The brand new HBO docuseries An Replace on Our Household turns the digital camera on the household vlogging business — and the way viral YouTube fame got here crashing down for Ohio-based vlogger mother and father Myka and James Stauffer.
As HBO explains in a press launch, the Stauffers racked up 1,000,000 subscribers throughout their YouTube channels, with viewers tuning in to observe the household undertake a two-and-a-half-year-old boy from China in 2017. The boy, whom they named Huxley, was a daily fixture within the Stauffers’ movies… till he wasn’t.
Who’re Myka and James Stauffer?
As New York Journal reported in 2020 — within the story that impressed the HBO docuseries — Myka and James Stauffer had been the vloggers behind “The Stauffer Life,” a now-offline YouTube channel about their relationship and household. James was working as an engineer, and Myka was a former nurse turned full-time YouTuber. The household shared clips with titles like “MY MISCARRIAGE STORY AT 6 WEEKS PREGNANT!!!” and “LIVE PREGNANCY TEST! AM I PREGNANT?!!!”
A turning level got here when the Stauffers determined to undertake a toddler from China so as to add to their household of three youngsters, they usually determined to undertake from the nation’s Particular Focus program, through which youngsters have “tougher circumstances” than these within the nation’s Log-in Date program, New York studies. Myka regarded via pictures of youngsters obtainable for adoption and located Huxley. She was desperate to undertake the boy, regardless of warnings from a health care provider who examined his medical file.
“Certainly in our minds, we knew, it doesn’t matter what state he got here to us, that we’d love him,” Myka stated on YouTube, per New York. “If something, my baby shouldn’t be returnable.”
What occurred to Myka and James Stauffer’s adopted son, Huxley?
Myka and James traveled to China to select up Huxley in October 2017, and the toddler quickly grew to become a star of their YouTube movies, which confirmed him each in comfortable instances and onerous instances. Huxley finally obtained a prognosis of degree 3 autism, and the Stauffers sought medical assist and put Huxley in 30 hours of in-home remedy, New York studies.
In time, Huxley appeared on YouTube much less and fewer, and followers inquired about his whereabouts and accused the Stauffers of deleting feedback asking about him. Then, in Could 2020, the couple got here clear, saying that Huxley was now with “his now new perpetually household” and “his new mommy has medical-professional coaching and is an excellent match.”
Within the ensuing controversy, the Stauffers misplaced subscribers and endorsement offers, confronted on-line petitions calling for his or her cancellation, and had been investigated by the native sheriff’s workplace. Throughout that investigation — which has since been closed — one of many Stauffers reported receiving demise threats and stated that Huxley’s new household additionally feared for his or her security.
In a June 2020 Instagram apology — nonetheless the latest submit from her account — Myka apologized for “all of the harm that [she had] induced,” saying she was “attempting [her] finest to navigate the toughest factor [she had] ever been via.” Myka advised followers in that submit that she “was not selective or absolutely geared up or ready” within the adoption course of and that she was “naïve, silly, and smug.”
The place are the Stauffers now?
Following the controversy, the Stauffers restricted their on-line presence and took their “Stauffer Life” channel offline. James’ automotive-themed “Stauffer Storage” channel stays lively, nevertheless, with 1.3 million subscribers watching movies like January 11’s “Automobile Detailing The Dirtiest Muddiest Jeep Ever! Full Catastrophe Automobile Cleansing Restoration.”
As Individuals reported, it’s not clear if Myka and James are nonetheless collectively, since they’ve not posted on their private social media accounts for the reason that controversy broke out.
Now, An Replace on Our Household, a Vox Media Studio Manufacturing directed and executive-produced by Rachel Mason, is revisiting the Huxley saga in a broader examination of household vlogging and its perils.
“Are [the Stauffers] an instance of individuals which can be the worst mother and father, or are they doing issues to feed an viewers demand that has gotten uncontrolled inside an business that’s unregulated?” Mason stated in a Hollywood Reporter interview final 12 months. “When you’re amateurs, and your present is your loved ones, and also you don’t have any producers or anybody supplying you with any guardrails, there’s so many issues that may go improper. The story of what they did with Huxley is just about the tip of the iceberg of what we’re beginning to be taught exists inside that sphere, shifting ahead to the current day.”
An Replace on Our Household, Sequence Premiere, Wednesday, January 15, 9/8c