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Think Tank: A Case Study on Quiet On Set and its Consequences
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Gen Z reflects on Quiet On Set, legacy media, and our evolving relationship with digital stardom
Adolescent gets our info straight from the source. Our community of Youthtellers spans the globe, and our research scales finite moments into larger demographic behavior. Regular think tanks, surveys, and polls tell us what Gen Z cares about; we’ll then distill down what that means for you from an actionable perspective. Afterall, the best way to stay in the conversation of current culture is to engage the people making it.
TL;DR
A fun-sized summary of this article
Quiet on Set didn’t surprise Gen Z - but it did reveal an industry-wide institutional malpractice within Hollywood we want to upend.
Childstardom in the digital age expands beyond Hollywood. We fully expect the children of family vloggers to come out with some wild memoirs in about 10 years.
Protections for child performers in Hollywood need to be instituted on a legislative level - so do the ones for the kid influencers online.
Yea, and on that note, kid-influencers shouldn’t even be a thing - why again is that happening?
Gen Z reflects on: growing up with TV
They simply don't make shows the way they used to. We are in an era of lost media and preemptively canceled cult-classic-could-have-beens. Streaming hasn't just shaped the way we consume media, but also the way we make it - and as of right now, the consensus on that is a resounding and dispassionate “meh”.
When I was a kid in the early 2000s, TV had a much longer shelf life - you grew up alongside beloved childhood shows and the characters in them. Think Boy Meets World - and then try and find a modern-day equivalent. The 2014 reboot just proves my point; it ran for three seasons, and they didn't even make it to graduation.
For Gen Z, Dan Schneider's shows were the last to grow up with us. The entries in his massive catalog coined the Schneider-verse, were like notches in a doorframe - you remember how old you were when iCarly was in its prime, how big you had gotten by the time Henry Danger was airing. His shows grew up with us - but at one point, we got old enough to look closer at the subtext.
That is to say, when the stories began to come out about those sets, Gen Z was largely unsurprised. The release of Quiet on Set (and the many allegations that followed it) made one thing clear: Dan Schneider was unsafe, and so were the environments he created for the child stars on his projects. Maybe Hollywood is still making shows exactly as they always have - rampant with abuse.
Alexis: I wasn't surprised. I already kind of knew a little bit about what Dan Schneider's whole thing was - like feet, pedophilia type of stuff, because Jeanette McCurdy… she dropped off the face of the earth, essentially, and quit acting because of what happened.
Denver: I definitely think it was not surprising; it was just surprising to see the amount of people that kind of came forward. That was devastating because it's like you're seeing these people as the people you watch - you watch the show, you love the show, it makes you happy. And then you realize the people making it had a terrible time.
Raina: It just was overall kind of heartbreaking. From the start with the Amanda Bynes portion through Henry Danger, I was an active viewer at many stages in my life - watching the Amanda show when I was sick from school and then Victorious and all of that. But it's not hard to believe because I can remember putting all the puzzle pieces together.
Gen Z reflects on: child stardom and agency
Where does the question of agency come in for child stars? And how does that change when they finally grow up?
One of the most striking reflections on child stardom is how little power these kids, whom we perceived to have it all, actually had. They were famous to the point of iconism, beloved to the point of obsession, rich to the point of retiring their households from one contract. And yet, they had no choices and no control; as impressive as it may be, should a 15-year-old really be their family’s only breadwinner?
Alana Thompson spent her entire life on TV - and you’ve definitely seen her show. Thompson, otherwise known to the American public as ‘Honey Boo Boo,’ broke into the industry on Toddlers and Tiaras and quickly launched her entire family into reality TV franchisement with Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Mama June: From Not to Hot, Mama June: Road to Redemption, and Mama June: Family Crisis. This year Alana turned 18 and realized she didn’t have the money to pay for college; her mother had drained the account her childhood was deposited into.
Just as parents are the architects of their children's careers, they also cash the checks. But when their little child star isn’t so childish anymore, it’s not just a disruption of branding or identity - those numbers change, too.
Denver: I definitely think that a lot of child actors don't want to be child actors. I feel like they want to be, like, just actors. And I feel like it's hard once they turn that age where they don't really look like a child anymore - it's still really hard for the viewers and the fan bases to see them as someone else.
Raina: I view child stardom as a bubble. That's a world that you grow up in with your peers that's not a realistic world that we normal civilians go through. It's a hit or a miss on how you burst out of that bubble into the real acting world - there are examples like Zendaya, who starred on Disney when she got older and then transferred to Euphoria and other stuff. I don't know if there's a better success story than Zendaya and Miley Cyrus. Then there's Amanda Bynes and the troubled stars.
Gen Z reflects on: responsibility and exploitation
What is the role of parents, guardians, and the larger system in protecting young talent?
