She's 16 and gets paid to edit her influencer mom's viral videos
She's 16 and gets paid to edit her influencer mom's viral videos
Madeline Mitchell, USA TODAYWed, May 6, 2026 at 11:47 AM UTC
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Teenagers have enough stress these days making sure their own online content doesn't come off as "cringe," let alone supervising their parents' posts.
But 16-year-old Jaya Ramineni takes monitoring her mom's social media pages seriously. And she even gets paid for it.
Jaya's mom, Shubhra Ramineni, is an influencer and cookbook author who posts about cooking and parenting online. "It is kind of embarrassing," Jaya said, and she's requested her mom block all of her friends so they won't see the content on their feeds. But she said she's enjoyed some of the "fun PR packages" her mom has secured, with brands sending the family candy and other treats.
"We're used to seeing teenagers be influencers, and then when I'm seeing my mom doing this, it's kind of abnormal to me," Jaya said.
"I helped her with editing. And I told her, you know, not to put, like GIFs or little stickers on her videos because it can come across as cringe," Jaya, 16, said. She's pictured here standing between her mom Shubhra Ramineni (left), 49, and her grandmother Neelam Verma (right), 78.
When the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted Ramineni's book tour plans in 2020, she took to Instagram. Her content wasn't gaining much traction at first, and then her daughter saw some of the posts she was making. What started as typical teen mortification led to a mother-daughter partnership when Ramineni realized her daughter could be her biggest asset to content creation.
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"She has a lot of insight," Ramineni said, adding that Jaya was the one who encouraged her to get on TikTok and stop putting GIFs and stickers on all of her videos. "She has the eye for it... she knows what the platform is gonna do."
At a recent speaking engagement in Austin, author Shubhra Ramineni (center) sat sandwiched between her mother Neelam Verma (left) who came up with the recipes in her cookbooks and her daughter Jaya Ramineni (right) who she referred to as "the girl behind the emojis."
Now, Jaya helps edit her mom's videos and even attends speaking engagements with her mom, like she did recently at a motherhood summit in Austin. Her mom pays her for her work in cash, privileges and Ugg boots. In exchange for Jaya's appearance at the summit, Ramineni let Jaya attend a Bruno Mars concert.
"It does have its benefits," Jaya said.
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While her mom makes videos, she works 'behind the scenes'
Jaya isn't interested in marketing or content creation as a career. She wants to be a lawyer someday.
"I don't have any personal content creation, I just do it for other people," Jaya told USA TODAY. "I have a private Instagram account where I'll just post photos with my friends."
But she said helping to manage her mom's business has been a great learning opportunity. She's grown her video editing skills, and used them for internships and in leadership roles at school extracurriculars.
"Social media is growing and it consumes a lot of people's lives. It's, like, a part of every career now," Jaya said. "It's good to have these skills, like editing skills, understanding how the algorithm works and knowing that people connect on social media a lot."
Shubhra Ramineni embraces Jennie Garth during a book signing at Mom 2.0 Summit in Austin, Texas.
Even though Jaya helps edit her mom's videos, she draws the line at being featured in most content. She said she's more comfortable being "behind the scenes." She used to appear on her mom's pages, but that shift happened when Jaya was still in middle school, around the same time her mom's accounts started going viral.
"Get as much content as you can while they're young, before middle school," Ramineni advised another mother and content creator at the summit.
Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: This teen helps manage her influencer mom’s TikTok, Instagram accounts
Source: “AOL General News”
