Friends of ours have a pretty okay-ish implementation for social media for their kids. They make the kid the 'brand manager' for a pet first. The kid gets the interaction of social media and their friends, but they have to do it for their dog/cat for a year first, then they can get their own account. The kids have gotten some low level brand sponsorships for the pets, something that the other kids at school are jealous of, or so I am told. The kiddos know the ins and outs of social media from the business side a bit more, though I am skeptical of that. Also, the pets are eating and getting toys at a discount, kinda. Seems like not the worst of ideas and allows for a soft entry into that hellscape.
It means that rather than posting about themselves, they're posting about the pet. Nobody is going to bully a cat or dog, so they can get used to SM without any of the drama that might be aimed at them by their peers.
I thought so too! I imagine there are a lot of ways to dip your toes into SM without all the drama. Things like model trains, art, metalworking, 4H, or other 'creative' pursuits where the focus is not on the poster but rather what the poster has created/done. Less documenting your own life and more documenting your efforts. The pet thing seems to work well as it has the kids do chores surreptitiously.
AFAIK, the kids can only take pics/vids of the pet and the kids post as the pet. There's not a lot of DMs and the like, as it's in the 'voice' of the pet.
Their own pets
The kids are making the pet into a 'brand'
The kids use tiktok and insta as their social media outlets. FB is, as I am told, 'for old people'.
They have followers like any influencer does. Mostly these seem to be bots to me, but of the 'real' humans, they seem to be people that are into cute animals and dumb pet tricks. Especially with the dog, the one kid has gotten it into Frisbee tricks and that seems to have gotten a bit of traction online.
