“Babystar” Shows the Horrors of Family Influencer Life
Putting a child in front of a camera is a double-edged sword. It’s nice that the internet has allowed some children to see other kids around the world and how they live. What’s not so nice is the effect of the influencer lifestyle on the children who are the center of attention. Allegations of abuse and neglect in the name of content run rampant, and there’s very little oversight of the world of family influencers. Joscha Bongard’s feature film debut, Babystar, looks at a kid who came of age with a camera in her face and what it means to age out of being the object of her parents’ online fascination.
The Sommer Family is composed of father, Chris (Lilion Lewald), mother, Stella (Bea Brocks), and teenage daughter, Luca (Maja Bons). They’re a family of influencers whose every move is documented, packaged, and presented to be consumed by their rabid fanbase. Stella and Chris have been online making content since before Luca was born, but they’ve hit a plateau in viewership. A surefire way to get more people to tune in is to have a baby, so that’s what Stella and Chris plan to do, much to the disappointment of Luca. Who is Luca if she’s not the only child of this family influencer dynamic? Does she have a sense of self when the camera is turned off?
Courtesy of Babystar
Babystar was made distinctly for the present. With the prevalence and growth of influencers of all types, varieties, and sizes of viewership, social media has become a commodity in its own right. We’re all fighting for the attention of the user, which can be translated into a fiscal outcome across a variety of channels. The film recognizes the hold these apps and brands have over a large swath of the population, so every instance is blurred. We only see an out of focus outline of the apps where all the Sommer family’s content ends up, but as consumers of these outlets, we recognize them. The fact that the viewer is able to pick out TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube is as much of a statement as the director’s choice to blur their logos.
Luca has lived her entire life in front of a camera. Even before she was born, her parents were using her image to build an empire. There hasn’t been a second of her life where her parents didn’t consider how they could translate it into something they could broadcast online. Babystar shows a young Luca (Klara Stöve) on a podcast with her mom talking about her first kiss, and there’s a sense that Stella only wants to hear about her daughter’s life if their discussion is being recorded. It’s heartbreaking to watch a kid be treated as disposable. She has no real friends and tries to find some sort of connection through the AI chatbot version of herself that her parents greenlit.
“I don’t like being another’s product,” Luca eventually finds the strength to say. Much of Babystar is Luca attempting to forge her own life and existence beyond this bizarre career her parents have forced her into. The script lacks the bite to make this a truly scathing condemnation of the world of family influencers. It’s such an innocuous conceit on the surface, but children have died in this situation. More child psychologists and therapists are sounding the alarm about what this sort of long-term, in-the-public exposure can do to kids. It’s like child actors, but there’s even less legal protection for these “kidfluencers.” Because of the severity of this issue, it would have been nice if Babystar had hit back against the onslaught of content and its larger impact. Nevertheless, Lewald, Brocks, and Bons are game to push themselves to be characters who are disquieting shells of people, existing merely to perform and be perceived.
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