OnlyFans, Your Kids’ Digital Footprint, and Coldplay - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

In this powerful follow-up episode, Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders dive into the messy intersection of privacy, parenting, and social media. From family vlogging to the addictive nature of online platforms, they unpack the long-term consequences of what we choose to share—especially when it involves our children.

The conversation explores generational differences in how we use social media, the challenges of true consent from minors, and the haunting permanence of digital content—highlighted by Nyla Ray’s post-OnlyFans experience. They also discuss the Coldplay CEO scandal as a cautionary tale on integrity in the digital age.

Whether you're a parent, educator, or social media user, this episode challenges you to think critically about your digital footprint and how we can prioritize integrity over likes.

Topics Covered:

• Family vlogging and child privacy
• Digital consent and generational norms
• The permanence of online content
• Social media addiction and dopamine hits
• Integrity, accountability, and policy
• Real-life examples from Nyla Ray and Coldplay’s CEO
• Creating informed and ethical social media habits

Takeaway:
What we post matters—maybe more than we think. And when it comes to kids, consent, and content, the best rule may be: if in doubt, leave it out.

Transcript

Stephanie Olson: 0:00

Hi, it's Stephanie Olson, and I just wanted to let you know that this podcast is part two of our social media and privacy conversation. Last week, we talked about what happened with the Coldplay CEO hold debacle. Today, we're going to talk a little bit more about family vlogging and we're just going to have a conversation about what it means to have privacy on social media.

Unknown: 0:42

You You know, I I think this conversation is two fold, right? Because it's what what might other people post, versus what might you post? And those might not be the same things, but there's definitely things to consider either way, right?

Stephanie Olson: 1:03

So and so on that. Yeah,

Unknown: 1:05

I think that, you know, well, I'll just say, as a mom, that's most of my experience from being a mom, because that's the biggest thing going on in

Stephanie Olson: 1:12

my life. Absolutely, it's kind of a big thing, yes.

Unknown: 1:16

So as a mom, I try to be very mindful of what I post about my children because I don't know. I you know, they might grow up to be very private people. I have a sister, one of my millions of sisters, who is not even on social media at all. Right, nothing. She was only on Facebook from Facebook marketplace, and somehow got kicked off. I didn't even know you could. Oh, okay, yeah, right. So now there's nothing, but then, you know, others are, like, very excited to share everything that's going on. Yeah? So I don't know how my kids are going to be, so out of respect for them, I try to share as little as possible about them, just basically that I have them. Yeah. And so that's one thing I think that if, if you don't know how much someone else is comfortable with sharing online, err on the side of caution and don't or just ask. I mean, if they're old enough to consent to that, ask,

Stephanie Olson: 2:09

Well, okay, so that's a really important point. You just said, if they're old enough to consent to that, that, in and of itself, is questionable, because at what age are they truly able to consent to? Yeah, totally comfortable with having my life on social media. I have an interesting conversation about that, because I know a young mom whose child is going through a ton of mental health issues. And I do think that, I mean, we're of different generations, so I think that with my generation, we're on social media, but we don't use it necessarily, in the same way as people in a younger generation do, and I've noticed a lot of people use social media who are younger, almost like a journal. I mean, like, I'm just gonna write my stuff, I'm gonna share it on social media. That's where I connect with people. There was a statistic yesterday that I heard that today we meet more people on social media than we do in person. Yeah, as a whole. And so anyway, so she would post, or does post, literal stories about the struggles she is going through with her child. And her child is probably, I don't know, 1011, 12, somewhere around there. Well, one day I DM her and said, I have, I just want to give you something to think about that. You know, I understand why you are posting all of this, because it's her story, too, in a sense, right? She is absolutely it's for an outlet. She's trying to to to vent, she's trying to share. She's trying to get support, whatever, whatever it may be, but I said, Someday your child is going to be an adult, and that stuff does not go away. And have you thought about what your kiddo thinks about that, or what they might experience later on in life because of that. And her response was, Well, I've asked him, and he's fine with it. Well, he's 10. He does not understand. No,

Unknown: 4:53

you know, so okay, I do Tiktok like probably too much. And you.

