JD and Brittany Lott- American Family Road Trip

[Alisamer]

On 8/3/2024 at 10:23 AM, FunFunFundie said:

Like, what’s the end game for the Lotts? To make it so people can’t follow them, hate them, and then report them? Because the only option then is to decide not to shine a spotlight on yourself.

...

Also, I never even looked at Boone until Britney posted the CPS story, and now I’m scrutinizing every video. It just seems like the natural choice to decide to live your adventure-filled dream life in private rather than asking strangers to love you unconditionally, constantly.

I think the Lotts have put themselves in a bind. They want to be semi-famous and have people following their adventures and admiring them - with the significant side bonus of making some social media money, which can let them have their social media posting be a business, which lets them write off nearly everything they do as a business expense. And since social media is all about engagement, even the negative views and comments build their brand. They loved it and played to it.

Until. Until Boone started looking maybe a little slightly different than the other kids were, and they were pretty clearly open about their minimal healthcare as if that was a virtue, and people both in real life and online started having concerns. Some people in a genuine "I hope he's OK" way, and some in a much more near-hysterical way, and somewhere along the line someone (or many someones) suggested CPS look into them, and now they have a much harder time putting on like they are the perfect family living the perfect life and don't you just admire them so much?

It's inconvenient to have to answer for your actions, prove you are parenting decently (beyond what you are curating for the cameras), and maybe have to even be in a certain place at a certain time. It opens up the possibility of CPS taking a look at the REST of your life - like the children's sleeping arrangements and homeschooling - and meaning you have less ability to just let things slide. 

It's inconvenient to have a child that might or might not be 100% typical, and to therefore find you might need to be in one place for more than a few days so they can have appropriate care, so best to just ignore, pretend, and not find out. If you don't know about it, it's not your fault for not treating it, right? And if there isn't anything wrong, you've wasted a whole day or two getting it checked out, where you could have been gallivanting around the country.

It's especially inconvenient if the birth of that child, which you proclaimed as the perfect ideal wonderful way to have a child, might have injured the child. Anything that goes against your narrative is an inconvenient annoyance. Especially when you are convinced you are always right and any suggestion otherwise is an attack on your freedom.

I think they are trying very hard to stick to their narrative of being the amazing perfect beautiful Godly free traveling adventure enjoying family, and won't do anything that might not fit that narrative. If they did ever find anything was not typical with any of their children, or any of their children had any sort of medical concern that precluded their nomadic adventuring, they'd probably re-brand around being the amazing perfect beautiful Godly free family managing this health issue better than anyone else ever even thought of. Complete with GoFundMe and affiliate links, and probably angling for a Make A Wish trip at some point.

I think it's interesting that at this moment they seem to have shifted from "look how free and wonderful we are!" to "We were persecuted online and attacked via CPS!" No thought of simply having Boone checked out, or reducing their posting, or anything like that. I think they are trying very hard to go viral as "amazing traveling Christian family attacked by online haters using CPS as a weapon" rather than just... being decent normal parents. CPS requirements seem to be a super low bar to meet, really.

[JermajestyDuggar]

What would be even worse is if they do get a diagnosis and pivot to focusing on his treatments. Which would of course be snake oil and other bullshit woo. 

[klein_roeschen]

On 8/2/2024 at 7:08 PM, Alisamer said:

I think this is not likely to be happening. I hope it is, but I suspect it's not. Just because I think if it was happening, they'd have shown it.

They know full well that the thing most discussed about them online is people concerned about Boone. Except for a single "doc says he's in perfect health" weeks and weeks ago, they've said nothing that I've seen. They documented their son getting glasses after they finally listened to people online suggesting he needed them, their whole schtick is family together as much as possible, and they post constantly. I think if they were getting Boone checked out they'd have showed it, just like they showed weighing him on the UPS scale and getting his passport. I think if he had a diagnosis they'd be marketing off of it and using it for content and engagement, just like they've used this CPS report.  (Unless of course they think they might get some blame for the diagnosis due to the circumstances of his birth, but I think they'd probably ignore that unless there were real consequences for them, somehow.)

I have a very hard time believing, after seeing just how many abused children are left with their parents even with CPS involvement and seeing just how overworked and stretched thin most CPS workers are, that there was ever any genuine threat of the kids being taken. Especially with them never in one place very long. Crossing state lines is where the ball gets constantly dropped for kids under CPS reports, and they are always traveling. The kids don't have adequate space, but they appear clean and fed, both parents are present, and she at least pretends to educate them. The only real concern likely to trigger CPS is any medical issues any of them might have that the parents may not notice. At worst I could see them having to speak to a social worker for a few minutes who then suggests they take the kids for regular medical checkups.

