The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

Ruby spent the first decade of her adult life “singularly focused on procreation” (41). By 30, she was the mother of six and looking for “a fresh outlet for her energy and ambition” (41). Shari’s aunts were already experimenting with posting videos about their family life on YouTube, and one of them had managed to gain thousands of subscribers and monetize her channel. Between 2012 and 2015, family vlogs were becoming incredibly popular, creating “a new kind of reality show” and an opportunity to “transmute domestic life into a lucrative enterprise” (42).

Inspired by her sister’s success, Ruby launched her own vlog, 8 Passengers, in January 2015. It seemed to Shari like an “innocent” and “fun new project” (43). Family vlogging was also especially popular in the LDS community because it represented a modern expression of the LDS imperative to document, and it was a way for members to share their faith. In “the age of viral scandals and cancel culture,” the “wholesome, family-centered content” that LDS vloggers offered was incredibly popular, and Shari’s family soon came to embody both “the wholesome ideal and the scandalous” at the heart of modern media (44).