When an Influencer's Child Died The Internet Came For Her

How a momfluencer’s worst nightmare became parasocial entertainment

I’ve been trying to write this newsletter for days. Every time I sit down, I think about closing my laptop, smothering my kids in love, and walking away from the Internet for good.

But I can’t stop thinking about this story that I first saw reported by Fortesa Latifi on both her substack and in Rolling Stone.

You might not have heard of Emilie Kiser. I hadn’t before this story broke, but there are so many influencers out there it is tough to keep track.

Emilie Kiser is a momfluencer. One of the massively famous and influential ones.

She’s been on TikTok and Instagram for years sharing pregnancies, her postpartum experiences, the daily chaos of parenting young children. Millions of followers have watched her family grow up onscreen. They know intensely intimate details about her life and her children.

emiliekiser

A post shared by @emiliekiser

A few weeks ago, one of those kids, her three-year-old son Trigg, drowned in a backyard pool accident.

That alone is devastating. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. But what happened next is what truly broke me.

As Fortesa reported on her Substack:

When the drowning incident happened on May 12, it was reported on local Arizona news channels and the outside of the house was shown. Viewers recognized it as belonging to Kiser. Almost immediately, TikTok was ablaze with rumors that the boy who had drowned was Kiser’s son. People posted videos comparing footage from the news report to Zillow listings of Kaiser’s house, insisting that the boy who drowned must have been her son. There were tearful videos where creators prayed for Trigg’s wellbeing and others where people redoubled their investigative efforts to prove that Trigg was the boy who had drowned. TikTok creators pointed to the fact that Kiser (and many of her close friends who are also influencers) hadn’t posted in days.

On Monday, news reports confirmed that Trigg had died. Seemingly instantaneously, online sleuths dug for proof of the boy’s passing, even going as far as posting screenshots from the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner confirming his death.

This child’s death became a puzzle box mystery for strangers to solve.