Category: YouTube

Michael Bay is working on a Skibidi Toilet movie, does the world need this?

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date May 23, 2025

Show of hands: how many of you are familiar with the whole “Skibiti Toilet” thing? If you’ve been around anyone in Gen Alpha, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Skibidi” before. When I asked my kids what it meant, they rolled their eyes and assured me that it was not a bad word. ”It’s just a singing head in a toilet”, they said. ”It sings dumb songs!”

Obvs, I had to Google it and the phrase comes from a YouTube series that’s indeed about a man’s head in a toilet bowl. It wasn’t just some random weird viral vid, either. The Skibidi Toilet channel has a whole-ass plot about singing toilet-heads being at war with people that have cameras or televisions for heads. This is where Michael Bay enters the chat. He’s not one to say no to a potentially outrageous, big-budget film that involves blowing stuff up. As such, he’s now the man who is going to bring us a Skibidi Toilet movie.

In our increasingly siloed culture, where neighbor is separated from neighbor by algorithm-enforced divides, two screen icons have joined forces to bring peace and unity: Michael Bay, and toilet with a man’s singing head poking out of the drain.

Invisible Narratives, the media company run by former Paramount head Adam Goodman, where Bay serves as chief creative advisor, announced on Tuesday that the Transformers franchise director is officially working on a Skibidi Toilet project.

For the uninitiated, Skibidi Toilet is a mega-viral YouTube series that chronicles a dystopian war between a race of singing toilet-men and a race of humanoid figures with TVs, cameras, and speakers for heads.

Rendered using the crude, publicly-accessible 3D graphics software Source Filmmaker since 2023 by Georgia-based creator Alexey Gerasimov, Skibidi Toilet is the height of nascent Gen Alpha culture. The videos are depraved yet sophisticated, hyperactive yet requiring devotional attention to narrative, and gonzo yet replete with naked emblems of cultural fears around.

Sound familiar? Ever seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon?

Gerasimov uploaded the first entry of the sprawling Skibidi Toilet series to his channel in February 2023. The 11-second video swivels the viewer through a house, past a tiny man in a suit, and into a bathroom, where a man’s menacing head launches out from the drain of the toilet and vamps for the implied camera.

He sings along to an unlicensed mashup of Timbaland and Nelly Furtado’s 2007 “Give It to Me” and Bulgarian artist Biser King’s “Dom Dom Yes Yes,” which contains the lyrics “щи бъди,” or “shti dibi” (“you will be”), which sound like the nonsense word “skibidi.”

Those 11 seconds have mutated within two short years to hundreds of videos comprising hours of worldbuilding.

[From Entertainment Weekly]

I will go on record right now as saying that the world does not need a Skibidi Toilet movie. There are some things that are best left as Internet sensations. From the YouTube clips I’ve seen, the Skibidi Toilet brand is made for a pretty niche audience that pays “devotional attention to narrative.” I wonder if they’d leave it as an animated head singing in a toilet bowl or if they’ll attempt to make it live action. I’m leaning towards the animated option.

When we talked about more video game movies coming down the pipeline thanks to the success of A Minecraft Movie, I said that Hollywood should make more of those types of movies aimed at children. I didn’t mean this! With that on my mind, I asked my kids, who are only familiar with it from what they’ve learned/seen from friends at school, whether they’d watch a Skibidi Toilet movie and they both said they wouldn’t. That said, I have no doubt that Bay will pull out all of the stops to make this movie into a blockbuster hit.

Photos are screenshots from Youtube/DaFuq?!Boom! and credit Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, IMAGO/Avalon

Tags michael bay, movies, youtube

Kids Social Media YouTube

Ruby Franke’s daughter Shari: ‘family vlogging and family content is unethical’

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date April 1, 2025

Last week, Utah passed legislation that put some protections into place for child influencers, making it the fourth state to do so. Family influencing is a big thing in Utah. There are so many TikTokers, YouTubers, and even a reality TV series based on the industry. Utah’s bill was passed as a result of the Ruby Franke case, in which a popular ‘mom-fluencer’ was arrested for horrifically abusing her two younger children. The Franke family began as a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers, which starred Ruby, her now ex-husband, Kevin, and their six children.

