She Was a Child Instagram Influencer. Her Fans Were Grown Men.

“Jacky Dejo” was introduced to social media by her parents as a snowboarding prodigy. Now 18, she has seen the dark side of the internet — and turned a profit from it.

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By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries traveled to St. Maarten to meet with Jacky Dejo as part of her reporting on child influencers and their parents. Michael H. Keller has been investigating online child exploitation for five years.

Nov. 10, 2024

For her 18th birthday in March, “Jacky Dejo,” a snowboarder, bikini model and child influencer turned social media entrepreneur, celebrated on the secluded island of Dominica.

On Instagram, she appeared in strappy swimsuits, basking luxuriously on a black-sand beach and floating in a jungle stream.

Her fans — thousands of men had been following her through her teens as she posted and sold photos — wished her well and eagerly anticipated her next move online as an adult.

“Happy birthday,” one wrote in French. “I can’t wait to see you without any clothes on.”

Born two years after the launch of Facebook, she belongs to the first generation to grow up with social media and the multibillion-dollar creator economy that is redefining adolescence for girls.

A Dutch citizen — her real name is Jacquelina de Jong — she has lived in more than a half-dozen countries and picks up languages with ease. But she is equally at home on the internet, where she has built a global fan base that is dominated by American men. At 16, with the consent of her parents, she was pulling in upward of $50,000 some months, she says, charging for access to her online posts and images.

When The New York Times began investigating the culture of underage girl influencers more than a year ago, Jacky Dejo — or simply Jacky, as she is widely known by her followers on the internet — quickly emerged as a prominent and enigmatic figure.

Still underage, she was posting salacious images of herself on Instagram and had her own photo-selling platform. Everyone in the ever-growing world of child influencers seemed to know about her — mothers who managed their underage daughters’ Instagram accounts, men who followed the girls on various platforms and anti-child-exploitation crusaders who condemned all of it.

To better understand the alluring and sometimes perilous lifestyle so many of these girls aspire to achieve, The Times asked Jacky to share her story. Her experience is hardly that of a typical American girl for many reasons, including Jacky’s independence and international escapades. But it illustrates in rare detail the dangers faced by child influencers everywhere, and how adolescence for many girls is being molded by platforms that value — and monetize — attention from men who are sexually interested in minors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/us/child-influencer.html?smid=url-share