“Thirteen Reasons Why,” a controversial show being viewed by preteens and teens across America, is causing great concern for educators, children and parents alike. As a show that is based on the thirteen reasons that a girl – the narrator and star of the show – eventually ends up taking her own life, it is very troubling to child psychologists around the nation. There is nothing new about bullying, but the vicious nature of the social media torture endured by the teens is convincingly real and is giving adults a glimpse into the ugliness of the pranks, bullying and torture that can happen on the Internet.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the real-life drama of the Martins, who have lost custody of their children for “pranking” them online. No one is laughing at the cruel nature of what they did or the damage that they inflicted on their children. Videos uploaded by DaddyOFive’s YouTube Channel are hard to watch even for a mature audience, much less the population that typically tunes in.
In one of the videos, the parents scream at a young boy named Cody for spilling ink on the carpet – not just scream but totally berate him. Mind you, he didn’t spill anything at all. It was just a prank. Funny, huh? In another “episode” the dad encourages his son to slap his eleven-year-old sister Emma, which the boy does hard enough to make her cry. After seeing the alarming video online, the estranged mother of both children filed for an emergency hearing to regain custody of the two children.
Rose Hall announced that she now has full custody of her two children, who were the object of what is tantamount to child abuse – all to make an audience laugh. She sent a video out on YouTube of her lawyer insisting that the children were back home and adjusting happily to their new surroundings. As of Hall’s announcement, her son Cody and daughter Emma will remain in Child Protective Services until the details can be sorted out.
The Martin family had five children in their custody; two of them are the biological children of Rose Hall from a previous relationship she had with Mike Martin, the infamous YouTube prankster. Not only has the DaddyOFive Channel gone viral; so too has the saga regarding the entire custody battle. It appears that no one can get enough of watching the horrible things that people subject their kids to in the name of fun for strangers on the Internet.
The Martins started the channel to make money. Through clicks on their page, they were generating income by pranking their kids in cruel and not funny ways. Although the Martins have denied the allegations of profiteering, there is evidence that they aren’t being truthful. Nearly a week after the video went viral, the Martins released a statement of apology on their channel. After hiring a crisis-management and public relations firm, they announced that everyone in the family is in the process of seeking counseling.
The Martins have admitted that they made terrible parenting mistakes, which goes against their original claims that the children’s reactions were faked. Throughout the video series, Hall followed the page and commented that she was against the treatment that her children were being subjected to. When it became too much, she went to law enforcement in the jurisdiction where the films were being shot to try to get some help.
Hall has been trying with fervor to get her children back. After an interview regarding the mistreatment of her children, she started a GoFundMe campaign to help her with legal fees to fight for custody. When the child custody attorney who finally agreed to take her case first saw the videos, he didn’t hesitate to step in and help out.
Hall hopes that with some counseling and a little concern and care, the children will recover. She regained custody of Cody and Emma last week and is looking forward to finding a new normal. They no longer want to be in the spotlight, so the YouTube video days are over for the Hall kids. After suing for abuse in court, she has won full custody and wants to put the entire incident and her relationship with the Martins behind her.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.