Stephanie Olson: 5:00

Have great stuff. I love your I love your I love your content. It's great. And you don't show your kids, by the way,

Unknown: 5:08

I don't show your face. I think I have a couple videos where you can see their little hands playing, but I don't, because I don't want to leave a digital footprint for them exactly, exactly. My daughter thinks it's so cool, and she's asked multiple times if she could do a video, and I always tell her no, or I'll record one and then just never post it. So she thinks she's not because she had like, five roll, yeah, but you know, she may think that's really cool now, yeah, but I mean, once she is older, she may not, I think you know, even at 1011, 12, I mean, they can't fully comprehend, right, that when you post something online, it never goes away, because even If you delete it, someone's got it saved somewhere, and more than likely it's someone you don't want to have it. Yeah? And I just, I, for me, I don't know that we can really say there's a certain age where you can consent to that, but more of Do you have a deep understanding of social media and how things cannot be deleted? Yeah,

Stephanie Olson: 6:22

that's so true. I was actually watching an interview with Nyla Ray. I don't know if you know who she is, but a really amazing woman. She was very active, famous on only fans and did and, you know, it's an she has a fascinating story or testimony because she did it on purpose. She chose to do it. She wanted to do it. And was, that was her life for five years. And it's just, it's very interesting to hear her talk about that. But she wound up, um, wanting to, I mean, she, she had a, she's, she's, um, a strong, she has a very strong faith. She met her husband. Do you know? Yeah, that was her name. Yes, I really appreciate her story. And she met her husband. Well, she she met this guy who they were just great friends, but he had a very strong faith, and just through their conversation and things like that. She wound up leaving only fans, and they wound up getting married and all that wonderful stuff. It is a great story. What is fascinating about it, though, is she did shut down only fans. However, she was saying that she actually had to hire a company to scrape the internet, to start removing, to remove things, and she's still that's still happening. I mean,

Unknown: 8:16

it's even with that it's not going to be fully gone. No,

Stephanie Olson: 8:20

no, and it's a long process. And no, people, screenshot. People, I mean, it is, it is out there forever. And what she talked about, I don't know if you've heard of the book The body keeps score.

Unknown: 8:36

Yeah, I've I read like, part of the introduction, and I haven't read any further yet.

Stephanie Olson: 8:40

Yeah, I have it. I haven't listened to it yet. I have it on Audible. But I she talked about that and said, You know what, people don't understand, because a lot of people with only fans, and I didn't mean this to be an only fans conversation, but you know, these, these young women think, Oh, I'm just going to do this while I'm making a little bit of money and I'm getting this done and and then I can pay for college or whatever the case may be. She said, What people don't understand is your body never forgets those things. Your body doesn't forget what you see. Your body doesn't forget what you do. It is always a part of who you are, and your body keeps score and and I can't go into that in detail because I haven't read the book, yeah, but even things like our friend the Coldplay friend having an affair with a spouse, probably not the healthiest thing to do, right? Your body keeps score, and so does social media, and it's kind of this really similar connection of those things don't go away and you. Regardless, not that we can't have grace, and not that we can't have restoration, and you and I are both faith gals and um, and

Unknown: 10:08

to change the course of your life.

Stephanie Olson: 10:10

Absolutely, absolutely yes, the past is still there. It is. It doesn't go away. And I can speak to that personally as somebody who definitely has a past and yeah, so I just think those are really important things to think about, whether we're thinking about social media or whether we're thinking about our hearts and our bodies and our minds and things like that.

Unknown: 10:38

I yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that because, you know it, it makes me think about what you said earlier. You know, back in the old days, you can move away from this. Well, could you really, or could you just publicly thinking more on that? Now, I bet you these things still did have an effect. It just wasn't such a public one.

Stephanie Olson: 10:56

Yeah. Well, that's true. That's really true. And just because you move doesn't mean that you know, if you move because of your reputation, doesn't mean you're a changed person, or that your reputation can't follow you in other ways. So, yeah, that's That's true. Wow, yeah. Um, you were talking so we were talking about this a little bit offline, and you mentioned mommy bloggers, and I would love to hear your take on that.

