In her 21 years on Earth, Shari Franke has hardly known a life without a camera in her face. Her younger siblings, who became the centre of one of the most publicized child abuse cases in the country last year, are the same.
All six Franke kids were the stars of the now-deleted popular YouTube vlog “8 Passengers.” The channel, manned by matriarch Ruby Franke, appeared to show the ins and outs of life as a devoted Mormon family. The daily videos featured hints of neglect and mistreatment, like when Ruby bragged about forcing her teenage son to sleep on a beanbag instead of a bed for months. Yet, the channel continually raked in views, likes, comments, and — most importantly —subscribers until Ruby was arrested and convicted of felony child abuse in 2023.
In her new tell-all book The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, Shari refuses to detail the exact horrors her siblings endured in the lead-up to Ruby’s imprisonment. Instead, she focuses on her difficult relationship with her mother. Much of the abuse Shari recounts was psychological, emotional, and physical — fueled by Ruby’s commitment to Jodi Hildebrandt’s radical parenting advice MLM.
The exploitation that came with vlogging, however, played a key role in the Franke family and Shari’s trauma.
“Our lives revolved around nonstop content creation — whether we liked it or not,” Shari wrote…
