Famous Family vlogger turned criminal (People’s Thoughts)
Addy Bonilla
March 25, 2025
Writing for the Social Science
You may have wondered how people form communities and how they act in those communities. Many communities have started with people who have similar interests or on something they find important and want a group of people to chat about those things with. They started in person where people would meet up just to talk about a certain topic but as the years went on and social media started to become a thing most communities moved to online. Online communities are more convenient for people who are busy with their daily lives. Having these communities online helps them still be connected to something they are interested in and with other people with the same interests and thoughts. Observing people in communities that you aren’t a part of might seem weird, but you could really learn a lot about people just from being an outsider looking in a place where you have no knowledge of.
When looking at communities there was one that really stuck out which was the 8 passengers snark page on Reddit. The Reddit page is called r/8passagersnark, they have 65,835 members where they post conversations regularly about the Franke family. According to their description “A place to discuss Ruby and Kevin Franke, formerly of the family YouTube channel 8 Passengers, Jodi Hildebrandt, and Connexions. At the end of August 2023, both Ruby and Jodi were arrested. They pled guilty to 4 counts of felony child abuse on December 18th and 27th. They were held in jail until they were both sentenced to 4 counts of 1-15 years imprisonment each (4-30 yrs total) on February 20th, 2024.” The page has 8 main rules to keep the community safe and respectful while also not making the children or family members from the Franke family uncomfortable or invading their privacy. Those rules being “1) No contact with family or associates, 2) Censor minors and non-public figures, 3) No speculation about minors, 4) Keep discussions civil, 5) no body shaming, 6) No armchair diagnosis, 7) No spam, repeat, low effort, or off-topic Posts, 8) Unoriginal content and unreliable sources.” If someone goes against any of the rules the admins will delete their post or remove them from the community. There is no main leader in this page but there are admins to make sure everyone is being respectful and following the main rules so that the community is a safe productive place. From my understanding Ruby Franke and Jody Hildebrand are the main topic of the snark with some conversations on Kevin Franke (the husband of Ruby), the six children of Ruby and Kevin, and some extra people who were involved with the family in some way.
Kevin Franke is talked about a lot in the community; there are people questioning if Kevin was really innocent the whole time while his wife was abusing their children. There seems to be a lot of talk about Kevin playing the victim or just him speaking like he had no idea all this was going on with one person saying “That’s what I’ve been stuck on since I heard the call and saw Kevin’s interview 2 years ago!!! I’m so glad someone else noticed that too! Such a red flag. I’m glad it seems like the masses are like, “Uhh why didn’t he do anything?” And they saw that he was around for all the abuse that occurred B4 Jodi. So, the public isn’t forgiving him at least. They aren’t buying the bs that he’s just a victim” A lot of people on reddit have a very strong opinion on whether or not he should have been charged or held accountable for the abuse his children suffered from his wife. He seems to claim he didn’t know anything about the abuse but people seem to point out he was there when Chad, their oldest son was being punished in very abusive ways or when Ruby would film her threatening to take away the “privilege to eat” and other neglectful, abusive punishments Ruby and Kevin seem to agree with. Even though people understood he was kicked out by Jody. they still find it suspicious he never tried seeing his children or knew about them when kicked out. They don’t believe he was fully unaware of Ruby and Jody’s wrong doings.
The people seem to mention religion a lot, especially Mormonism which is the religion the Franke family practices including Judy. For those wondering: “Mormonism is the theology and religious tradition of the Latter-Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. … One historian, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982 that, depending on the context, the term Mormonism could refer to ‘a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these.’” From videos of people talking about the case a lot of people seem to explain the religion seems to say it gives cult vibes especially by Jody’s teaching on “Connextions” which is a community where she gives advice to people so they can live “in truth” and not in “distortion”. People like Kevin and others who were part of the group say it felt like a cult. Some people on reddit question if the church has some fault in the abuse that happened because Jody was the number one therapist that the church recommended to people. The snark has a whole section where people just talk about mormonism. One of the main reasons being that Jody and Ruby claimed the 2 youngest children were possessed and the devil himself. Ruby claimed that she was given these children to “save them”, truly believing God put her in this world to “fix them”. One post read “How do none of them connect this to the Mormon church? I just watched the documentary and was surprised how the survivors, and even ex-connections folks, are still true-blue Mormons. Like how do they not make the connection that the Mormon church breeds this kind of environment? That it is brainwashing them, too, in a similar way? I grew up Mormon and know that environment is easy prey for conmen as people are trained from birth to trust authority and not ask questions. That feelings are manipulated to control and subjugate. Just shocking to me that no one was like ‘the Mormon church creates fertile ground for this shit’.” Even people who came from a Mormon background seem to blame the church in some way for the abuse getting so bad. Even if everyone does blame the two actual abusers for everything there is always something more that can trigger such behaviors and sometimes religion can be a big part of that in some cases.
