Nikkie Plessen and other celebrities who use their children for commercial gain were tackled last night in the broadcast of Shownieuws. “It’s just disgusting!”
The way in which Yolanthe Cabau advertises her safari in Kenya on social media has come under considerable criticism from Guido den Aantrekker, the boss of Story. He shouted in Shownieuws last night that she is ‘exploiting’ her son. “I think Yolanthe actually appears quite often with that guy on social media.”
Attack on Nikkie
A discussion then arose at the Shownieuws desk about celebrities who not only show their children on social media, but also use them to promote their own product. It is an indirect attack on Nikkie Plessen, who regularly uses her children on social media to draw attention to her line for children’s clothing.
A few hours prior to that discussion, Nikkie was at the desk of RTL Boulevard, where she had an item about the countless Kardashian children who now appear in front of the camera all the time. “It’s just a company, a concern, a billion-dollar group that is there and everything is well thought out.”
‘Do you find it inspiring?’
Colleague Vivienne van den Assem finds that difficult. “When you see that North West [Kardashian] is really used to show the new eyewear brand of father Kanye, then I think: that has really been thought about…”
Nikkie cautiously: “They are never really used as a campaign. Look, they just put on glasses and it will probably be said ‘these are the glasses from’, but they have not yet been used as a really large-scale campaign as they do themselves. There is, of course, a chance that that will happen.”
Vivienne: “Do you find it inspiring or does it scare you?”
Nikkie: “I do think that at some point these people ended up in a situation where you really just have to deal with the way things are. It sometimes seems very difficult for the kids to deal with this, so that is a deterrent.”
Kids as mannequin
It’s no wonder that Nikkie is so cautious about the way the Kardashians use their children. After all, Nikkie also regularly uses her children as living mannequins to promote her children’s collection NIK&NIK. Almost all moments of the family turn into a PR moment.
Photographer William Rutten does not mention Nikkie’s name during the discussion in Shownieuws, but it is clear who he is talking about: “I see a lot of mothers who then put clothes on their children and then also the text of that… Using it commercially, so to speak, of their children. I find that really disgusting.”
‘Disgusting!’
Guido agrees with him. “That’s disgusting isn’t it?”
Colleague Dyantha Brooks: “It’s a pretty gold mine, of course, isn’t it?”
Guido: “That’s it.”
William: “Yes. And that shouldn’t be. If I want to do something with my child for a photo shoot, it is only allowed in a certain time. You also do not know whether such a child later thinks: I would not have wanted that at all, or something.”
Guido: “I think it’s so double, huh? We have a Child Protection Agency in the Netherlands that always complains terribly when there is a boy in a musical who is allowed to play such a role one and a half times a year, while children are constantly given a stage on social media in this way.”
He concludes: “Just let children be good children. That’s kind of my motto.”
An example of Nikkie using her children as mannequins is shown below. In the caption she explains which NIK&NIK garments her children are wearing. In particular, she often applies this method in her stories on Instagram.