Growing up, I watched my fair share of family vlogs and although, on the surface, they seemed light and fun, with their target audience being fellow kids or parents, some of them are much darker than I ever would’ve thought.

One such channel is known as the “8 Passengers.” In 2016, Ruby Franke, along with her husband Kevin Franke, created a family vlog YouTube channel called the “8 Passengers” that featured themselves and their six children: Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve, in order of birth.

Ruby wasn’t exactly discreet about the abuse, posting many videos that allude to the mistreatment of her children. Some of the most acknowledged situations by the public include taking away their oldest child’s bedroom for seven months, then sending him to a wilderness camp for six weeks, withholding food or using it as a reward, isolating them from their peers and refusing their youngest Christmas presents on account of their “selfishness.”

Luckily, on Aug. 30, Ruby was arrested for child abuse after her youngest son, Russell showed up to a neighbor’s house, hurt and starved, asking for help.

According to her oldest, Shari, the police have been called many times, but nothing became of it as there was insufficient evidence.

After the arrest, Shari posted on Instagram a picture of her mother’s arrest with the words “finally” and a thank you to the police who “finally decided to step up.”

Ruby’s husband, Kevin, has not yet been arrested and claimed to have no idea what had been happening behind the scenes as he and Ruby have been split up for almost a year due to differentiating opinions on parenting style.

Ruby’s sisters are also still free even though they seemed to have known about the abuse, claiming they kept quiet for the sake of the kids and kept to helping from the sidelines.

Ruby has been charged with six counts of felony child abuse with up to 15 years of jail time and a fine up to $10,000. Her YouTube channel, as well as other associated social media handles, was taken down before the trial.

After reading about this case, I began to wonder what other seemingly wholesome channels I watched growing up were actually hiding something deeper.

I began to wonder what those kids had to endure for seven years; their whole life on display for everyone to see but no one knowing how much they were being hurt when the camera was off.

You can look up kids of influencers — some not even old enough to talk— and find anything from their birthday to their favorite food. They are practically celebrities from birth, parents exploiting their private information for views.

But they’re not celebrities — they’re regular children of greedy parents willing to do anything to make money, even if that means harming their children in the process.

Not every channel may be as cruel as the “8 Passengers,” but that doesn’t mean they aren’t harmful.