How I got started
A little over a year ago I decided I wanted to figure out Tik Tok because I thought it would be a useful skill to have, and would be an easy way to test the psychology I was learning about. I decided what I wanted to figure out was the secret to virality.
Every day for about three months I posted around three Tik Toks per day. I got closer and closer to a homerun but still didn’t reach it.
Until one day, I actually did it.
The first time I went viral
I remember the first time I went viral I felt so happy because I’d achieved my goal, but I quickly came to learn the dark side of virality. I had taken a video from ASAPScience and made a brief comment on a stitch. ASAPScience actually took down their video because, well, no such study existed.
I felt really guilty. I did additional research afterwards with the help of my friend Oreo and made additional videos around the topic, but there was no study specifically stating what I had claimed. I vowed to be more careful from that point forward.
From then on, I only took sources I had found myself, and because of that, I steadily grew a following.
The second time I went viral
One day soon enough, I went viral again because of a study I found in a book by Dan Airely. The study was more controversial than I imagined. The basis of the study was that men act differently when sexually aroused. As the video grew in popularity, many men began to attack me online.
I imagine I was probably put on a forum of some sort.
I was called every name you could imagine and I had people reaching out to me on all my social media, and even on emails. Dan Airely had apparently been accused of data fraud at one point - although he’s still a professor at Duke University. I find it funny that I reached out to Dan, and he hadn’t received a single email about his study or about my video.
What I did in response
At first, I felt guilty for making other people feel bad and for not simply googling Dan before posting the study. I even made an apology video and said I should have looked into it more carefully (bad move I know, it just made everything worse).
I realised these people didn’t know me or my heart, and they just wanted a doormat. I decided I wasn’t going to be a doormat, but I don’t like fighting, so I temporarily deactivated everything and went into hiding on social media.
When I came back on social media a few months later, it had all been forgotten.
What I learned - five takeways
Short form content will never show the real you, and people will be as quick to hate you as they will to like you.
Social media is great for reach but my viral videos never brought me anything worth money
Social media is a great place to test your ideas
Going viral is good content and luck. You can get lucky more often by posting more content
If you feel vulnerable to comments from stranger, do inner work before getting on the internet.
Thanks for reading!
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