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Being a tween is hard enough, but today’s tweens have way more on their plate than we ever did. Not only is it one of the most sensitive periods of their lives, but they’re also surrounded by images and videos that tell them exactly who they should be.
Social media and influencer culture has changed the way tweens talk, dress, and think. It’s common for 12-year-old girls to have a skincare routine, complete with expensive serums and toners. And it’s not completely abnormal for your middle schooler to start inquiring about protein powders.
But one of the worst things that targets kids to come from social media is the Bop House. If you haven’t learned what a Bop House is yet, consider yourself lucky. Bop Houses are similar to content houses where a group of influencers live together to make content all day, everyday. However, Bop Houses are specifically for “spicy” influencers, as some TikTokers refer to it, or content creators that sell sexually explicit content online.
However, most of the Bop House videos are targeted to young audiences on TikTok and feature women under 25 dancing suggestively in an effort to take the user off their page and onto an explicit site where they sell pornographic content.
Though Bop Houses have existed for a while now, the effects of this content is finally starting to become clear. And now middle school girls are speaking out and sharing what these videos do to their mental health.
So, Why Is Bop House Content Harmful?
Clearly, TikTok and Instagram have regulations around what can be posted on their platforms and these guidelines are meant to ensure that underage users don’t encounter sexually explicit content—so what is the harm?
While most of the Bop House videos are a benign slew of get ready with me videos and clips following popular trends, the creators strategically market themselves as wealthy, beautiful, young, and open, in an attempt to funnel users off the platform and onto their website where people can subscribe to see nude photos and videos.
The members of the Bop House collective range from 19- to 25-years-old, and often dress themselves to appear younger than that. Criticisms of their online presence says it glorifies pornography, and pressures children into creating explicit content when they turn 18, rather than go to college or find a career.
Did You Know?
Bop house got its name from the slang term “bop” which refers to women that are perceived as sexually promiscuous. The term evolved from “lala bop,” and is often used as an insult.
Girls Are Negatively Impacted by Bop House Content
In a TikTok shared by Melinda Tankard Reist, an Australian writer, blogger, speaker, and media activist, several middle school girls share how Bop House videos impact their daily lives, including their interactions with boys their own age.
In a series of heartbreaking responses, the girls all explain how the videos change the way boys in their class perceive them and give these boys inflated expectations. As one girl explains, “Because the Bop House is showing what they’re doing, boys are expecting us girls to do it as well.”
Another girl shares that boys are expecting them to look like the Bop House girls, who dress provocatively and often spend thousands to enhance their appearance with lip fillers and implants. A lot of the girls say that none of them look like these women, and that when the boys in their class get their first girlfriend they will be expecting a girl that looks (and acts) like one from a Bop House.
Boys think that if we don’t look like that, we’re really ugly. They want us to be as attractive as them.
“As we grow they expect us to look like the Bop House and it makes us feel unsafe wherever we go,” a girl shares in the video. The girls who don’t conform to these rigid expectations are casted aside. “Boys think that if we don’t look like that, we’re really ugly,” says one of the middle-schoolers. “They want us to be as attractive as them.”
And it’s not just the pressure to look a certain way, these girls also believe they need to behave more provocatively to attract and sustain romantic relationships and if they don’t comply the boys in their class will simply watch Bop House content to get their fix.
One student shared that she believes tween boys think: “If I want that, why can’t I just look at it instead of putting effort into getting to know someone?”
What Parents Should Know
It’s obvious that Bop House content erodes the mind of tweens by providing an unrealistic view of women and heterosexual relationships. But it doesn’t just end there. Influencers who belong to a Bop House typically share the vast amounts of money they make on their TikTok and Instagram platforms. Sometimes holding large sums of money or expensive purchases claiming that they made the large sum in a short period of time, even in a day.
In one Bop House video, founder 20-year-old Sophie Rain asks everyone how much money they made last month. The first response? “6 million,” a young girl shared. Which was immediately followed by “Alright next person, that was underwhelming.”
This video has over 3.7 million likes and one of the top comments reads “Even the lowest amount makes more than I make in a year.”
These creators post these videos to a demographic that mostly consists of tweens and teens, with the hidden agenda of showcasing an unattainable lifestyle to promote behaviors that many find harmful. The message is, if I can make this amount of money and have this much attention then it’s worth it. And to young, impressionable minds that message is enough to spark some pretty bad ideas.