Dangerous Influence Sally Nicholls
Chapter One
My mum started her YouTube account when I was two years old and my sister Josie was five. In the early days, it was mostly about Josie.
If you haven’t seen my mum’s channel, it’s called “Messages from Motherhood”. It’s all about being a mum. And about us. Me and Josie.
Mum posts two videos a week, on Tuesday and Friday. Sometimes, companies send her things, and she does reviews. When we were little, people would send us toys, and we’d have to say nice things about them. Even if they were too babyish or didn’t work.
Sometimes she does day-in-the-life stuff. Videos of us playing with our toys when we were little or videos of us on holiday. Videos where she’s making dinner or talking to us about how we feel about SATS, or COVID or whatever.
She does lots of silly skits with Josie. (She used to try and do them with me too, but I am
terrible at acting.) Often, she just talks to the camera about how hard it is being our mum. Which is nice. Sometimes, she gives parenting advice. I don’t know why anyone would ever follow her parenting advice. Can’t people see that anyone who films their kids and puts them on the internet has to be a terrible mum?
But no. People love my mum. They’re always saying how great she is, how funny she is, how cute we were when we were little.
Well. How cute Josie was.
I’m not cute.
I mean, maybe I was cute when I was tiny. A bit. But now I’m thirteen. I’m covered in spots, and my hair is always greasy, and I look weird no matter what I wear.
Mum tries her best. When I was little, she used to spend hours brushing my hair and putting it in plaits and things. Now, she’s always taking me shopping and to fancy hairdressers. It would be nice if she didn’t insist on filming it and doing “shopping haul” videos.
This is the problem with being influencer famous. Nothing is ever just for you. Every time
Mum gives me something nice or does something nice with me, she always has to film it.
When I was little, I didn’t know any better. I suppose I just thought that was what everybody did. That it was normal for Mum to be always asking us to talk to the people in her phone.
“People want to know if you liked our day out at Fuzzy Farm Christmas Adventure!” she’d say, and me and Josie would have to tell the camera about it.
Or, “People want to know if you’re excited about starting school!” And I’d have to tell them.
I guess I just assumed everyone had cameras pointing at them all the time.
I remember when I was about five, telling my friends how boring it was having to talk to “people on Mum’s phone” all the time. They didn’t know what I was on about, obviously.
It was around that time that Mum tried to explain to me what she did. I think she showed me some of her videos. I wasn’t that bothered. I mean, I was five. I didn’t really care what Mum did for a job. I knew what YouTube was, of course. I used to watch Ms Rachel and Numberblocks songs
and things like that. But I didn’t understand that Mum was famous.
Well. That’s not quite true. People did stop us when we were out and about. They’d want to take pictures with Mum and tell her how much they loved her videos. They still do that actually. I hated it then and I hate it now. Mum is always very nice to the people who talk to her, but afterwards she grumbles about it.
“Why do they always spot me when I’m buying tampons?” she says. “Or toilet roll? Why is it never in an organic deli or something?”
She thinks she’s so funny.
I can still remember the day that people at school found out about mum’s videos. I was eight.
Lots of the kids at school watched YouTube. I watched YouTube. The thing is, they mostly watched videos about Minecraft and Lego and things like that. A few of the older girls had
started watching videos about make-up. Nobody watched parenting videos. Why would they?
One day, I went into school, and the other girls were whispering. I went up to them, and they all stopped and looked guilty.
“What’s going on?” I said.
They looked a bit awkward. Then one girl, Ellie-May, said, “Matilda’s mum says you can’t come to Matilda’s party.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know Matilda’s mum. “Why not?” I asked.
“My mum doesn’t want your mum doing a video about it,” said Matilda. “She saw that video she did about Ellie-May’s party, and she says you’re not coming to mine.”
“What video?” I said.
Matilda and Ellie-May managed to look both hurt and judgy, the way only junior-school girls can.
“I’m just saying,” Matilda said. “It’s not on, is it? To come to Ellie-May’s party and then be mean about it on the internet? I mean, Ellie-May’s a kid. And your mum’s a grown-up.”
She was repeating something her mum had said. It’s so obvious now.
It wasn’t obvious then.
I didn’t know what to say. I remember just looking at them, then walking away, trying not to cry.
I asked my mum about it when she picked me up. She looked a bit shocked. “She did what?” she said.
“She said I wasn’t allowed to go to Matilda’s party.”
“That cow! How low can you get? If she’s angry with me – fine, be angry with me. But how much of a bitch do you have to be to take it out on an eight-year-old?”
I felt a bit better, hearing Mum talk like that. My mum wasn’t the bitch. Matilda’s mum was.
“But what did you say about Ellie-May’s party, Mum?” I asked.
She wouldn’t tell me.
I looked it up when I got home. It wasn’t hard. I knew what Mum’s channel was called.
Ellie-May had a pamper party for her ninth birthday. That was the cool thing in Year Four. We all went to a make-up salon. We got a face mask and a makeover. They painted our nails with cool patterns. There were mocktails and cupcakes.
If I’m honest, I was a bit bored. I was always kind of young for my age. I still liked playing Barbies and building dens. I liked the drinks and the cupcakes, but waiting around for my makeover was boring. And I didn’t much like how I looked with make-up on. It felt weird and too grown up. I did like my sparkly nails though. And I liked us all taking silly pictures of ourselves.
When Mum picked me up, she set up the camera to ask me about it.
“So, Anna’s just been to her first pamper party! Tell us all about it, Anna! Did you like it?”
“It was all right,” I shrugged. “There was a lot of hanging around. We got make-up. And cake.”
“And cake!” Mum laughed. “That sounds fun. Is that what you want to do for your birthday?”
I shook my head. “No way!”
“No way?” Mum said. “Why not?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. It was a bit boring.”
And that was that.
I didn’t really think about what was going to happen to that video. I knew Mum put them on the internet. But I don’t think I’d realised that anyone could watch. Including Ellie-May’s mum.
The finished video was Mum doing a big rant about pamper parties and how they were far too grown up for little kids like me. She showed all these videos of me playing with my toys, and then she put up the pictures I brought home from the party with my make-up. And then – oh God! – she played the video of me talking about the party.
No wonder Ellie-May wasn’t talking to me!
I went downstairs. “I saw that video you made about the party,” I said.
Mum’s face tightened. I guess she hadn’t realised I could watch her videos either.
“Why did you put it on the internet?” I shouted. “Where she could see it!”
“I put all my videos on the internet,” Mum said. “You know that!”
“But now Ellie-May hates me!” I yelled. “And her mum hates me. And all the girls hate me! And Matilda’s mum says I can’t go to Matilda’s party!”
“Look, Anna—” said Mum, but I wouldn’t let her finish.
“I hate you!” I shouted. “I hate your stupid videos! I wish you weren’t my mum!”
That was the first time I told her I hated her.
It wouldn’t be the last.