Unknown: 11:28

Well, hope you got time. You know, I Okay, so I used to be a person who would watch family bloggers, like back in college, found it so, like interesting, especially as a girl who the thing I wanted to be most in the world was a mom. And

Stephanie Olson: 11:48

so tell me. Tell me what family blogging is. Okay? Yes,

Unknown: 11:51

I guess we should start there. And so I don't know if there's like, a real definition that everyone uses what I think of when I hear family bloggers are people who talk about their life, and the primary focus is on the kids, okay? And so that's what I'm kind of identifying as, that yes. And so this might look like I'm so sorry, there are bugs I chose outside, but oh my goodness, the bugs live here. Yes, they do. They should. They should move out. This is my spot. Sorry. Okay, so I, you know, I, I think of maybe YouTube channels or tick tocks, whatever, where the primary focus is on the kids, or because you can talk about your experience as a parent without showing your kids, yes, and that's what I like to look at now, there are certain creators online that I'll watch them because they talk about motherhood or ideas you

Stephanie Olson: 12:44

do, that's when you

Unknown: 12:45

do, oh, yeah,

Stephanie Olson: 12:48

I don't know. I think you're cool, but

Unknown: 12:51

that's what I kind of watch now. Yeah, back in the day, I would watch it, and from my point of view, then it was look at these happy families that are going and doing things together, and it's such a perfect idea, like idyllic life. Well, I think that the more that those kids who are the focus of those channels grow up, the more that we're learning that maybe what you're seeing in those videos is not accurate, and the more that I started to learn, the more I've distanced myself away from that, to the point where now, I mean, I am so not in support of this, that if I see a creator that I like that starts making their kids a focus, I will unfollow and block, yeah, because I don't want to support it, right? But, um, yeah, I think there is a lot of potential danger there. One and being you know, you're putting this personal information online. And so I've seen some where it's like talking about private medical, medical things, about that child posting it for everyone to see. Or this one gets to me the worst filming meltdowns. Oh, the thing I've heard a lot is, while I'm trying to show other parents how to get through it, you can do that without showing it. Yeah, absolutely. There's a big difference between entertaining and educating. And I think that when we're posting kids private moments, whether it's potty training, I mean, that's that's the thing I see a lot too potty training videos or public meltdowns or sharing medical history, doctor's appointments. I've seen videos of moms saying, you know, my daughter just got her first period. Let's talk about

Stephanie Olson: 14:29

it. Oh, man,

Unknown: 14:32

that does not need to be shared with the world. Yeah, and especially when we're looking at who, who is watching it. I think that the audience I told you I could go off on a tangent. Here, stop me if you need to. No, I like it. You know, who are the different people that are watching it? I would assume that some of them are people who were like, I used to be excited to be parents, or parents that are looking for ideas and tips. You. Some of them are probably people that know that family in real life, but you know who else is watching? Online predators? Yeah, especially when we're talking about those potty training videos. When you look on Tiktok, you can see how many times a video has been saved, yep, tell me why. There would be millions of saves on a potty training video we're going to partially exposed, right, right? We just have to be really thinking here about what's happening, and it's uncomfortable, yeah, and I know that some parents are posting and thinking there's no way that's happening. That's not their intention. However, others completely understand that's what's happening. And we can see that because they see that nasty comments that are being left on those videos that are very inappropriate in detailing things that a predator might want to do to the child on that video, and then the video is still not being taken down. Wow, it's a big mixed

Stephanie Olson: 15:58

bag there. So, yeah, I think that people Okay, so here's my question for you, do you think that those family vloggers, and I'm sure it's a mixed bag, do you think they're doing it to really help other families or moms, or do you think they're doing it for views?

Unknown: 16:27

I don't know that we can say for sure that it's all one or the other. I think there's a lot of a mix in there. What I will say is money changes people, it does, and there's a lot of money in on online influencing. And so I think that even families that may have started with peer intentions that can get warped over time, yeah,

Stephanie Olson: 16:49

well, look at everything. Okay, so that's an interesting thought. So we talked about the Coldplay CEO or not. Okay? The CEO? Okay, so we talked about the Coldplay guy who is a billionaire. We're talking about only fans. We're talking about family vlogs. All of those have a money influence, right? Not the Cold Play viral video necessarily, but his, he had money as the CEO of this tech company, and

Unknown: 17:37

you posted it. We don't know this like who it is. If they have a channel that's already monetized, they could actually be making money off of posting that right now.

