The owner and co-founder of a series of popular tween YouTube channels has been
arrested in Florida and charged with lewd and lascivious molestation. You're
watching What's Trending, I'm Jonathan Harris. Make sure to subscribe for more
trending and social media news every day. Ian Rylett is the 55-year-old creator
behind the YouTube channel Seven Awesome Kids, as well as the related channels
Seven Super Girls, Seven Cool Tweens, and Seven Perfect Angels. The channels typically
posted new videos daily, with each day coinciding with a different Super Girl or
Cool Tween.
But according to an arrest warrant obtained by BuzzFeed, Rylett verbally
abused one of his stars, demanding she undress in front of him and practice
wrapping her breasts down to make them appear smaller for the video shoot.
According to the warrant, the victim, whose name is being withheld as she's a
minor, signed a contract with Rylett on August 11 to be part of a team of
actresses for a YouTube channel. There are some very disturbing allegations in
the warrant, including assertions that Rylett cupped and manipulated her breasts
while attempting to bandage them down, and that he tried to forcibly remove her
underwear even though she said she was uncomfortable. Rylett
apparently had more than 20 girls working for him between the ages of 8
and 18 and none of those channels have been updated since his arrest. There are
so many unsettling things about this. Obviously the most prominent is that
children and teens continue to be exploited by adults in an attempt to
make money on YouTube. We saw this with the DaddyOFive channel where children were
encouraged to slap each other on camera. We've also talked a lot about YouTuber
burn out recently and the pressure to consistently create videos that keep
your audience engaged day in and day out. Rylett is just the latest name in a long
string of people who've put minors through trauma in an attempt to feed the
content beast. BuzzFeed talked to a number of former employees of Rylett who
expressed concerns about his methods. One said: "I was telling my mom two years ago
that if this was a real entertainment business - you know, with rules - I'd report
him in an instant. But I can't because there's nobody here to help me." Okay, so a
movie or a TV show has to abide by certain rules to have children on set.
Those are child labor laws and there are unions, so if you're a child on a TV set,
there has to be a studio school so you can ensure that kids are getting a
certain amount of hours of education every day. That doesn't really happen on
YouTube. There's no YouTuber Child Actors Union that people can go to and say hey
these guys aren't following the rules I'm being exploited here, but you can go
to the police because of this f*cker. None of the girls they talked to said they were
abused by Rylett, though many described awkward behavior including pressuring
them to wear smaller, tighter fitting swimsuits and requesting sizing photos
for each bathing suit that would appear on camera. Remember, this is a 55-year- old
man and some of these girls are as young as
eight. I don't have kids but I have a lot of friends with kids and all of these
kids want to be YouTube stars. They see these girls getting famous on YouTube
and they want to emulate that. And don't get me wrong sometimes there is a really
nice loving supportive family behind some of these child YouTubers, and
sometimes there's a creepy weirdo who will want to bandage your daughter's
breasts and tug at her underwear. YouTube said Rylett's channels have been
demonetized and they released a boilerplate
statement that read in part: "We take safety on YouTube very seriously. We work
closely with leading child safety organizations and others in our industry
to protect young people."
But as of now, all seven channels
are still live on YouTube. Rylett has pleaded not guilty and will stand trial
before the end of the year. Just in time for Christmas! So what do you guys think?
Is there a danger when millions of kids across the country want to be YouTube
stars? Let us know in the comments and for more stories like this head over to
whatstrending.com.