General Discussion

The problem is they don't think through the consequences of their actions, and half the world will give in when they cry, which further perpetuates the problem.

Also, within the fashion industry there doesn't seem to be a super clear cut rule on who owns the images after they are taken. It's not as cut and dry as one would think.

kimflorida is making a very solid point about the underage/teen models ID and I have to say I 100% agree with it, I feel very uncomfortable with people asking to ID these girls who are clearly too young. This isn't a case like Kaia/Thylane that have been over exposed for years, these are children modeling children's clothes.

There's a reason why agencies don't give the info for those girls and I'm not sure we should be making a "safe" place for creeps to get info on these kids here.

I agree. However If we make a rule stating no posting/requesting information of underage models then we would need to go in and clean up a lot of threads. Girls like Taylor hill and hailey clauson for instance were 13/14 when their threads were started. 
Its a bit of a catch 22.

I suppose you'd have to say realistically, since there are so many runway models who seem to start their careers at precisely that age, that our hands are somewhat tied with regard to dedicated threads in the fashion section.

However if 13-14 is still our minimum age requirement and the girls in question are very obviously younger than that, I think we're duty bound to take them down.

I honestly didn’t think we had a minimum age requirement. I just used those two girls as an example as I knew there threads were started when they were relatively young. 
I personally don’t particularly feel comfortable with the age bracket the girls in the model ID thread, however where do we draw the line. The ID request is clearly for a “model” per say, however they do look like they are between 8-12, and that’s me being generous as makeup and photoshop were undoubtedly involved.  

I should add that the conversation I was referencing happened yonks ago, and that I'm not 100% certain if we ever made it into a hard and fast rule.

Ideally, to me, the cut-off point would be a bit higher. If I'm remembering it right though, it was generally agreed that we should base it roughly on the minimum age limit for prospective BZ members, and of course the unavoidable fact that so many models start so very young.

IMO we should have a rule for girls under say, 14 yo and addressing the fact that some of these girls are exposed (and IMO, exploited) by their own families and agencies when they are younger than that, but that's the key difference for me. Girls like Kaia, Thylane, Taylor and etc. had their names in the public eye quite frankly because their families and agencies were cool with that, but with these children if there's no way to know who they are, we shouldn't be encouraging outing them, for all we know they could give up modeling in three month.

Anothe thing to keep in mind IMO, is the fact that the more popular girls we've mentioned, were children/teenages modeling adult stuff, but the girls in ID subforum are modeling children's stuff, that just really rubs me the wrong way.

Last time we had a similar discussion this was what was decided:

Things change so obviously we could revisit this discussion if necessary

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As I said before, if we were to implement an age limit I think at least 14 or even 15/16 would be good.

My issue with this is where does the line change between acceptable age and Epstein MAPness

Legally in the US it's 18, but what's the difference between a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old besides the ability to drive and maybe bra size? I don't know how comfortable I am personally seeing 14/15/16-year-olds having threads as I get older.

Taylor's thread was started when she was 15 and I was one of the people who pushed her thread big time... did I feel great about pushing her? Nope... but I knew she had something special, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that I overlooked her age... As for Hailey Clauson people were posting super "sexy" shoots of hers as far back as 13 and we got all kinds of weirdos asking about her... and yet we ignored it.

Thylane was another big nope we seemed to ignore. People were posting her inappropriate pictures of her at the age of 7 and often times we had some shady AF guys saying stuff that made my skin crawl (I deleted their comments)

I guess for me it's a moral thing, and I don't know where morality belongs in this discussion. 15/16 is still pushing it imo, and I'm not super comfy with it, but it is what it is and if we agree on a different number I'll go with the majority.

I agree Pretty,  but to be completely fair I think we should draw the line where agencies draw it. If a girl is represented by a children's/youth agency that does not provide info abou the girl, then neither should we, and if the girl doesn't even have an agency then we shouldn't be having a thread either. It probably means the parents/legal representatives are not comfortable with their details being public. However, if a model's info is out there because IMG or whatever agency, then I say it's fine, it means probably the family or legal people are okay with the details being public, and tbh I think most agencies are not even signing girls under 16 anymore because -thankfully- a lot of places and companies have stopped working with young girls due to the massive backlash they were getting.

IF we are going by numbers, I think we shouldn't allow threads for girls under 16 and monitor the threads for underage girls closely. The Fashion Spot doesn't allow threads for girls under 14, which I still think it's really damn young, but they do have the rule in place.

As far as the comments go, I think with some common sense all of us know where to draw the line, IIRC both Kaia and Thylane's threads have been cleaned before to delete creepy comments.