Rambling in the spoiler.

  Hide contents

I feel like CPS is probably more concerned about the 3 kids living with mom and her boyfriend - both of whom are known substance abusers - in a roach and bedbug infested motel room, who are constantly missing school and when they do show up they are dirty, smelly, and have bruises from "falling off the bed. Again." I think the large number of kids in that situation likely take priority over the clearly well off eccentric traveling homeschooling family.

When I worked daycare we had a toddler with frequent bruises, and his infant brother cried constantly unless MAYBE he was in the swing and passed out from exhaustion. Brother always had "fallen off when jumping on the bed" or "fell into the coffee table" while baby's occasional bruises were "older brother hit him with a toy" or "older brother was running and fell on him" and we were suspicious and documented but didn't have enough to report yet per the director, as older brother WAS super active and always moving. Then dad one evening was heating baby's bottle and got it way way way too hot, didn't test it, and gave it to baby. Who naturally ended up in the emergency room. Where they found a broken femur and several other broken bones in various stages of healing. CPS contacted us and we shared what we knew and had been told, and the photos we had of a few bruises. The kids were put with family members for a few days, then returned to mom with the requirement dad had moved out and wasn't around them for a certain amount of time while taking parenting classes or something. Within 2 weeks we were calling in that mom had come to pick up the kids with dad sitting hunched down in the passenger seat. And naturally then the kids were pulled from daycare by mom so I have no updates. But I know that we told them we thought it wasn't JUST dad, yet the kids were returned to mom, and they made every effort to keep them with family.

I just doubt they have the resources or bandwidth to go across country to track down the Lotts, take the kids (requiring them to find space for that many kids of various ages) and investigate them because some rando on the internet doesn't like what they've seen in videos. 

 

Everytime CPS comes up with fundie families, I remind myself that the Nauglers got their kids back pretty fast. And that family lived in a "shed" made of sticks and tarp in winter, shat in buckets that got emptied on the property near their dwelling. The court required port a potty was treated like one of Jill Rods tchochtekes, purely decorative and nobody touched it. It was gone as soon as the courts closed their case. The education these kids recieve is literally non- existent and the husband and father of the kids is a less then useless man more in love with weed than his family. So yeah, I don't think that they have to fear anything from CPS

Edited August 7 by klein_roeschen

[FunFunFundie]

I keep thinking about how Britney constantly says “we are content creators, not content consumers.” It’s not true, I see her pop up in other places on the internet as a consumer. It’s also so indicative of their/her mindset: we don’t learn from others, we teach. I’m all for consuming less content online but to simultaneously say that online consumption is bad AND that everybody should consume their lives is messed up.

As far as I can tell, their lifestyle is dependent on engagement. They clearly make money on the red light therapy and other endorsements, but his work also seems to require network buyin. The satsaver thing he does seems to require people to buy it because they want to be rich like him rather than because it fills a need. Even Bitcoin, while not dependent on JD Lott, is, for most people, bought and sold because they want to be like that dude who got rich off of it and not because they want to use it in any way.

Other people’s finances fascinate me. I’d love to know how much money they have from the trust fund, or, I guess, how much “base” money they have and how much money is actually coming in. It seems that the money coming in is from their veteran statuses, endorsements, and various network marketing. Much of that depends on their online presence.

So, they can shut Reddit down, but they also maybe kind of need Reddit.

[justpassingthru]

Spoiler

 

[FunFunFundie]

When they went to Brazil, I was still on the “impressed” more than “horrified” side of things. 
 

Now I’m horrified.

[MariaariaM]

At least they're talking about round trips this time...

[Bluebirdbluebell]

20 minutes ago, MariaariaM said:

At least they're talking about round trips this time...

Yeah, maybe someday they'll move to be next to the Mortons.

[4boysmum]

Well if the country in question is El Salvador they can use their bitcoins to pay for everything, so I'll make that my guess.

[FunFunFundie]

38 minutes ago, 4boysmum said:

Well if the country in question is El Salvador they can use their bitcoins to pay for everything, so I'll make that my guess.

This is what is interesting to me. To “make money on bitcoin,” and “hold on for dear life,” you can’t USE bitcoin. 
 

I would really like to see their excel spreadsheets of income and outgo.

[Jasmar]

No wonder they’e done their best to get FSU Reddit off their backs. This is exactly what people were predicting, an excellent way to get the kids away from anyone who might Follow up on their well-being.

[atlantagirl30084]

They’ve posted on Instagram that they are going to the bitcoin paradise of El Salvador.

[FiveAcres]

10 minutes ago, atlantagirl30084 said:

They’ve posted on Instagram that they are going to the bitcoin paradise of El Salvador.

