Dad Vlogger Jonathan Saccone-Joly has wiped out thousands of old videos on his family's popular YouTube channel, "The Saccone Jolys," after amassing 1.7 million followers in the last 12 years.
Together with his wife, Anna Saccone-Joly, Jonathan created their online life by documenting their daily activities on YouTube. However, after raking millions of followers and social media popularity, the dad vlogger decided to take out many of their memorable videos to allow his children to "curate their own" content online.
Speaking with Newstalk, Jonathan said that a lot has changed on the Internet since he started making YouTube videos years ago. He said he's also not the same person he used to be; thus, the change of heart about being YouTube famous.
The dad vlogger added that he has been a parent for ten years now and realized that some things are no longer suitable for their children. He admitted that if he could have a do-over, he would not be doing the videos he has done for the last 12 years.
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Who is The Saccone-Joly Family?
Jonathan Joly was born in Dublin and currently lives in England. He married Anna Saccone, originally from Maryland in the U.S., and decided to merge their family names to both carry Saccone-Joly.
In 2012, the pair welcomed their first baby, Emilia, when their social media presence was growing. The parents welcomed three more kids, Eduardo, Alessia, and Andrea, after they became famous with Jonathan named "Celebrity Dad of the Year," per Daily Mail.
Beginning with Anna's pregnancy, all of the children's lives were documented on their YouTube channel. In 2016, Anna miscarried before they could confirm the baby's gender, and they named their child "Squid." Years later, the parents said they would have called the baby Luca or Guiletta.
After the parents decided to delete thousands of their videos on YouTube, they left one video titled "Our Biggest Regrets as Parents" on their channel. There, Jonathan and Anna spoke of how they used to care too much about what their followers thought and how trends easily influenced them during their younger phases as parents.
In the same video, Jonathan and Anna also explained that their YouTube channel will evolve with new videos with a formatted style, per the Irish Examiner. They will also be putting back some of the old videos, but for special occasions only.
To date, their channel has over 160 videos for the public, while the rest remain hidden. The Saccone-Joly has kept their TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profiles active.
Criticisms From the Public
The move to take out content on their channel comes after Jonathan received public criticism for releasing a memoir where he admitted that he identifies as non-binary. The family also revealed that Eduardo is transgender and would like to be known as Edie.
But some of their viewers commented that they should not be documenting Edie's transition in public as he's still too young to understand what's happening. The dad vlogger believes that they were spreading awareness on issues about gender, but the backlash was unnerving for the parents.
"We have never claimed to be perfect as individuals or as parents," Jonathan and Anna said. "We are devastated and disappointed to see the negativity and nasty comments from online trolls."
