Joe 6: So I Became TikTok Famous. It’s Weird.

Those of you who have AP Lang Block 2 with me may remember my rather interesting entry in our most recent “Smiles and Frowns.” In my own words, “against my better judgment, I made three TikToks over winter break.” While that fact on its own is not earth-shattering, (though if you’d asked me three weeks ago if I would be making dumb 15-second videos on the app I had lambasted for months, you would have gotten a hard “no”) what happened next absolutely blew my mind. Of the three videos that were posted, two of them exploded. 24 hours after posting, my best-performing video boasted two-hundred-fifty thousand views. By now, it has made its way to the eight-hundred thousand mark. My phone has been flooded with notifications of followers, likes, and comments for days on end. Needless to say, my world was rocked. 

So, what does it feel like to have that many people rally to a piece of content that you made? Well, for the most part, people have been supportive of the videos. Both of them have some flashy effects that won over the crowds. There is the army of people who have asked for free editing and collaborations, which I have done my best to ignore. Then there is the much larger clan of commenters I will affectionately call the Champions of Correctness (the nerds who love to remind me that I’m wrong.) 

In one of the videos, I use a toy lightsaber that, with the power of editing, becomes the real, glowing weapon of the Jedi. Unfortunately, it’s the real weapon of the Jedi in the wrong color. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I made the very-obviously blue lightsaber green. I’m clearly an uncultured idiot who must be made aware of my egregious error. Thank goodness there is a gigantic horde of people who took it upon themselves to let me know the mistake I made. Nevermind that I address it in the comment section 10 separate times for people to see, or the 10 short seconds of common sense it would take to realize I probably did it deliberately. No. It is such a relief to have these reminders. What would I do without them? 

All venting aside, I am very grateful for the little sliver of stardom that came knocking at my door at three AM one morning. I’m going to pursue this and see where it leads, so if you guys want to follow me, my username is joe_burke0227. Just leave the lightsaber comments at the door. I have enough loving fans to remind me of the mistake already.