How was a culture rampant with exploitation ever allowed to get to this point? In the industry, young stars are products before people (forget children); their value lies in their potential to be commodified, bought, sold, and discarded at will. From lax regulations to parental pressure to the relentless pursuit of profit, the roots of the problem run deep.
So when we look to who's responsible, where does the finger ultimately land? The networks? The parents? The system as a whole?
Denver: I definitely think the parents are heavily to blame. Like, the producers and higher ups are obviously to blame too because they have to make sure the set is safe for everyone… a lot of child stars, they don't even want to be doing this. They never had their eyes set on acting.
Alexis: The parents - all the adults - seem to be most at fault. One, because some of them noticed it… But also, it's Hollywood in general to blame. Because it's not just children who actually go through this - it's adult actors too. Like, Harvey Weinstein's whole ordeal; this type of thing is ingrained in Hollywood… I think it's a culture thing.
Lajeeth: It was a different era, you know. It's also a pre-social media. Like, nowadays, if some scandal or something happens, you'll know about it the day it happened or the day after., because that's just how quickly information spreads. And I feel like, because of the exponential growth of the internet in the past 10, 15 years, it wasn't as easy for the common folk to see stuff like this. And I feel like if this were to happen nowadays in Nickelodeon, it would be called out way more. People would take action - people would riot and all that. This type of behavior wouldn't pass nearly as secretly as it would have back in the mid-2000s.
Gen Z reflects on: The evolution of child stardom in the Digital Age
What is the impact of social media on the lives of the young and famous? And how has it shaped new realities of media scrutiny and privacy?
So let’s take this scenario and make it even worse. Imagine there is this highly accessible, pseudo-permanent digital archive of your growing up - every phase, mistake, and awkward moment intimately cataloged and available to anyone with a wifi connection. This chronological record of your life belongs in family scrapbooks and tweenage diaries. Instead, it’s burned into the recesses of the internet - a cache impossible to clear. Now stop imagining because of course you know what an Instagram fan page is.
Child stars in a post-social media world can’t quite ever shake off their adolescence - and with the rise and monetization of influencer culture, more parents are trading in their children’s privacy for views. They don’t even need the help of Hollywood to do it anymore.
Alexis: Parents should not be forcing their kids in front of a camera whatsoever. There's this one TikTok creator I follow - she makes videos based on these family YouTube channels and what their kids go through. Because they're basically being forced by their parents to act a certain way, be a certain way.
Raina: I was one of the viewers who saw the joy in pure-hearted videos of people's kids playing in the grass and stuff. But we've reached the point in like social media that there's so many dangers - you don't know who's on this platform, who's seeing these videos, and for what intentions. I'm at the point where I don't think parents should post their kids because I don't think it's a safe enough environment to just put that out there to the world. And that's sad because I don't think that was the original intent of social media, but it's where we are.
A new dynamic
Hollywood is in the throes of its reckoning, and Gen Z has made it a priority to continue deconstructing the institutions commodifying children and childhood for exploitation. But when is it time to turn that attention to the next evolution - the one happening on the social apps we use everyday? Dismantling Nickelodeon's seedy underbelly of abuse meant also dismantling its pop culture legacy, and the nostalgia it embedded into our childhoods. But accountability in the social space is a different dynamic - one we’re still figuring out the stakes of.
An overview of participants:
Alexis, 20
Watched: iCarly, Victorious
Wanted: To be a Youtube star rather than on TV
Reacted: Was not surprised about Quiet on Set allegations
Thinks: Parents were at fault, and more balance is needed
Reflects: Parents should not force their kids in front of a camera - it strips childhood away from them
Stance: Children should have autonomy
Raina, 22
Watched: Disney
Wanted: To do a Shake it Up audition as a kid
Reacted: Heartbroken, since she was an active viewer of many of the shows
Thinks: The next steps should be writing and drafting legislation to make changes for tomorrow
Reflects: They’re grateful that parents did not make them a child star
Stance: The internet is not a safe enough environment for parents to post their kids on social media
Denver, 15
Watched: Disney - believes they have a better track record of creating stars
Reacted: Surprised with the quantity of people coming forward
Thinks: Parents are heavily to blame along with producers and higher-ups
Reflects: It’s complicated to say if we should just completely cut out kids for production entirely
Stance: There is not so much blame on the network as there is blame on the individuals
Lajeeth, 22
Watched: Nickelodeon, but Disney holds a special place in their heart
Wanted: To act and perform for the sake of community instead of stardom
Thinks: This type of behavior would not go un-noticed in todays time because of social media
Reflects: The “times” were to blame because it was harder to make people aware without social media
Stance: The studios could rebuild with the correct people and move past the current stigma