Stephanie Olson: 17:45

Absolutely, absolutely. So we do start. And one of the things that Naila Ray talked about, and I would love to interview that woman, that would be amazing, yeah, one of the things that she talked about was that it was, you know, it's kind of like drugs or drinking when you're an addict and I'm an addict. So I could speak to this personally, but when you're an alcoholic addict or whatever you're addicted to, you need more and more in order to feel that pie. And so if you are on drugs, you need more of that drug in order to feel that same feeling as you increase in your addiction. Well, money is really very similar to that, and one of the things she said with only fans is that in order to make she was making an exorbitant amount of money. And I don't even like to talk about that part, because I don't want people to be like, Oh, but what she said is no. And what she said was, it took more and more pushing the envelope to maintain that amount of money or to increase it. And I think it's that is what we're talking about with family vloggers, with social media as a whole, that it takes more and more to push the envelope in order to increase those views, increase those

Unknown: 19:39

Yeah, I think so. And I've even seen children of family blogger who have written books and made their own videos talking about this, about how what started as just family togetherness, were making videos, almost an online diary. In some cases, it turned into, oh, this gets us views. So we're going to do it over and over. Over, and it doesn't matter if you want to be a part of this. This is what's making our

Stephanie Olson: 20:04

money. Yeah, yeah. I, I just think it, it can be very addictive,

Unknown: 20:13

and it's Yeah, and you know, we're talking about money as being addictive, and that's absolutely true. But even on channels that or social media that is not monetized yet, those likes and shares can give the same kind of effect.

Stephanie Olson: 20:29

Well, it does so. They did a study actually, and I think it was in 2016 that the amount of likes that are that dopamine hit when a teenager, for example, gets a lot of likes. That is the same feeling for somebody who has not seen a loved one for a long time and sees a loved one, but that feeling, yes, of excitement, is the same type of feeling. Or even somebody winning a major something, it's that same feeling. And so every like is like a dopamine hit, and you need more and more of that for that dopamine hit to feel the same, which is exactly what addiction is, right? Yeah,

Unknown: 21:33

it's It's crazy to think that these things which social media can bring so much joy, it can also bring destruction. Yeah, but it's wild to think that this thing that we're engaging in so many of us has been designed to make us addicted to it.

Stephanie Olson: 21:51

Yes, yes. And you know, that's a really important point, because when we talk about social media with our, you know, participants or somebody we're training, or youth or whomever we are, never like anti down with social media, you know. But I think it is very important, and I think it's important for tech companies to understand this too, but it's important to understand the good and the bad of social media. There's a lot of good stuff with social media. And when we ask people, What are the positives of social media, I would say, Well, you can talk to a family member that you don't really want to talk to in real life. You can find out what's going on with them, and you still don't have to communicate with them. That's awesome. You can keep in touch with friends who move across the country or across the world. There's a lot of good stuff. You can get inspired. You can learn things. I mean, you can learn how to change a tire on YouTube. You know, those are great things. Social media is a great thing, and it's not going away. So how can we safely navigate it? How can we ethically navigate it, and what are those things that we need to do to keep our integrity and still be a part of of of of the positive pieces of social media.

Unknown: 23:26

Yeah, I love that. And I think it starts like with anything. If you're going to choose to use social media, you want to make that decision in an informed way, yeah. So that means you want to look at all sides, just like you're saying. You want to know, you want to know how it's designed. You want to know how it can affect you and what you can do positively and negatively. And that's, I mean, I think that's really at the heart of a lot of what we teach about anything, is you want to be informed, right? When you have that accurate information to make wise decisions. Exactly.

Stephanie Olson: 23:56

Yeah, yeah. Well, this was a great conversation. I thought it was really interesting. You know, our our Cold Play friend, has an uphill battle, I think, to overcome. And I think what we don't want to do, that we can actually almost do with social media is he is, in essence wearing the scarlet letter, right? He's got the big red a on his shirt right now. And I'm not sure that's fair, um or appropriate at the same time, he made some choices that were just not, maybe good choices. And there are repercussions. There are consequences, and today, in today's world, those consequences sometimes don't go away. Yeah, and that's hard.