I figured it might be El Salvador because they have a lot of active volcanoes.

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, atlantagirl30084 said:

They’ve posted on Instagram that they are going to the bitcoin paradise of El Salvador.

According to the US State Dept, travel to El Salvador is risky & not advisable: 

[FiveAcres]

I am certain that JD thinks he is the perfect Christian family protector and that the State Department is misrepresenting a place that is actually paradise on earth because of reasons.

I hope the kids are okay.

[FluffySnowball]

On 8/5/2024 at 1:19 AM, JesusCampSongs said:

I think they lawyered up and sent a Big, Scary Legal Letter to Reddit, and Reddit gave the mods an ultimatum to either delete all Lott-related content and not allow any more in the future or have the subreddit (and probably some users) permabanned. The Lotts clearly have the financial resources to do it, and Reddit has folded before when snark subjects (and others) have threatened litigation. 
 

They’re probably lying about there being a criminal investigation. Law enforcement, in my experience, does not give a solid fuck about online harassment. One of my friends had a convicted murderer posting pictures of her house and family on Twitter and making oblique statements about “confronting her in person” and his parole officer, the regular police where he lives, and the police where she lives were basically like *shrug emoji* “call us if he actually shows up.” Even the people who harass politicians, celebrities, and other figures rarely face any kind of consequences for it. The cops probably just had them file a report so that they’d leave. 

Oh my, how scary!!! I get goosebumps just imagining such a situation. 

[FunFunFundie]

They have been learning about El Salvador including volcanoes and “free market economy” and these kids’ entire lives are built around daddy’s crackpot Bitcoin fantasies. 

I think image is very important to Britney and so she will work hard to make sure they, for example, have a basic education and do interesting, fun activities. But it’s more and more clear that JD’s libertarian, Bitcoin, fundamentalist beliefs drive the bus.

Of course they aren’t worried about safety.

[tankgirl]

The Canadian site makes it sound like an even worse place to travel especially with kids.

 

https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/el-salvador

[hoipolloi]

15 minutes ago, tankgirl said:

The Canadian site makes it sound like an even worse place to travel especially with kids.

Yes. It's very detailed but not exaggerated. The crime situation aside, traveling with children and an infant to a country where the health ministry has declared a red alert for dengue fever is an incredibly bad idea. If you're reading here, JD & Brittany, you're fucking assholes for doing this. Just stay in the US.

Oh, and JD, you might also want to think about the following warning:

[Caroline]

Do these knuckleheads speak Spanish ?  Do they know or care that El Salvador is one of the top 3 Latin American countries that people are fleeing? Go on your own, but don't endanger children who have no choice. 

Edited August 10 by Caroline

[FunFunFundie]

Britney has said they are multilingual but my impression is that that means they have a long streak on DuoLingo. She talked about learning Portuguese for Brazil but they always interacted in English as far as I know.

She said on her stories that they are going to El Salvador for ten days. So this is a lot of hype for a regular vacation. Except it’s an expensive regular vacation to a dangerous area with 8 kids, one of whom is an infant.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

There is so much Spanish in the US that I can't really judge people for not knowing Spanish without knowing more about how much/little they know. This trip sounds like a bad idea, and the language barrier may be the least of the reasons why.

Edited August 10 by Bluebirdbluebell
clarity

[anachronistic]

And of course they will not get any of the extra vaccines that you should when traveling there. Unfortunately it looks like the Dengue fever vaccine has been discontinued in the US for kids but there are others like yellow fever and rabies that they should all consider but they won't. They probably don't have insurance. They were relying on their skin color and bright Christian countenances to protect them from everything there.

[FiveAcres]

20 minutes ago, anachronistic said:

And of course they will not get any of the extra vaccines that you should when traveling there. Unfortunately it looks like the Dengue fever vaccine has been discontinued in the US for kids but there are others like yellow fever and rabies that they should all consider but they won't. They probably don't have insurance. They were relying on their skin color and bright Christian countenances to protect them from everything there.

I would worry that their skin color and bright Christian countenances will make them targets.

[justpassingthru]

14 hours ago, FunFunFundie said:

Britney has said they are multilingual but my impression is that that means they have a long streak on DuoLingo. She talked about learning Portuguese for Brazil but they always interacted in English as far as I know.

She said on her stories that they are going to El Salvador for ten days. So this is a lot of hype for a regular vacation. Except it’s an expensive regular vacation to a dangerous area with 8 kids, one of whom is an infant.

She had to have a translator when they took their son to the hospital in Brazil.

I believe they are already down in El Salvador and it's been more than ten days. I don't see Bitcoin Bro wanting to leave.