Vlogging can be a lucrative career for individuals and families alike, but one misstep could turn an entire fan base against you. That’s what vlogging parents Myka and James Stauffer learned when the daily vlogs featuring their adopted son Huxley suddenly ended, sparking conspiracies and a furious response from their fans. An Update on Our Family is a new Max docuseries that follows their story and explores the dark underbelly of family vlogging.
An Update on Our Family, based on a 2020 New York Magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello, is centered around the Stauffer family. Myka and James already had a large following on YouTube as they shared the highs and lows of having three children, but their fame reached new heights in 2017 when they adopted a two-and-a-half-year-old boy from China.
They documented every step of the adoption journey, and once the process was finished, their adopted son Huxley was in virtually every video they uploaded. Then, three years later, Huxley Stauffer was suddenly gone without a trace.
Directed by Rachel Mason, the three-part documentary series asks difficult questions about the Stauffer family as well as the cottage industry of family vlogging as a whole.
“I have a son, and I couldn’t possibly imagine filming with him every day,” Mason told Vanity Fair when asked about exploring the Stauffer family’s archive of YouTube videos. “What am I going to even come up with? You have to be creative and you have to be constant, and if you don’t feed the beast, it’s just going to come up for more.”
The first episode of An Update on Our Family will air on HBO at 9:00 p.m. ET on January 15. It will also be available to stream on Max. Episode 2 debuts on January 22 at the same time, and the third and final episode arrives on January 29.
