TikTok parents, Ty and Haley Kelly, routinely post videos about their lives for their 1.2 + million followers.
Typically, their videos show an active family with young children having adventures and lots of fun.
Image Credit: Instagram
But recently, a family trip to Disney World started a backlash so severe, they not only had to delete the questionable clip, but they also had to create another one to apologize for their actions.
In the now deleted video, Ty and Haley outfitted their 3-year-old named Kannon in shoes padded enough to help him meet the height guidelines for motion simulator ride Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and the child-friendly Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster. If Kannon hadn’t warn the padded shoes, he wouldn’t have made the height requirements to get on these rides.
The Kellys did not expect the backlash and critical comments about how irresponsible they were after the video posted, and they subsequently deleted it from both their TikTok and Instagram accounts. Soon they posted another video where they addressed their actions and explained why they deleted the related content, but that video has now been deleted too.
Hmmmm….
Thankfully, we have a transcript…
“Hey everyone, so we’d like to address this Disney shoe situation one more time.
So what started off as us trying to make an entertaining video for our audience that we thought you’d enjoy quickly turned into us realizing that what we put out on our platform has more consequences than we initially thought.
As we realized this, we also realized we have more influence than we initially thought and that influence, if presented in a negative way, can have a ripple effect that could potentially cause harm or danger to someone else.”
The couple reassured their followers Kannon was “unharmed and completely okay,” and they “now understand that that may not be the case for some other kid. And the last thing that we want to happen from something that we put out on our social media is someone getting hurt.”
Haley said after affirming the content was taken down,
“We hope you’ll give us the opportunity to prove that we love our children, we love y’all, and we love each other. With influence comes responsibility, and we take that seriously.”
Ty added,
“We want to assure you that moving forward, we’re going to be more mindful of our actions and what we put out on our social media. This is a privilege. It’s a responsibility to set a good example for the people that follow us.”
And in case anyone still doubted them, they captioned the video, writing,
“With influence comes responsibility, and we take that seriously. It’s a privilege to have the platforms we do, and we’d NEVER want someone else to get hurt from an idea from one of our videos.
With that being said, we’ve decided to take anything down related to the Disney shoe video. We hope that in time, you’ll see that we are serious about the content we put out for the public to see, and we’re committed to being more careful and intentional with our posts moving forward.
We want our platforms to feel like home, and a safe place for you to come and unwind, be uplifted, inspired and hopefully entertained. We love you all. #thekellyfam.”
Comments were up and down the empathy spectrum.
Lessons were learned.
Image Credit: TikTok
Jokes were made.
Image Credit: TikTok
But, at the end of the day, their true fans turned up.
Image Credit: TikTok
