The thing about sharing devices with your kids, is you often see the sorts of things they are watching or searching for.
For example, I was on Youtube the other day looking for “Baby Grow Reviews”, but after typing the word ‘baby’, the algorithm suggested Baby Gronk – as I had apparently searched for it before.
I absolutely hadn’t searched for it before, because I had no clue what it meant, but the text was purple which means someone had. Obviously one of my kids last time they used the iPad.
Anyway, I ended up watching, and no, it’s not a cartoon character or a new toy, it’s a real life American boy from Texas called Madden San Miguel.
His story is equal parts fascinating and worrying, and it led me into the uncomfortable world of kid influencers.
Meet Baby Gronk – A Mini Internet Sensation
Madden San Miguel was given the name Baby Gronk by his (very eager) father, Jake.
You see, Jake loves American football and his son has been playing since a very young age, so Jake called him Baby Gronk after the famous New England Patriots tight end, Rob ‘Gronk’ Gronkowski. If you imagine someone at your kids’ football club nicknaming their kid Baby Messi it’s essentially the same thing.
Jake made videos of Madden being rather quite good at American football and put them all over social media and his following started to grow. Madden was big for his age and genuinely talented at the sport. Jake would take his son to places he knew celebs would be and filmed him meeting them. He then began hassle news outlets until they picked up his son’s online stardom ‘story’, gaining more promotion.
There was also a ridiculous scenario where Baby Gronk met Livvy Dunne, a 20 year old gymnast and social media star, and then – and I write this nonsense begrudgingly – ‘rizzed her up’, which means flirted with her.
The internet went bananas over this for some reason, and Baby Gronk’s following skyrocketed.
The poor kid is only 12 years old as of 2025, but has been a brand since he was about 9. Obviously, he didn’t do this by himself, it was all manufactured by his Dad. His childhood has its own marketing team, and that’s pretty sad if you ask me.
Setting Him Up for Success or Exploitation?
Jake San Miguel runs all of Baby Gronk’s social media accounts, and he arranges all the publicity stuff too. He tells his son where to go, what to do, and even what to say. Seriously, there are numerous recorded instances of him feeding his son lines to say in interviews, like a ventriloquist.
Here’s one:
Here we have Baby Gronk’s dad feeding him answers on the Bring the Juice pod. Hey kid, blink twice if you’re tired of being dad’s clout bait pic.twitter.com/UltW1vCYTB
— Francis (@franciscellis) June 13, 2023
We’ve all heard of pushy parents living vicariously through their kids, but this is on another level.
On the one hand, Jake claims he is just doing whatever he can to set his son up for success and secure his future. He doesn’t pretend that this whole thing was anything other than his idea. He even named his son Madden, after the football video game – did he have this plan before Baby Gronk was even born?
By the time Madden was about 7, his Dad had him set up on an intense routine of exercise drills and diets, and the kid is clearly in great shape. But is he happy? He doesn’t seem all that happy in his videos. It’s all very staged, his delivery is flat, I honestly don’t know why anyone watches it – it’s not entertaining.
You could say Jake has made his son healthy, fit and rich. But he has done it by controlling his son’s life down to the most minor details. Plus, some of his decisions are questionable to say the least. Surrounding him with scantily clad grown women, for example, and encouraging this ‘rizzing’ nonsense. Is that really good parenting? No, it’s just a way to get views, and it’s gross.
And do you know what? Baby Gronk isn’t the only one. There are loads of these kid influencers. Not all of them are being forced into it by their parents, but even if they are doing it freely, what in the world are we letting our children become?
Viral Childhood: A Sickness That Needs a Cure
When I was a kid, people dreamed of being footballers, rock stars, action heroes. People that had skills they could use to improve or entertain.
Now, it’s not uncommon for a kid to aspire to be a Youtuber, or TikTok famous. What does that even mean? And perhaps more importantly, should kids be allowed to do it?
Putting aside the fact that many of these social media celebrities don’t actually do anything, don’t spread a positive message, and often encourage bad behaviour or idiocy or both, is internet stardom a healthy way to grow up?
Part of me gets it. If a kid loves building Lego and wants to share their creations on the internet, what’s the harm? If it earns them enough money to buy their first house even better, right? But what happens when an innocent hobby turns into a need for attention, a colab with another influencer that goes wrong, or a dependency on a fickle audience that could turn on your 11 year old at any point?
Kids aren’t mature enough to deal with that sort of scrutiny, that stress, or that pressure. If they learn that nothing matters more than likes, comments, and subscribes, what does our civilisation turn into?
There are psychological implication no one seems to be considering. Does Baby Gronk see himself as Madden, a kid with his own interests and personality? Or is he always Baby Gronk? A brand of a boy who doesn’t know what to feel, think, or say unless someone tells him.
We know from the child stars of the 1980s and 1990s what can happen when kids are made famous, but this is way way worse. This is uncontrolled, and on a mass scale, and it terrifies me for my children.
Childhood isn’t supposed to be monetised. It’s supposed to be time of innocence. It’s supposed to be carefree. It’s supposed to be enjoyed. I worry for the Baby Gronks out there, who may be wealthy, but have learned to recognise meaningless metrics as measures of success, rather than their happiness, their integrity, their moral values.
(Main Image Credit: Madden San Miguel / Instagram)
