Popular Irish YouTubers Anna and Jonathan Saccone-Joly have been facing online backlash to a video they posted that showed their three young children in dog cages.
The UK based family upload daily videos of their family life featuring their three kids, Emilia, five, Eduardo, four, and one-year-old Alessia, and have accumulated over 1.8 million subscribers.
Yesterday, Jonathan took to twitter to share their daily vlog, and the thumbnail showed the three young kids in the couple’s dog cages. The tweet received a lot of negative backlash, forcing the Cork native to call it a ‘joke’.
“What is wrong with you? How tone deaf and ignorant can you be?,” One annoyed follower replied. “This is not even funny under normal circumstances, but do you not watch news at all?”
“It’s distasteful,” another added. “As a YouTuber who relies on his children for content it seems ludicrous that you would take advantage of other children’s hardships and abuse to create your thumbnail ‘joke’”
“You can “make jokes” but you can also show some kind of awareness about current world issues,” a third tweeted. “This joke is incredibly distasteful given that children are literally being torn from their parents arms and put in cages. Have some empathy as a human and a father. Think.”
I forgot for a min that your not allow to make jokes on the Internet
— J o n a t h a n (@JonathanJoly) June 17, 2018
Despite the significant backlash, some of the family’s followers defended the video, with one viewer saying “I think you misunderstood Jonathan. You can’t make any jokes anywhere without people getting offended. Everyone is too over sensitive.”
Another added “Oh my god, are you for real??? People got offended because of this?!?! Come on guys, take the joke!! @JonathanJoly don’t mind them! xx”
The thumbnail for the video has now been changed, but you can take a look at the full thing here.
What do you think? Was the joke in bad taste?
