We won't tell Daddy!

This project explores "sharenting"—the phenomenon of oversharing children’s lives on social media. Through a speculative installation, it exposes the misuse of parental power and the act of commodification of childhood in the digital age.

“I am gonna close the door and leave the room. You can say any bad words you want. It’s a safe space, you won’t get in trouble.”
This is how the videos of the #bathroomchallenge begin, shortly before the footage is posted, exposing children for the entertainment of strangers online.

The project We Won’t Tell Daddy! offers a speculative look at the phenomenon of “sharenting”—the oversharing of children’s lives on social media. The work, in the form of a multi-channel video installation, combines soft sculpture and materialised photography to reflect on parenting in the digital age, the potential consequences of creating lasting digital footprints, and the misuse of parental authority by commodifying childhood for online entertainment.

In the #bathroomchallenge, the parents create a false sense of safety in the bathroom, and leave the children alone to say “bad words” while recording them. In these clips, children (often between the ages of 2 and 5) are encouraged into a forbidden behaviour, without consent and little awareness of the permanence of the act. The videos are grouped under a hashtag, turning this intimate setting into a searchable archive of material for exploitation and identity theft. As the domestic trust collides with the abuse of technology, it reveals the troubling paradox of children being endangered not by outsiders but by the very hands of their parents.

One of the central layers of the project is the use of material that seems unseen. The video stills—invisible to the viewer while watching—are extracted, organised into a dataset, and used for AI model training. This process highlights how even the unnoticed fragments of digital material can serve as a source of data. With the help of deepfake technology, these stills are then manipulated to reflect on the endangered position of children in the digital age, especially under the supervision of their own parents.

To expose the dynamics and reverse the power relationship, the deepfake, commonly associated with harm and manipulation, is reversed into a protective gesture and serves as a personal artistic statement. Instead of misusing the data, I am misusing the technology itself. Instead of stealing the identities of the kids, I am covering their faces with my own face while performing the technological disobedience. In this way, I am reversing and questioning the online user behaviour of parents, motivating new ways of data interpretation, and educating on the various uses of digital technologies.

Because the work responds to a digital phenomenon, the translation into physical form is equally important and speaks about the way the virtual and intangible experiences are shaping our reality. A sculptural installation expands the project into an experience. The teddy bears—traditional symbols of childhood—are multiplied and distorted in uncanny ways. Their plush pattern exposes the dataset of images, materialising the extensive amounts of data hidden in these short videos. Each bear embodies the individuality of a child who, in the flood of millions of similar clips, faces the risk of losing their individuality alongside their identity, and becoming a puppet within an online archive of an orchestrated childhood. At the human scale, the installation confronts the viewer directly, situating them within the dynamics of surveillance, entertainment, and exploitation. It emphasizes how our experiences are unique yet shared, personal yet publicly mediated through online culture and the shared generational power.

We Won’t Tell Daddy! points to the abuse of trust, the misuse of parental power, and the blind obedience to technology and trends. It raises questions about parental behaviour online, children’s rights in the digital era, and the ethics of viral challenges. Ultimately, the project playfully but critically reflects on the present and future state of childhood, exposing the unresolved risks of digital culture while suggesting new possibilities for rethinking the role of technology in our everyday lives.

Watch the compilation of videos here.