Unknown: 25:04

That is hard I feel for him. I feel, I mean, ultimately, what I wish on everyone involved is just for healing. Yeah,

Stephanie Olson: 25:11

yeah, whatever that looks Yeah. I'm not sure if I feel for him a whole lot at this point, but I really do feel for his family and that his family has to experience this so publicly, when they had no choice in this situation, they had no options and and frankly, actually, I have a feeling the people who work at that company are going through some similar things, and they didn't have a choice. They didn't have the options. And so that is one of those things that social media can do. All of a sudden, this tech company has almost has the scarlet letter on them as well, when I'm not sure that's fair, probably not appropriate. Yeah, right. And then it makes me think you know, as as a CEO and you as a director of our stuff with staff, you know, what, if we were in a similar situation, and the backlash started to affect our organization in a negative way because of social media? You know? You have to start looking at some which is why it in part. I mean, not that exactly, but we have a social media policy in our handbook, and there are codes of conduct that you have to follow on social media that we have put into place because, as I've always said, handbooks are created because somebody did something, that

Unknown: 27:04

organization should have a social media policy, in my opinion,

Stephanie Olson: 27:08

absolutely. And I think that you know that at least protects you on that level. If we had a situation like this, well, and I don't even know, because I was going to say, because of that, this would be an obvious choice, but he didn't post it. This isn't his social media. And so then you're like, gosh, tricky situation. Yes, I mean, his actions caused some very, I'm sure has caused some very problematic things for the company, but he didn't break a social media policy. Well, I don't know. I don't know what they're gonna do.

Unknown: 27:50

Yeah, I think we need to come back and talk about it more, because there's just so much. There's so many layers to this.

Stephanie Olson: 27:58

I love having these conversations, but I think there's so much more we can explore with social media and especially family vlogging, and so let's do take a look at that.

Unknown: 28:10

I think that's great. And if anyone has listened this far and you're thinking of questions as we're talking, let us know, oh, yeah, to talk through those discussion points or questions that you might have,

Stephanie Olson: 28:20

yeah, because I think this is a learning tool for all of us. I think anytime something like this happens to somebody, it's really sad that it is happening, and again, we're not going to, you know, we're not going to aggravate it by showing the video and keeping that piece going. But I do think all of this, these are learning tools, and we can all learn from other people's mistakes, unfortunately, and I think it's important that we do learn and make changes that are appropriate to Well, number one, don't have an affair. You know? That's like, that's a good rule of thumb. That is a good rule of thumb. So and integrity, I want to go back to the point of integrity, because you mentioned this. I always just define integrity as doing, doing. What is it that you are who you are when no one is looking. Oh, doing the right thing. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. And I think that's what it's all about. We do need to live our life with integrity, and that is a positive thing, and it's a good thing, and integrity is very important. We've got it as one of our core values, right? But so did Enron. Enron had integrity as one of their core values. I think the difference between Enron and us, besides the amount of money they had, is that. We really do believe in living that integrity, integral, integral life. You know, that's an

Unknown: 30:06

important piece, something that we keep each other accountable on too.

Stephanie Olson: 30:10

That's a great point. Okay, yes, we hold each other accountable to that we really do. And you need to have accountability people in your life as well. And so if, if we were, and I can guarantee this, if, if we were going out as an organization, and I was actively having an affair and bringing my boyfriend along with us, you would not be

Unknown: 30:42

there. No, I would say, What is wrong with you? Yep, and I know,

Stephanie Olson: 30:48

and the same is true for I think every one of our staff members would be like, Nope, I'm not going to be a party to that. So it's integrity all the way around. I think, yeah, well, this was a good discussion. Interesting. I've learned a lot.

Unknown: 31:09

This is good. I feel like these are always so fun, just to get to talk and almost process like what we're seeing

Stephanie Olson: 31:15

it is, it's good processing. So, yeah, let's talk more about social media and social vlogging and all of the things, because there are a lot of things, and this is just part of one of the things that we do talk about social media safety and how to safely navigate it. So along with that is social media integrity. So yeah, this was good, yeah. So thank you for joining us. Go get some R and R. We'll see you next time. Bye. You.