Going Viral

How getting triggered became the most beautiful thing

I’m a quiet soul by nature. I spent my childhood cuddled up with a blanket, lost in made up worlds, inside my favourite books. My teen years weren’t wild. I went to school and I worked. Really, my wildest moment was getting pregnant at 18 and had a baby by 19 and so naturally, my 20’s weren’t too crazy either.

For me, it was a vibe. I love being a mum. Motherhood was all I ever wanted, but I’ve also always loved words. So in 2008, when my fourth baby was born, I left my job to be home with my kids full time and I started a blog. I was all in; writing about funny stories that happened, motherhood, sharing recipes, trad wife stuff. That is, until people started reading. Then I got scared and honestly, I let the fear win.

I think my fear of being seen started at some point in my 20’s. I had a whole thing with an old boss where it was so bad I ended up climbing out the window and escaping to Canada, I already wrote about it in another post, so I won’t go into details about that now, I can link that here if you are curious. Anyway, because of that craziness, I’ve spent years hiding, terrified to be seen.

The energetics of that made it so that I created situation after situation in my life where I would say something, and no one would hear me. And actually, that was just fine with me. I was safe.

I was stagnant.

Social media is this weird place where so many people are all doing the same things and that’s what works. I kind of just messily fell into it all because my kids were doing it and I’m the type of mum who will learn as much as I can about something my kids are interested in.

I’m actually really grateful for my “don’t see me” era, because I made a lot of mistakes while I was learning and it was nice no one noticed. Like, I realized I don’t want to show my littles on the internet, so I just stopped posting them, and the only people who asked why was my family. I also experimented with all types of content before realizing that in my heart, I’m actually way cooler in text.

I went on this little journey back to my “authentic self” and I decided to start writing again. While inwardly, I have been working really hard to peel back all the layers of all my weird hangups, including my fear of being seen.

I didn’t think anything of it when I posted last week about my transgender daughter. I’ve written about it before: my people saw it and that was it. No drama; all good vibes. I never expected this would see even 2000 views. The night it hit one million I was getting ready for bed, I had just flushed the toilet (yes, I was peeing as I hit one million views) and my kids, the six who were still awake at the time, bolted up the stairs like elephants, shouting excitedly through the bathroom door at me.

Yikes! I didn’t really know what to do. Is there instructions for going viral?

A mentor I used to have always said that if you don’t listen to the Universe’s whispers, you’ll get hit over the head with life’s two-by-four. This was definitely one of mine.

One million is when things went wild. My comments went from literally two or three to astronomical. I really like to respond to everyone and make sure everyone feels seen which obviously is so easy to do when you get one or two comments. Still, I tried and I feel like I’ve missed people, actually, I’m sure I did. That was the first thing I had to look at within myself: I always want to make sure everyone is okay.

I guess I should mention the hate comments. I don’t really like to even give it a moment, because you empower that which you focus on, but by the time my reel hit three million, the hate comments had really peaked. I wasn’t surprised by most of them. You get those kinds of people when you bring up anything LGBTQ+ at all. It’s not right, not okay and also sadly, not surprising. People fear what they don’t understand.

I didn’t care that people were saying about me. I know that I’m doing what’s right for my child by supporting her. What kind of sent me a little was the comments that questioned the authenticity of my posts.

Wait. What? But I had been doing all this work to return to my authentic self and now I’m not authentic? *side glance to the universe*

You know what though? It’s true. I created that because I wasn’t being authentic with myself when I was giving myself shit for not doing what all my social media mentors had been screaming at me to do, or when I tried and failed: You know the one’s. Those face to camera reels where you hop on casually and just chat while putting on a face of makeup or something. That just wasn’t right for me. My kids are always around me and I don’t want to post them online, so I’d have to film at weird times or strange angles. I don’t wear a lot of makeup so I would literally be done in 2 seconds and I’m not that skilled at applying it, like I still have to concentrate and open my mouth when I put on mascara. Not cute. Like I said, I’m cooler in text.

I had been feeling like I was taking the easy way out or cheating somehow, because I purchased a *Social Stocks subscription that allows me to use stock video and post my words over top. But actually, no. Allowing myself the space to create in a way that works for me is authentic to myself and to my family and it’s creating jobs for someone else. I’m good with that.

On the third day, I woke up to five million and everything felt clear. I didn’t have that “yikes” feeling anymore. The ugly comments were almost completely drowned out by so many beautiful ones: kind words and personal stories that gave me chills and touched my soul. I got to watch friendships be made and witness conversations that had to happen.

I may never have another experience like this again, maybe this was my one-hit-wonder, or maybe not. Both are welcome and it was so worth it because the beautiful people that I got to meet, the kindness I witnessed and the lessons that they taught me, mean everything. It showed me that there is more light in this world than there is darkness and I am so grateful.

Love Mel

XX

Photo by Jasmin Chew

*I’m not affiliated with Social Stocks. I just use them and love them so linking in case anyone is interested.