Going Viral

I stare at the camera, something between a smile and a smirk on my face. A filter floats above my head, it asks, “how old do I look?” in a big white font. Just underneath, various numbers flash by to the ticking sounds of a spinning wheel. As I wait for one to land, I raise an eyebrow and say, deadpan, “the last time I did this, I got fucking 44.” Then, as if on cue, the numbers stop, and settle. The second go-round confirms it: according to this filter, I look like I am 44. I press my lips together with a bitter, “Mmm-hmm,” followed by a brief look to the side. Then with one last glare at the camera comes the kicker, as I offer up in my most sardonic tone, “I wanna die.”

In total the clip is 12 seconds. And as of this writing, it has over 2 million views, more than 111,000 likes and almost 6,000 comments. And that’s just on TikTok. In the almost three months since I posted it, aggregator sites like WorldStar Hip Hop have picked up the video, countless other TikTok users have made duets or videos lip syncing to my audio and friends and long lost acquaintances have texted me out of the blue to say they or their sister or their cousin came across my face on the internet. Twelve seconds I didn’t expect anyone to see, 12 seconds I posted to TikTok on a whim.

When I used the predictive filter, I was 36, soon to be 37, and feeling especially prickly about my age. I’d spent much of the previous nine months alone. Work had gone remote while phone calls, FaceTimes, Zooms and social media had replaced in-person group gatherings, which were now limited to walks or hikes with just one other friend at a time. I was also recently out of a short-lived relationship that ended in a sudden fizzle and was dreading being back on the dating market, which is challenging enough in your mid-thirties without the added complications of dating in a pandemic. It was all getting to be a bit much, and I yearned for both escape and connection.

TikTok served as a balm. Where other social media apps only increased my anxiety, a half-hour on TikTok was hit after hit of serotonin, watching cats and babies become friends, college kids redoing their parents’ homes, grandparents learning dances with grandchildren, enlightened young people engaging in political conservations about capitalism, socialism and a new civil rights movement through both song and memes. We are told that TikTok is for in-the-know teenagers who can dance, but during the pandemic, like many others, I discovered all the ways TikTok is for everyone.

On the whole it felt like a warm, positive and uplifting community. Most comments sections were full of support or inside jokes. Due to the fact that its user base is so massive, it also felt more anonymous than a place like Instagram or Twitter, where whatever I posted would go directly into the feeds of close friends and loved ones.

It was the anonymity that inspired me to post my 12 second clip. I thought the video was funny and it certainly showcased my particular brand of self-deprecating humor. But there was also an element of both vulnerability and vanity to the clip, and I wasn’t sure I was confident enough to share it on platforms where people who actually know me would see. But that vain part of me liked how I looked that day. I had straightened my hair and put on mascara for a morning Zoom meeting (at this point in the pandemic mascara is the most I can muster). I was wearing a new tie-dye sweatshirt and a bright green vintage North Face puffy vest. All in all, I thought I looked pretty good. I was feeling myself. Even after a predictive filter cut me down a peg or two.

In the end, I posted the video on TikTok thinking I’d probably forget about it, the same I did with the only other two TikToks I’d ever posted, bizarre time capsules from a drunken night earlier in the pandemic. No one had seen those videos so I assumed that would again be the case. And should a few of the 27 people following me happen to catch it, maybe they too would appreciate my dramatic overreaction to an algorithm telling me I looked a whole eight years older than I was. The travesty!

