Rachel Mason’s heartbreaking and skillfully assembled three part documentary series An Update on Our Family looks at the darker side of family vlogging culture, and stands as a pointed cautionary tale about a modern culture that thrives on attention, greed, and rage. An Update on Our Family uses a well publicized 2020 case of an “extremely online” family caught up in a contentious – and to some small degree, warranted – firestorm of backlash, and looks at the double-edged sword of people demanding consequences at any cost. Mason makes the shift between the two settings so effortlessly that the viewer feels trapped in quicksand, but the director always makes sure that there’s something deeper to be learned from the waves of suffering caused by this case.
Myka and James Stauffer were early adopters of vlogging and influencer culture. Their YouTube channels documented daily life for the Christian couple in rigorous, often banal detail that made them appear real and relatable to their viewers and subscribers, the latter of which amounted to half a million people at the absolute peak of their online popularity. In 2017, with three kids already, the Stauffers adopted a two-and-a-half year old boy from China. They said doing so was a calling from God. The boy, who they named Huxley, became a large focal point for the family’s web content, something that piqued viewer interest further once he was diagnosed with autism. Huxley provided Myka and James with a lot of views and the revenue that comes hand in hand with increased subscribers and endorsements, but in May of 2020, Huxley disappeared from the channel. Viewers who remarked upon the sudden removal of Huxley saw their comments deleted, and people began fearing the worst.
An Update on Our Family leaves a critic like myself in a strange position. I was asked not to provide any spoilers on Mason’s series, but so many people know the Stauffers, and the situation at hand can be easily explained with a single google search. By that same token, I was previously unaware about who the Stauffer’s were before watching An Update on Our Family, and the argument could be made that this series works best if the viewer goes in cold. Regardless of what one thinks they know about the Stauffer controversy, An Update on Our Family makes for riveting, albeit uncomfortable viewing.
Although the Stauffers never responded to interview or comment requests from Mason (Circus of Books), An Update on Our Family uses their situation as a case study and entry point into vlogging and the modern day online culture of oversharing. Based on a New York Magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello, An Update on Our Family speaks with seasoned YouTubers and family vloggers about the surreal balance between the mundanity of everyday life and the need to keep pulling in viewers and establishing lucrative brand partnerships. You have to appear successful, but approachable and relatable. You have to have the expertise of a filmmaker – with knowledge of lighting, design, and self-promotion – but nothing can appear overly staged or made up. You have to be willing to forego the privacy of your own children for the sake of your content, profiting off them as if they were non-union actors hired to play characters in an off the books production. There always has to be something new on the horizon to ensure people keep coming back, and in the family vlogging sphere, nothing works more wonders than having another child. And just like how a sitcom or drama with flagging ratings can try to goose their numbers with the introduction of a new character, sometimes those plans can backfire and upset the entire dynamic of a show. (This makes Mason’s decision to obscure the identities of all the children profiled throughout all the more pointed and poignant. While these kids have already been exposed to the world by their parents, Mason never assumes to have their consent and doesn’t want them to tangentially get caught up in the events surrounding her series.)
That’s a cynical way to view the world, especially in a milieu which thrives on a perception of authenticity, but An Update on Our Family exposes the phoniness behind a lot of online reality. Being a successful vlogger requires content creators to foster a sense of community, in addition to all the “like, share, and subscribe” cliches. Myka is a mother who inspired many women who were struggling with similar issues, and James is seen as a model dad. Viewers developed a deep parasocial relationship with the Stauffers and their kids, and when that trust was ultimately violated, members of the community they created lost part of their identity. The things they thought were going to be forever turned out to be nothing more than calculated plot twists.
Mason doesn’t let the Stauffers off the hook for their actions and deliberate attempts to sweep any potential controversies under the rug, but the director and the interview subjects on hand carefully parse whether the “punishment” fit the “crime” in this case. While the fallout of the Stauffer situation cost them their livelihood, it also led to numerous people who had no connection to the incident and even less personal investment to come out of the woodwork and form an even more vitriolic and dangerous mob against them, many of them trying to profit from the misery of others. Aggression is amplified in such a way that the world can’t simply move on from such a complex situation, and that anger sells. Loss of notoriety and income isn’t enough for some people, and nothing less than total, violent and vitriolic annihilation will do. The Stauffers’ probably hoped their “non-apology” to viewers would allow them to fade quickly into the background, but instead they left a “mystery” that people who previously didn’t care were determined to solve.
An Update on Our Family starts off by asking questions about what would lead someone to want to put the entirety of their lives on the internet. Are they craving love, acceptance, attention, respect, or just a random platform for their feelings? And to that end, what does the audience owe these content creators in return, and vice versa. But as the case surrounding Huxley comes into sharper focus, Mason deftly switches to asking questions about the difference between holding people accountable for their actions versus the impact of shaming that’s based on half-truths and criminal harassment. On one hand, the Stauffers gave the internet hate machine so much fuel for the angry mob’s torches that the situation feels karmic. And yet, nothing about this entire debacle feels right or just. It’s just sad and depressing.
An Update on Our Family premieres on Crave in Canada and HBO/MAX in the U.S. on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 9:00 pm, with new episodes weekly until January 29.
