“Shiny Happy People” and the Great Reckoning That Is Coming

The Impact Reality TV, Social Media, and Blogs Have Made on Kids

Around the year 2000, I had a friend from church, who worked on the crew of the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives, ask me if my then-five-year-old daughter could be an extra on the show. Some paperwork needed to be filled out, but then all I had to do was bring my little girl on the appointed day. Having watched the show briefly in high school, I was curious to see the actual set.

When my daughter and I arrived at NBC Studios, we were led through a back lot to a room where makeup artists were busily applying minor “cuts and abrasions” to a group of kids who would be patients in the hospital. For this Christmastime episode, the matriarch in the show, Grandma Horton, would read a holiday story to the bandaged-up kids.

While preparing for the scene, several of the actors came by and greeted us with warmth and felicity. Then the director called for action! Everyone quickly moved into place as the cameras started to roll.

My daughter loved the magic of it all.

After this several folks asked me if I wanted to bring my daughter to more of these kinds of opportunities. They said she had “what it takes”: a photogenic face, an outgoing personality, and a verbal precociousness that made it easy for her to remember and deliver lines.

Living in Los Angeles, this is a fairly normal occurrence. It’s not uncommon for a neighborhood mom to take her kid out of school for the day because they have to shoot a commercial or make a pilot episode. Some kid-actor moms choose to homeschool so they can attend auditions without the encumbrance of school absences. It’s a world that one learns to navigate, but it can quickly become a Hollywood version of a child-sized rat race. And some moms really get into it, paying for private acting lessons and professional headshots, which constantly need to be updated because kids grow so fast.

But I didn’t want my daughter growing up in front of cameras. I wanted her to live a normal life, free from the roller-coaster scrutiny of casting agents and callbacks.

So, somewhere in our attic is a box of VHS tapes with one marked “Days of Our Lives Episode.”

And that was that. A fun day. Nothing more.

Then the early 2000s morphed into a new kind of mom-culture, with mothers taking (and sometimes staging) pictures and videos of their kids to share on blogs and social media. All of the sudden, it wasn’t just a few moms in L.A. who were trying to have their kids “make it” in Hollywood. A major shift had taken place. Moms everywhere were now the main characters, and their kids the supporting cast.

With the advent of digital technology and the rise of free online platforms, moms could easily make a mini reality show of their lives, documenting the day-by-day moments, inspired largely by the new reality shows on TV.