Mom Influencer Criticized for Planning ‘Bizarre’ Meet-and-Greet for 3-Year-Old Daughter

@hermespenelope/Instagram

A mom influencer who runs TikTok and Instagram accounts for both herself and her daughter, recently put up a post on Instagram that has since been taken down, about setting up a multi-city tour for her daughter’s fans/followers to meet her 3-year old daughter and, well … it didn't go over so well.

Shawniece Shepherd refers to the followers/fans on her daughter's social media accounts as her “IG Aunties and Uncles,” in the captions of some of their Instagram posts. Her daughter's TikTok account alone has over 66,000 followers @hermespenelope, and presumably she thought it would be a good idea to give them the opportunity to meet the tot IRL.

Shepherd was 'dedicated' to meeting all of her daughter's followers.

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A post shared by Shawniece & Hermès Penélope (@hermespenelope)

Shepherd built a large community of over 230,000 fans on the Instagram account she runs for her daughter @hermespenelope. On the Eventbrite page posted on February 22 (which has since been taken down), Shepherd said, “We are dedicated to meeting all her IG Aunties & Uncles that have been a part of her life journey!” Yahoo Life reported.

Shepherd also replied to comments on her original post about the event on Instagram that this was something her daughter “wanted to do.”

Other content creators responded.

@mom.uncharted Who do you think is sending these little girls bathing suits and high heels off of their Amazon Wishlists? #socialmedia #instagram #exploitation #parents #parentsoftiktok #moms #momsoftiktok #amazonwishlist #exploitationawareness #onlinesafety #minorsafety #keepkidssafe #protectthechildren ♬ original sound - mom.uncharted

Another content creator was tagged in the comments of Shepherd’s post to respond, as she creates content around the topics of child safety online. Sarah Adams runs an account called @momuncharted on TikTok, and responded to the incident with her own video.

In her video she says, “This is one of the most bizarre things I have seen to date. When I say the parasocial relationships on social media are out of control, this is a great example.” In her video, Adams also said, “This mother feels that her community is so supportive of the exploitation of her child online that she needs to create a meet-and-greet tour. These parents are so delusional.”

The internet has also responded with outrage.

Readers responded to the story on Yahoo Life with outrage and a mix of horror, disgust, and protest.

“There should be a privacy law and labor law and exploitation laws against this kind of thing," one person commented. "Parents shouldn't be allowed to profit off of and exploit children. The kids are definitely not old enough to consent and it's unsafe."

Another commenter wrote: “Sounds like mom is living vicariously through her daughter and trying to make a profit at it. It seems sad and dangerous at the same time.”

The problem is bigger than Shepherd's event.

The problem of child safety and exploitation online has been a concern since long before the problematic event Shepherd’s was planning.

“The Clean Slate for Kids online” act was introduced earlier this year. The act would direct the Federal Trade Commission to require that operators of websites post notices showing that a person over age 13 can request all information to be deleted from the platform from when he or she was under age 13 and to provide confirmation of deleted material when it has been requested to do so according to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Adams and others have offered support for an initiative of this kind. Adams captioned her video response on TikTok with, “Every account that soley features a child under the age of 13 on [social media] should be shut down.The state of child exploitation is completely out of control.”