And then two million people watched the video, and a hundred thousand of them smashed that like button. So much for anonymity. Within minutes of posting it was clear that something in those 12 seconds struck a chord. By the time I went to bed that night I was going viral. I woke up the next morning and opened TikTok to a flood of notifications. I was completely surprised, delighted even, watching the view count tick up, the likes pour in, my follower count grow – all just based on this one 12 second clip! But then came the comments. In sharing a video centered on something else’s opinion of my appearance, I had inadvertently opened the doors for countless internet strangers to comment on my looks. Many of the comments were neutral or even supportive. The top comment is kind and insightful: “OK, y’all stop saying she looks in her 20s she looks like she’s in her 30s and that’s OK. #normalizethe30s.” Many of the commenters didn't seem to understand my humor at all, harping on what they saw as a dramatic – and serious – reaction. They simply didn’t get the joke. A lot of the comments were funny and made me laugh. But the overwhelming response was unsolicited criticism. Most of the commentators were more than happy to tell me all the things they thought were wrong with me. Things like “tbh 44 is pretty spot on for your wrinkles” or “girl you should have worn sunscreen” or “did you smoke and drink a lot in your youth?” and of course, “A little Botox goes a long way.” According to user668876931733623, “it’s the under eye wrinkles and nasolabial folds.” People did not hold back.

I am lucky to be a well-adjusted adult woman and not a teenage girl, or at least not who I was when I was a teenage girl, when comments like that might have ruined my week, my year, my self-esteem entirely. The beauty standard for women was already unrealistic and unhealthy, but social media filters and the rise of Instagram Face have set a dangerous standard. With the swipe of the thumb it is all too easy to have bigger eyes and smoother skin, to look like Kylie Jenner or Bella Hadid, both of whom have allegedly made alterations to their faces. It’s almost the norm now to see so many young influencers have things like eyelash extensions, lip injections, or Botox. And living life behind a screen makes it even more appealing – and easier – to cover up imperfections. Early in the pandemic when I first downloaded Zoom, I checked off the box to “touch up my appearance” without a second thought. In the Work From Home era I was spending chunks of my day staring at my own face. I became more attuned to my every wrinkle, blemish, and red splotch but had little interest in wearing make-up if I wasn’t actually seeing anyone in person. Why bother when I can give myself a full face with the swipe of a thumb in Snapchat, Instagram, or Tik Tok? But as we spend more time behind screens, our digital avatars reaching more people than our physical selves, it’s hard not to wonder about the negative effects. And I’m not just talking about my own sudden interest in an under eye procedure called “tear trough fillers” (something I definitely don’t need… or do I?) Gen Z is an online native generation, and I’m heartened to see the overwhelming preferred aesthetic is raw, unfiltered and meme-lite. Popular teen creators will post selfies with faces full of zit cream. But Millennials, my generation, have spent the past decade cultivating online personas that are perfectly curated, imperfections FaceTuned to oblivion. Look no further than Kim Kardashian for the apotheosis of this attitude. Do young people today know what people in their thirties actually look like without plastic surgery or a photoshopped face? After taking a spin through the comments section of my viral TikTok, it would be easy to say that no, they don’t. Then again, it’s a small sample size and much of TikTok is full of people, especially women, of all colors, ages, shapes and sizes proudly showing off their uniqueness. Authenticity is celebrated. The pandemic has shifted our online lives even further in the digital direction, to the point where an unfiltered video feels like the closest we’ll get to an in-person experience. But during this long covid winter, that proximity to the physical truth feels like both an escape and a connection, a way to see the breadth of humanity, warts and all.

The pandemic has also distorted the way we experience time. Every day is Wednesday. It is still March. It is a year later. Our lives have been rerouted, and while change can create opportunity for growth, it is hard not to think of the past year as a lost year, in ways both tangible and immaterial. Maybe I’m noticing my wrinkles not because of Zoom, but simply because another year has gone by – they are the markings of the passing of time. And if we have learned anything a year into a public health crisis, it is that time is precious. So many of us know people who’ve died or lost loved ones due to the coronavirus, how quickly things become scary and irreparable, how precious each moment is. 

I don’t want to get older. Especially not after this last year. I want more time. I don’t want to die! I want the opposite of that, and that is why the TikTok works.

Or maybe the real takeaway here is simply to wear sunscreen. It’s the one life lesson to rule them all.