EDIT: Something I forgot but I'd like to add, I think we should ban underage girls from being in competitions as well. Like we really shouldn't be judging these girls like that when they are so young, specially because some people make some truly shitty comments in comps and we all know a lot of girls or their family/friends visit Bellazon and do we really need these kids reading shitty comments about them here? Nope, being a teenager sucks balls as it is. I am guilty of having submitted young girls to competitions before but like, now thinking about it makes me feel very uncomfortable and it's not something I'd do moving forward.

EDIT2: Just an idea, but for moderating purposes and to make our lives and monitoring those threads easier, maybe we can create a sub within Female/Male models called "Development" or something like that and put the underage threads in there and then move them to the main sub once they are 18? It's just a thought so we can have all the threads we need to follow closely in one place.

@Clauds - I already approved FakeBlonde's choice, and removing her from the comp will cause all kinds of outrage from her. She''ll scream and bemoan that I was told she was 16 and I allowed it, and that it's not fair and tantrums will ensue. I honestly don't want to deal with him more than I have to. When she's a decent mood it's decent, when she's in a bad mood she turns into a 14 year old victim....

Edit: I just checked, and the team the kid is on is out anyways... something I'm sure I'll get blamed for somehow... YAY!

Also "Dave"  continuing to vote identically to the wife.... Either super simp, or not Dave voting. Still refuse to add "his" votes till I see differences

I personally I am ok with younger models, preferably at least 16 yos, having threads on BZ as long as there aren't any nudes and sexualized content. However, I am aware there are a lot of creepers and pedophiles on the internet and this has definitely make me reevaluate things. I am not sure what is the best approach to this but I do agree we probably shouldn't have models under a certain age (have we decided on the age?)  in competitions and the idea of having a "Development" section does sound appealing.

@Prettyphile: Just curious who picked Robin and Emily Deyt-Aysage to be on their team? Also, it is so annoying how members are complaining about the photos

12 minutes ago, PinkCouture said:

I personally I am ok with younger models, preferably at least 16 yos, having threads on BZ as long as there aren't any nudes and sexualized content. However, I am aware there are a lot of creepers and pedophiles on the internet and this has definitely make me reevaluate things. I am not sure what is the best approach to this but I do agree we probably shouldn't have models under a certain age (have we decided on the age?)  in competitions and the idea of having a "Development" section does sound appealing.

 

@Prettyphile: Just curious who picked Robin and Emily Deyt-Aysage to be on their team? Also, it is so annoying how members are complaining about the photos

Robin Holzken = Fake Blonde

Emily = Stormbringer

Care to guess the person who bitches the most.... 3 guess and the first 2 don't count

Glad the team got eliminated lol, but moving forward I think we shouldn't have young girls in the competitions anymore, just my two cents. I'm sure fakeblonde will complain tho, that's all she ever does maybe you can make an exception and publish the scores for that team already and say it got eliminated anyway?

As for an age, I think 16 is a good age to draw the line so if we're going strictly by age I'd say let's push the age limit to 16 in all regards: threads, model IDs, etc.

I'm completely on board with the underage girls not being in the competitions, and I'm also in agreement with the idea of a development sub-section for girls either under the age of 16, or 18 depending on what's decided.  That way we can, as Claudia mentioned, monitor them more closely. It could also allow for us to force members to submit a request to have a thread started for anyone under a specific age, that way if they're to young we can just veto it altogether.

If there's a precedence for another major fashion forum to allow for 14 year old's, if we wanted to stay comparable we should probably follow suit, with more accountability, (as per Claudia's suggestion). Sadly the fashion community still seems to start quite a few models as very young, and I feel we would lose out on a lot of opportunity if we were to completely disallow them.

If everyone is cool with it, I'll go ahead and start moving underage girls threads to a new sub (not sure if I can create it myself, but if not someone create it and I'll start moving the threads asap) and we can post another announcement regarding that in the same way we've done with Patreon

In another suject, Polina Malinovskaya is pretty much doing soft core porn these days, seems like she just fully is going that route. Are we cool with that content? Should we move her thread to Other Female of Interest? Not sure where to go with this one, but like, she's definitely taking it too far

^ I say go for it 👍🏻
 

As for Polina, I am totally fine with moving her to OFoI. There might be some push back from members but they will get over.

I can't create subs, so if someone can create the Development Models subforum I'll start moving the threads from the young girls there

18 minutes ago, Clauds said:

I can't create subs, so if someone can create the Development Models subforum I'll start moving the threads from the young girls there

Let me try now...

@Clauds: https://www.bellazon.com/main/forum/127-development-models/

For some reason it won't let me pin the subforum