Following Ruby’s arrest and conviction, her two older children, Shari Franke, 21, and Chad Franke, 20, began speaking out about the abuse they’d suffered during 8 Passenger’s heyday. Ruby wrote a book called The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom that came out earlier this year and both spoke out on the Hulu docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke. In honor of Utah’s new legislation, Chad and Shari’s comments appeared on Good Morning America on Monday morning. (Their interviews were conducted in January and February.) They talked about the dark side of being child influencers and vowed to never subject their own children to anything as “unethical” as family vlogging.

Ruby Franke’s children are distancing themselves from her family vlogging — with no intention of following in her footsteps. On Monday, March 31, the disgraced former parenting YouTuber’s eldest son and daughter, Shari Franke and Chad Franke, spoke with Good Morning America about the nature of vlogging with children. Chad specifically said that he won’t subject his own family to cameras when the time comes.

“I mean, Ruby clearly would slap us, flick our lips, whatever. I think Jodi [Hildebrandt, the family’s therapist] brought out the worst in her, and that’s how it got to where it ended up,” Shari said, adding, “I do think that family vlogging and family content is unethical.”

Chad, 20, added that he sees a family in his future, but not vlogging. “I eventually want to have a family, and I’ve learned from my mom’s mistakes,” he said. “We’re shutting off social media, shutting off the cameras. I’m not going to be using any kid as an employee.”

GMA3’s Eva Pilgrim reported that the children are “focused on moving on without Ruby.”

As previously reported, Ruby and Hildebrandt, were arrested in 2023 after her 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah and asked a neighbor to call the police. Authorities soon discovered that both the boy and Ruby’s 10-year-old daughter had been abused; she and Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated child abuse. In February 2024, they each received four separate prison sentences for 1 to 15 years, which will run consecutively.

Last week, a Utah judge signed off on Ruby and Kevin Franke’s divorce, giving Kevin — who shares six children with his ex-wife — full custody of their four children who are still minors.

As for the couple’s eldest children, Shari released her book, The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, via Gallery Books on Jan. 7. The release details her experiences in the Franke house growing up — where her family launched the 8Passengers YouTube channel in 2015. The account eventually earned 2.5 million subscribers. The family’s story was also detailed in the Hulu three-part docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which released in February.

[From People]

Power to Shari and Chad for speaking out. It’s so important that people like them, who have been through the worst of that world, warn parents just how exploitative family influencing can be. We’re way beyond “Charlie bit my finger” territory. Those kids are constantly paraded on camera and expected to perform so that their parents can make money. It really is so unethical. They have no agency, and currently, there are no rules in place to keep them safe. Child influencers are the new child actors, and there needs to be regulations beyond just promising them some money and the opportunity to have their content removed when they turn 18. I hope we see more, stronger legislation put into place moving forward. Those kids deserve their childhood.

photos are YouTube screenshots via GMA and Inside Edition

Tags kids, social-media, youtube

Business Disney Television YouTube

YouTube is the top TV provider in the US thanks to people over 50

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date March 31, 2025

Last fall, YouTube revealed that they had overtaken Disney in the ratings game in July 2024, which made them the first-ever streaming service to take the crown. Most people assumed that it was a combination of children watching more YouTube thanks to summer break, lack of new network programming, and the fact that basic YouTube is still free, while Disney and the rest of the media companies with streaming services have continued to raise prices. Well, oops, they did it again. In February 2025, YouTube once again toppled the Mouse. In July, they received 10.4 percent of viewership, but in February, their share had grown to 11.6 percent. Their secret sauce? People over age 50 now account for around 36 percent of their viewership.

YouTube commanded more TV time than any other media provider in the United States in February, and its top ranking was thanks in part to viewers over the age of 50.

The service accounted for 11.6 percent of all TV use in the country in Nielsen‘s rankings of media distributors for the February period (which ran from Jan. 27-Feb. 23). That’s an all-time high for YouTube and the second time it has placed atop the distributor rankings; it previously did so in July 2024.

YouTube improved from 10.8 percent of TV use in January and passed Disney (10 percent) for the overall spot among TV content distributors. Nielsen notes that the rise for YouTube was fueled partly by a somewhat surprising source: people over 50, who accounted for about 36 percent of all time spent watching YouTube on TV screens — more than the combined 28 percent for teenagers and adults 18-34. The media distributor rankings don’t include viewing on computers or mobile devices, which means the demographics Nielsen cited might not be fully representative of YouTube’s total usage across all devices.