The people in the community seem to be very passionate. People in this community are not only passionate but angry with the whole situation. They are in shock how a mother could do such horrible things and let alone let a therapist “discipline” her kids. Especially by how graphic the pictures of the two youngest children’s wounds and body. People mention that if it weren’t for the youngest son escaping him and his little sister would not have been alive. Many believe Ruby and Jody would have killed those kids from how badly injured and malnourished they were. One person said “I thought I was prepared to see the photos of Rs wounds. I burst into tears when I saw them. He was close to death.” Some wished for the well being of those children, hoping they can heal from the abuse they have suffered. A comment reading “The photos are just there are no words except horror. These poor children and the fact that R was so composed when he asked for help. He almost walked away bc he was so nervous about asking for help and said can I ask a favor of you. I mean my God; what a sweet child and I pray he is healing as well as his sister and the other kids.” Everyone can’t believe how a mother who was trying to act like she had the perfect family ended up abusing her children in such a brutal way. It’s not a surprise after learning about the whole case that people would be so passionate about the topic and would make a whole community just to talk about everything.
The reddit page consisted of many different conversations with talks about Kevin the husband and his victim mentality, Mormonism and why they believe the church has some fault in Ruby and Jody’s motives, and people’s passion on the case everything seems to be important to speak about. I expected to be bored when reading through the posts and comments but all the information that was thrown all at once it felt like a rabbit hole. The more you read the deeper you were into that hole. This case has blown up and it makes sense why people would want a place where to share their thoughts and learn more on how all of this happened. The people on the reddit page all seem to have a reason why they wanna learn more and why they are so interested in the topic. The reason seems to be that no one has seen a family vlogger turn criminal. Someone who would vlog about her and her family’s life and how much she loves her children then show the opposite on what she would post. It gives people all the right for people to make a place safe for them to speak on it. Not only does the page but the whole topic itself opens people’s eyes on things like family/ mommy vloggers and wonder if those kids are actually happy and safe when the cameras are off.
Reference page:
“Mormonism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Mar. 2025, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism
Soo, Stephanie. “Ruby Franke ‘Shares Bed’ with Evil Woman/ Marriage Counselor to Get Rid of Demons.” YouTube, Rotten Mango, 20 Mar. 2025 https://youtu.be/Zgl-zjRQRh8?si=SgW0JO_eJELJKn-d
Mercuri, Monica. “What Did Ruby Franke Do? The Crazy True Story behind Hulu’s ‘Devil in the Family.’” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025, www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2025/02/27/the-crazy-true-story-behind-hulus-devil-in-the-family-the-fall-of-ruby-franke/.
Commentary
When selecting my online community, I tried to look for one that had a goal or a good reason on why they started this community and why are people interested in being a part of it. I looked for a community I have heard about, so I know what to search for. The community was also very detailed and had a very interesting topic which was more intriguing about it. I feel like for me it was difficult to put my observations into one essay since there was so much stuff that was discussed between the members of the Reddit page. I tried getting some background information on the whole topic since it seems to have lots of detail and information so I can understand a bit more on what I was reading from the comments and posts. The most interesting discovery I made was how passionate everyone was on the topic, their reasoning behind everything and why it was so important for them to have a community of people to share their thoughts. It was nice seeing so many people connect to each other just by one topic. I noticed that everyone in the Reddit page all had similar thoughts, and everyone seemed to be on the same page. One of the most interesting discoveries that I found was how many layers the topic had, especially about Jody. I went down a whole rabbit hole just on everything she did to Ruby’s children and other clients of hers. I think a discovery I made about myself was that I found myself also interested in the topic and wanted to know more on what happened. Everyone on Reddit seemed very respectful and felt very sorry for the victims who were affected by Ruby’s and Jody’s crimes. I watched a few videos where people explained the case and everything that has been going on for years to understand a bit of what everyone in the reddit page were talking about and I understood a lot of the points that they brought up. I got a better understanding of why everyone was so passionate about the matter.
