Former family YouTube influencers James and Myka Stauffer, who live in Columbus, are the focus of a new documentary, “An Update on Our Family,” which chronicles their rise to YouTube success and their fall from grace after one of their children stopped appearing in their videos.
The documentary is part of a three-part series directed by Rachel Mason premiered June 6 at the Tribeca Film Festival that aims to expose “the hidden-in-plain-sight, unregulated family vlogging industry,” according to its marketing.
The Stauffers used to run a family video blog on their YouTube channel, “The Stauffer Life” which documented the lives of the Stauffers and their-then five children. Before the channel was deleted it had more than 700,000 subscribers.
The star of many of their videos was Huxley, a child with autism the couple adopted from China in 2017. From 2016 to 2020, the couple chronicled the adoption process and Huxley’s life, including a video of them bringing him home from China that received over 5 million views.
In 2020, Huxley abruptly stopped appearing in their videos, setting off a firestorm of rumors and speculators among the Stauffer legion of fans about the child’s whereabouts.
The Stauffers deleted comments about Huxley’s disappearance and set all their videos with him to private, according to People Magazine.
In May 2020, the Stauffers announced that then 4-year-old Huxley had been placed in another home due to his medical conditions and behavioral disabilities, USA Today reported at the time.
“There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being,” Stauffer said in her now-deleted announcement video titled “An Update on Our Family.”
“There wasn’t a minute that I didn’t try our hardest and I think what (James) is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit (for) his medical needs. He needed more.”
This announcement sparked widespread backlash online from commenters accusing the family of using the boy for views and revenue. The Stauffer family’s channel and Myka’s personal channel are now deleted.
The Vox Media documentary detailing the saga debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 6.
“Myka and James Stauffer were the picture of the 21st century American Dream: happy marriage, beautiful kids, and a self-built YouTube vlogging empire. At the center of it all was Huxley, an adorable young boy they adopted from China. Huxley was more than just their star — he was their son. Until one day, he wasn’t,” the documentary’s description says.
No information on when the documentary might come to streaming has been released.
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Source Link: https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2024/06/11/youtube-documentary-an-update-on-our-family-stauffers-social-media/74054968007/
Former family YouTube influencers James and Myka Stauffer, who live in Columbus,…
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