Fox moved into third place in February — its highest ranking to date — thanks in large part to a record-setting Super Bowl. It claimed 8.3 percent of U.S. TV use, edging ahead of Netflix and Paramount (8.2 percent each and both down a little from January).

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

Power to the content creators out there. I had no idea that it was such a big deal among the older demographic, but it makes total sense. From news and politics to how-to videos to educational content to niche community representation and beyond, there’s such a wide variety of content available on YouTube and it’s all available, generally for free, on demand. For better or for worse, there is literally something for everyone on YouTube.

We only let my kids watch YouTube Kids on the weekends, but they and all of their friends are obsessed with it. They even like watching people play games like Roblox together. Both my husband and my brother-in-law turn to YouTube first when they want to be entertained. Since Nielsen doesn’t include cell phones, iPads, and computer streams in their totals, I absolutely believe that YouTube’s viewers are even higher than this. I only hope that its parent company, Google, doesn’t smell profit and mess with their business model too much. It would be a shame if corporate greed once again ruined a good thing.

Images credit Hot and Flashy, WWE/John Cena, The Dodo/wolfgang2242, Oprah’s Book Club/Viola Davis.

Tags business, disney, television, youtube

Kids YouTube

Utah adds protections for child influencers following Ruby Franke’s conviction

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date March 27, 2025

In 2023, a YouTube ‘mom-fluencer’ named Ruby Franke shocked viewers when she was outed as a horrible monster that abused her children. I won’t recap it, but you can read about it here. Ruby and her accomplice, another YouTuber named Jodi Hildebrandt, were sentenced to 30 years in prison last February. The case shone a spotlight on the genre, which is also known on TikTok as “MomTok.” It also renewed concerns about the children who are starring in these videos.

Utah, where the Frankes live, is a family influencer hotspot. In their heyday, the Franke children starred in up to five videos per week and had 2.5 million viewers. Following Ruby’s conviction, the state’s legislature has just passed new legislation to add protections for child influencers. The law gives these kids the option to have their underage content deleted once they’re adults and mandates that money be set aside for children who appear on social media or in film and TV projects be set aside for them in a trust. California, Illinois, and Minnesota have already passed similar laws.

Utah on Tuesday added new protections for the children of online content creators following the child abuse conviction of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed parenting advice to millions on YouTube before her arrest in 2023.

Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law under the encouragement of Franke’s now ex-husband that gives adults a path to scrub from all platforms the digital content they were featured in as minors and requires parents to set aside money for kids featured in content. Kevin Franke told lawmakers in February that he wished he had never let his ex-wife post their children’s lives online and use them for profit.

“Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period,” he said. “Vlogging my family, putting my children into public social media, was wrong, and I regret it every day.”

The Frankes launched the now-defunct “8 Passengers” channel on YouTube in 2015 and began chronicling daily life as a seemingly tight-knit Mormon family in Springville, Utah. With its large nuclear families and religious lifestyles, the state is a hotbed for the lucrative family blogging industry. The reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” brought widespread attention to a group of Utah-based Mormon moms and TikTok creators known as “MomTok” who create videos about their families and faith.

The content-creation industry is largely unregulated, but several states have added certain safeguards in recent years. Illinois, California and Minnesota have enacted laws protecting the earnings of young creators, and Minnesota’s law includes a similar provision to Utah’s that allows content featuring minors to be taken down.

In a memoir published after her mother’s arrest, Shari, the eldest child, described how Ruby Franke’s obsession with “striking content gold” and chasing views led her to view her children as employees who needed to be disciplined, rather than children who needed to be loved. Shari wrote that her mother directed the children “like a Hollywood producer” and subjected them to constant video surveillance. She has called herself a “victim of family vlogging” and alluded in her book to early signs of abuse from her mother, including being slapped for disobedience when the now 22-year-old was 6.

Under the Utah law, online creators who make more than $150,000 a year from content featuring children will be required to set aside 15% of those earnings into a trust fund that the kids can access when they turn 18. Parents of child actors appearing in TV or film projects will also be required to place a portion of their earnings in a trust.

