Snacks, baby!

FAMILY: Yeah!

YOUTUBER 1: We got this epic new Oculus.

YOUTUBER 2: This video is sponsored by Oculus.

YOUTUBER 3: Parents, you can find out more

about today's Play-Doh sets

by visiting the link in the description box of this video.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)

SOPHIE: About a month after the announcement about Huxley,

Myka tried to do damage control

by posting a lengthy statement on Instagram.

I'll pull it up because it's her last Instagram post,

like, to this day.

Uh, do you want me to read it?

She goes "I want to first off apologize

for the uproar and take full responsibility

for all of the hurt that I have caused.

I'm sorry for letting down so many women

that looked up to me as a mother."

HANNAH: "I wanted to help so bad,

I was willing to bring home any child that needed me.

For this, I was naive foolish, and arrogant."

I also want to mention that moms need a safe place

to ask for help when they are struggling.

No questions asked.

Praying that Huxley only has the best future

in the entire world."

This whole thing, this apology

was the last that anyone ever heard from Myka.

(MOUSE CLICKING)

(STATIC CRACKLES)

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

Even to this day,

people are still kind of calling for their heads

even though they left the Internet.

I mean, James didn't leave the Internet,

but Myka left the Internet.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(MOUSE CLICKS)

STEPHANIE: Stauffer Garage has been able to survive

because it has nothing to do with the family.

But also, people blamed Myka a lot more than James,

which isn't surprising if you've been a woman.

(LAUGHS) Um...

Of course people are gonna blame the mom more, basically saying

he was the good guy and she was the bad guy,

which there was no evidence for.

It's just heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking, the whole situation.

DIRECTOR: I'm just curious, when it all unfolded,

did you reach out to Myka or had you been in-- No.

No, I never reached out to her and I feel really bad.

I feel like I probably should have.

Um, but I was scared.

DIRECTOR: Did you follow what went down with the Stauffers?

Mm-hmm.

DIRECTOR: I mean, maybe you can tell me a little about that story.

-Just be careful. -Yeah.

Be very careful.

CHANNON: People are scared.

Because if you are even associated

with her in the slightest,

then you will also get canceled.

Have you guys reached out to the Stauffers?

DIRECTOR:

And they're not partaking?

DIRECTOR:

Exactly. There's nothing they can say and they know that.

♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

STEPHANIE: I mean, it sounds kinda ridiculous, but...

she was truly canceled.

I don't think she can come back from this.

It feels awful to get canceled

and having all the people that once loved you, hate you.

I don't know why people do this.

I don't know if it makes them feel better

to tear other people down.

The cyber bullies, they win if we stop being vulnerable,

-if we stop sharing our life. -Yes.

HAROLD: The whole point is to impact other people positively.

And if we're like,

"We're not comfortable doing this anymore,

we're gonna stop, or put our guards up,"

well, congratulations. That's exactly what they wanted.

HANNAH: I look back now and I feel like I'm sorry

for all the pain that their whole family went through

and that they experienced.

I know that they're real people who go to sleep at night

and they have feelings just like the rest of us,

but sometimes we don't know our boundaries

or we don't know where the lines are

if people don't cross them.

And I feel like they kind of did that for us.

SOPHIE: This is kind of the first generation, really,

that's living on social media in this way.

-(CHILD FUSSING) -Thanks for watching, guys.

CHILD: No.

HANNAH: When I was a kid, the Internet didn't exist.

So when I decided to start sharing myself

and create my own online presence,

it was very much my decision.

And now all the children don't have that.

And before they're even able to decide

how much they want the world to know them,

they already have this huge Internet thumbprint.

STEPHANIE: I think the next decade

is going to be extremely illuminating for everyone

when these kids start coming out and saying,

"I was a vlogger kid. I didn't like it,"

or "I did like it."

We simply don't know how these kids are gonna feel.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

HANNAH: We all want a nice little bow at the end,

whether it's a happy ending or just closure in general.

I think what's so nuanced about this story in particular

is that there are still a lot of question marks.

SOPHIE: "On June 9th, 2020,

Huxley was in the process

of being adopted by a new family.

"Deputy Woods contacted his adoptive family

to conduct a well-being check.

Huxley's adoptive mother was singing a song to him

as he was sitting on her lap, smiling.

Huxley appeared to be very happy and well taken care of.

At this time, the investigation will be closed out

with no further follow-up from our office."

STEPHANIE: It seems like he is in a good environment,

so I think that is a net positive, I suppose.

HANNAH: Huxley's still out there somewhere

and we may never get the closure we're looking for.

Honestly, I kind of like it that way.

Because now, I can create my own conclusion.

I hope he can grow up and have a better life

than we could have ever imagined for him.

And the fact that we don't have to know

kind of gives me a little peace.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