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Why I hate Jordan Matter
An Essay.
(Disclaimer; I only really know him because my niece watches his family vlogs.)
With the rise of the internet came the rise of video blogs or vlogs. People would vlog their trip to Disney or their everyday life, then came the family vloggers who would record their life or viral trends with their kids who are usually too young to have a tiktok account. Jordan Matter says that he does these public challenge videos because he loves spending time with his kids even though he ends up spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars per video or getting absolutely humiliated. My niece will endlessly watch these challenge videos while I'm babysitting her, so I end up watching these because I become baffled by these kids and their father.
Recently, my niece put on this one video that was a compilation of many other videos, it was about 5 color challenge videos from Jordan Matter. For those who don't know, color challenges are series of challenges where there are usually two competitors or teams, and they have to create entirely new outfits at the mall, buy them and then usually buy things in their color or do something related to the color they picked, there is usually a way to fail so the competitors are fighting for a win. This compilation is what inspired me to write this. As I was watching I realized these videos took place over a span of about 2 years, with in this video Jordan Matter's daughter, who I will not name out of respect because this in no way is her fault, her friends and the Anazala family were all featured. In one challenge it was Asala Anazala and her daughter vs Jordan's daughter vs Jordan, the girls had to buy outfits in their color and then hide somewhere in the mall near something of their color. Jordan had to find them, Jordan was allowed to dispatch a challenge where they had to buy ice cream in their color without getting caught by him. In this challenge the prize was a 5 minute shopping spree in any store, he constantly made comments about how didn't want to drain his bank account by letting either of the other teams win, then why would you have offered this up as a prize? Throughout the video he gets kicked out of a target along with a dozen teens because he ends up recruiting around a dozen of them to find his daughter in the target and they become rowdy and end up running around, yelling and recording. After getting kicked out he then goes back in because he still trying to find Asala and her daughter. He then proceeded to run after Asala and her daughter yelling and screaming. I genuinely hope that he gets banned from that target because he is not only a disturbance to the peace but he just creates more trouble for the workers who are most likely barely scraping by and don't get payed enough to deal with some old man paying teens to help him win a vlog challenge.
In another challenge of the compilation Jordan asks an ice cream shop to allow his daughter and her friend to serve people ice cream. They stick a camera in customer's faces and allowed two twelve year olds to make and serve milk shakes and ice cream to people just trying to order a treat. In this piece of the challenge the girls end up trying to coerce the customers to buy something pink with their order, and many of the customers seem uncomfortable with the pressure coming from the girls. Jordan desperate to win also ends up sticking a camera in people's faces and trying to coerce customers still waiting into not buying anything pink. Jordan not only is a nuisance to the public but honestly a threat to public safety as this is not the only time he has challenged his kid to get behind a counter they don't work at and serve customers that didn't ask to be served by this child. Children are icky! They have so much bacteria and germs and they are not very good at washing their hands, he could have unknowingly caused people to get sick. There was another video (completely separate from this compilation) where he asked his son to ask a coffee shop if he could get behind the counter and fill an order, in short he sucked at it but the coffee shop had someone watching him the whole way through, unlike the girls video where they were pretty much unsupervised by angy but Jordan and the cameras for a good portion of the video.
In short, Jordan Matter is a public nuisance and should have his platform taken because he's exploiting his kids and borderline harassing workers. He has been recording his kids for at least 4 years to my knowledge, his daughter was 11 and his son was 14. He has been sending them on challenges in the mall and in stores for years. Fuck Jordan Matter.
'The Cult of Family Vloggers' by Sounds Like A Cult on Amazon Music.
This was a very interesting and extremely informative episode. Certainly has made me rethink the way I approach social media as a parent.