At a hearing last month, Kevin Franke read statements in support of the bill written by two of his daughters, ages 16 and 11. He filed for divorce shortly after his wife’s arrest and petitioned to regain custody of his children from the state. His lawyer, Randy Kester, did not respond to email and phone messages over the past week seeking to confirm whether Kevin Franke had regained custody in the sealed case.

Eve Franke, the youngest child who police found emaciated with her head shaved, wrote in a statement to lawmakers that they had power to protect other kids from exploitation.

“I’m not saying YouTube is a bad thing. Sometimes it brings us together,” she wrote. “But kids deserve to be loved, not used by the ones that are supposed to love them the most.”

[From AP]

I remember when YouTube started regulating the monetization of children’s content. It was aimed at protecting the kids who were watching videos. I think Utah’s new law to protect the kids who are starring in these videos is a good start. However, I don’t think it goes far enough. Why pick $150,000 as the threshold? Families making $50k a year can also be f-cking up their kids. Where are the protections to at least try and protect their mental, emotional, and physical health? Can they somehow do welfare checks? Rules were put into place for child actors in Hollywood for a reason. Does TikTok also have any regulations? Who is protecting child influencers from their own parents? There’s also the fact that kids just want to be kids. Sure, it may be fun to be “famous” for a little while but at the end of the day, it’s a job and those children will eventually be miserable about the normal childhood that they’re missing out on.

Photo note by CB: Photos are screenshots from the trailer for the YouTube documentary Devil in the Family and from 8 Passengers on YouTube. The children whose faces are shown in these screenshots are now adults who participated in the documentary

Tags kids, youtube

Business Disney Netflix Television YouTube

YouTube gets more views per month now than Disney or Netflix

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date September 6, 2024

YouTube has toppled both Disney, Netflix, and well, everybody else in the ratings game. Nielsen just released their ratings for July 2024 and YouTube has taken the lead in viewers, getting 10.4% of “all TV usage” for that month. Disney, which still leads for the first seven months of 2024, fell by one percentage point to second place, with 9.9%. YouTube’s crown-grab now makes it the first ever streaming service to do so. Children ages 2-17 accounted for almost 30% of viewers, which makes sense since many were home for summer break. Another factor could be the lack of new network programming, which made viewers seek out alternative sources for entertainment. Whatever reason(s) it was, YouTube came for the Mouse and it did not miss.

TV by the numbers: According to Nielsen’s latest calculations, YouTube accounted for 10.4 percent of all TV usage in July 2024. It surpassed reigning champion Disney, which fell from 10.8 percent in June 2024 to 9.9 percent in July. With the door open, YouTube became the first streaming service ever to finish first; believe it or not, Netflix still has a long way to go to catch up. Disney still leads 2024 overall with 11 percent of total TV viewing through seven recorded months.

Kids and their screens: For an explanation, look no further than your own child’s tablet. With school out for the summer, nearly 30 percent of July’s YouTube viewership came from kids aged 2 to 17. The same group accounted for 13 percent of TV viewership overall. Fellow parents, we all need to chill on screen time.

No new studio programming: School isn’t the only thing out of session for the summer months. With exceptions (especially in the reality TV space), studio programming tends to take a vacation in July and August. Why watch “Abbott Elementary” reruns when Blippi is still posting fresh content? (Bad example: we still highly recommend the repeats in this case.)

The Olympics didn’t count: Another thing to note is that Nielsen’s “July” is not all of July. Since the ratings-currency company calculates viewership on a weekly — not monthly — basis, its “July” captured July 1 to 28, 2024 and not the 29th, 30th, and 31st. That may sound nitpick-y to you, but it definitely does not to the third-place media company NBCUniversal. Nielsen’s July counted only three days of NBCU’s Paris Olympics, which dominated the final six days of real July. The events of July 29 to 31 will not be realized until Nielsen’s August report; we may crown yet another new champion then. With just three days of Paris Olympics coverage counted toward July, NBCUniversal’s share of TV usage jumped an entire percentage point from June. “TV usage” here includes streaming, which accounted for 41.4 percent of all TV viewing in the month, according to earlier Nielsen data.

