By Maia Venuti
Staff Writer
Family vlogging, the idea of filming one’s children to upload on social media to garner views and fame, is a rather new concept that has only gained popularity in the past 15 years. It has become a highly debated and controversial topic with many critics arguing that it is exploitative for parents to film their children for mass amounts of people to consume.
Some families become so famous for vlogging that their children become more like cash cows instead of tiny humans with sentience who are affected by their parent’s actions. This cannot be more true for the ACE Family.
The ACE Family is an acronym for the McBroom family, consisting of Austin McBroom, his wife Catherine, their eldest daughter and two other young children. Over the years, the ACE Family has been embroiled in controversy, almost all of which has been caused by Austin McBroom.
From driving his jet ski in his pool, causing a massive spillover into his neighbor’s property, to the scam festival called ACE Fest, to Austin’s mediocre boxing career, this man has created massive controversy for his family for years.
It came as no surprise when his wife, now going by Catherine Paiz, announced that the two were going their separate ways and divorcing. Since that announcement, all over social media, videos of Austin McBroom have been going viral, and all for the wrong reasons.
Snapchat is a social media platform that allows users to communicate through pictures and chats, with a feature allowing them to post to their “story,” where everyone who follows can see what has been posted for 24 hours. As Snapchat has grown as a media corporation, they have started the Snap Stars program, contracting social media influencers to post on their stories a certain amount per day to receive ad revenue in exchange. One of these people contracted by Snapchat is none other than Austin McBroom, who has posted dozens of times every day amid his divorce. Austin’s stories have been, for lack of better words, chaotic and mortifying.
So far, Austin has posted videos of himself crying about having a mild cold while wearing his former wife’s bonnet and bathrobe, videos of him running around on the University of California – Los Angeles campus after claiming to go back for his master’s degree and videos of him having a category five meltdown because he does not have a Valentine this year. While he may be trolling for attention at this point, Austin’s unhinged and unraveling behavior on Snapchat is indicative of a bigger, more dystopian issue.
For Austin to preserve his livelihood right now, he must post on Snapchat. The ACE Family vlogging channel has been inactive for months and he does not have any major sponsorships or lucrative upcoming projects, so it’s likely that a large amount of the money he is making comes from his posts on Snapchat. It is grim that he is contractually obligated to post when he is very clearly not in a good headspace, in the midst of a divorce, to keep money flowing.
At this point, it feels like something straight out of “Black Mirror.” Regardless of the horrible things Austin has done in his career, a person should be entitled to privacy and personal time away from social media when they are going through a difficult time in their life, but contractually, they cannot have the time they deserve. Austin cannot have this time to himself to reflect and heal and try to become a better person for his former wife and children, due to this contractual obligation to be on social media.
He can stop posting on social media, but he would lose a major cash avenue to provide for himself and his children, so he is currently stuck as this weird, mortifying spectacle for the world to laugh at. It is both karmic and pathetic all at once that after years of exploiting his children for monetary gain, he now has to exploit himself for money.
Overall, the Austin McBroom situation is a disastrous one that shows what can happen when a person relies on social media for money and real-life events occur. The average person would log off social media for a while if they were dealing with a divorce like Austin McBroom is, but he is literally incapable of it because he will lose both his money and any semblance of relevance he has left.