Netflix just missed the podium but still beat out the RNC on Fox: Netflix (an 8.4 percent share) finished fourth in July, when the race for fifth was particularly tight. In unrounded data provided to IndieWire by Nielsen, Fox (7.44 percent) edged Paramount (7.36 percent) to make the top 5. The Fox News Channel-friendly Republican National Convention (July 15-18) can be thanked for that.

[From Yahoo News]

While I wasn’t expecting this news, I absolutely believe it, for all of those reasons like summer break, and then some. While my kids love some Disney shows like Bluey, we set up YouTube Kids last month, which only lets them do age-appropriate shows. They now prefer the larger selection it provides, like being able to watch Minecraft or Roblox videos or videos where they learn about how cars or weather events work. Even though their screen time is limited during the school week, YouTube Kids will likely be their first choice when they are allowed to watch it.

I think the biggest reason why YouTube pulled ahead last month, though, is because basic YouTube is still free while Disney and the rest of the streamers are continuing to raise subscription prices. We did a free trial of YouTubeTV and it was nice to have live TV options again for a little while. And even though Disney may take back the #1 spot once their new season of programming starts, I expect that YouTube stays competitive for a while. I know a lot of people in my age group that prefer to watch what content creators are putting out on YouTube over network TV shows. Plus, you know, it’s free.

photos are screenshots from YouTube/Miss Rachel, Unspeakable, Milo and Chip, Ryan’s World, DanTDM

Tags business, disney, netflix, television, youtube

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Chloe Lattanzi Talks about Her Anorexia and Body Dysmorphia

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date November 3, 2016

A while ago, we ran a story about 30 year-old singer Chloe Lattanzi and her issues with being called ‘stupid’ because of her looks – particularly her big boobs. This week, Chloe is back and she’s here to talk about her past struggles with anorexia and body dysmorphia.

On her anorexia and body dysmorphia:

After my parents divorce I went through this chubby phase. I would eat to comfort myself. I would see comments in magazines about how I was chubby. Around 16 I started to restrict food… along with the anorexia came OCD and depression. I didn’t have a clear sense of myself so I had my lips pumped up… I looked ridiculous. I got into using drugs and alcohol. I would read in the tabloids I was this alcoholic crazy disappointment. That really hit hard. I was at my lowest. Funnily enough I met the love of my life at the darkest time of my life. I still have my battles today. When I read these things that they say – having big breasts, not being thin enough, it’s like you can’t win no matter what you do.

On the fact that she’s never had plastic surgery:

There was rumors that I’ve had like work done, like plastic surgery on my face. Like I really haven’t. When I was in the height of my body dysmorphia I had a whole bunch of fillers. I’ve had all that removed from my face because I like the way I look naturally.

On the constant struggle with her insecurities:

I look back at myself as a teenager and I’m like ‘what a beautiful young woman, what was I thinking, why was I so secure?’ So many young girls are going through body dysmorphia. We’re constantly told how we’re supposed to look via Instagram and filters and there’s constant pressure for us to look person.

… says Chloe.

@robertlynden best shoot ever! I love you! Can’t wait for our next round of fun ?????????

A photo posted by Chloe Lattanzi (@chloelattanzi) on Oct 28, 2016 at 3:09pm PDT

Check out the video below for more!

Tags beauty, body imag, breasts, celebrity, drugs, insecurities, skin, style, video

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Victoria’s Secret Model Jasmine Tookes Will Wear the Fantasy Bra This Year

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date October 27, 2016

25 year-old Victoria’s Secret beauty Jasmine Tookes will be the very happy wearer of the brand’s $3 million Fantasy Bra at their runway show in December.

Her thoughts on being selected to wear the Fantasy Bra:

I had no idea that I was going to be chosen to wear the Bright Night Fantasy Bra. It was such a surprise to me. I don’t know how they chose, but I am so honored to have this opportunity, and be able to walk down the runway with this beautiful thing.

I have known for five months, and I literally had to keep my mouth taped shut. I mean the only girls that knew were Taylor [Hill], Romee [Strijd], and Josephine Skriver because they were there the day of the surprise. I think it was the hardest for Taylor to keep her mouth shut because she is like a wild child.

… says Jasmine.

Check out her reaction at finding the news!