Going Viral: The Lessons I Learned and the Ones I Didn't

Almost exactly a year ago, I hand-drew a silly little graphic based on fleeting idea I’d had while bored at a real estate job. I had no real intention for it, and I genuinely had no idea if it was funny to anyone but me. I texted it to a small group of friends for a laugh, and got positive reactions across the board, which surprised me. I posted it on Facebook the next day. 24 hours later and after being featured on OnStage Blog, it had been shared thousands of times, friends from all over the world were leaving comments and tagging me, surprised that this thing they’d seen getting so much traffic was made by someone they knew. I even made a minor splash on Reddit!

This was the meme I made:

Recognize that? That was me, baybeeeee.

Yes, it was a silly little meme, but seeing it blow up was a huge dopamine rush, I’m not gonna lie. My best friend and I kept texting each other the Likes and Shares numbers all day, out of surprise, shock, and—frankly—joy. To date, it’s been directly shared over four thousand times on Facebook alone, not counting the unknown number of reshares across other social media platforms. Friggen Jason Robert Brown himself even commented on it.

I could not (and still kind of can’t) believe that a seemingly throw-away, half-baked idea I had could have that much of an impact and resonate with so many people.

And that’s the first thing I learned: it’s possible that your “niche” sense of humor isn’t as niche as you think.  I made a “sequel” to this meme a month or so later, which didn’t get nearly as much traction. I wasn’t too surprised by that, but it was admittedly a bit of a let-down. Was it because I put pressure on myself to have even more success on the second outing? Was my text too small?

Was it just too derivative?  

WAS I JUST NOT THAT GOOD?

Meh. Who’s to say? Probably a combination of all those things. But I definitely enjoyed the whole process of creating the second meme, and it made me laugh.

This leads me to the second thing I learned: it’s impossible to know what other people like —but it’s easy to know what you like. So do that.

When the pandemic hit in March, I—like everyone else—suddenly found myself with too much time on my hands and no creative outlets beyond what I could make myself. But I had never really created my own content as a performer before, and the idea had always felt super daunting and overwhelming: My camera isn’t good enough, my lighting is crap, my backdrop is bad, my hair looks stupid, I’m not good with makeup, I’M NOT A WRITER, people will laugh and not in a good way, etc etc.  

The thing that finally got me off my butt and put me in front of my iPhone and my roommate’s ring light was a sudden realization that we were ALL making do with what we had. The bar was lowered, and the idea that you should only publish content if it’s perfectly rendered was out the window. What would it matter if the thing I made was kinda crappy? Making a sleeker production was impossible for anyone anyway.

I was half right.

Third thing I learned: Perfection is a lie, the bar does not exist, and those are just the excuses we make to avoid being judged by ourselves and by others.  

So even in my half-right-edness, and out of a craving for theatre, making do with what I had, and yet another “silly little idea”, I wrote/filmed/edited my first “One-Minute One-Woman Show”, performing Hamlet in 60 seconds.  

It went viral.  

I made a few more One-Minute One-Woman Shows, with varying levels of popularity. The most “successful” one of the series was one I nearly didn’t make at all because I was convinced that it would appeal to, like, five people. I sent the script to some friends, got a couple of suggestions, and then made the whole video in about an hour (with help from my roommate, who helped me tie the bowtie and played bartender for the final shot).

It blew up. Big time. This time it was being shared by more than just theatre people. People who had worked for or who had known someone who had worked on cruise ships—in any capacity—were sharing it, tagging friends, and commenting. I had yet to fully internalize Lesson Number One that my niche interest was perhaps not-so-niche, so I had fully doubted that anyone beyond a small circle of friends would enjoy this. But I was oh so wrong. So very very wrong.

Lesson 4: Screw expectations. Make art.

Over the summer I created two full-length shows, one for the Sharon Playhouse (Motown Under the Stars) and one for the NAACP of New Jersey (Island Girl), both of which were incredibly satisfying and would have never seen the light of day if I hadn’t finally learned these lessons. (And been in therapy. Oh my God I cannot recommend therapy enough).  

And then I found TikTok.

I am a fully-fledged card-carrying member of the semi-unironic group of Millennials of TiKTok, terrorizing the Gen Z’s with our outdated musical references and offensive side parts and skinny jeans and slow learning curve on how to actually use this gosh-darn newfangled cockamamie social media platform. It took a while to get into it, but I have loved seeing all the good, the bad, and the ugly that TikTokers have created, and I find it very inspiring. I have posted, Stitched, Duetted, and made a general fool of myself in multiple ways, but I did end up going viral again in December, this time for a mashup of videos wearing my collection of saris over a voiceover talking about how I fell in love with the traditional South Asian dress. I made it purely because I missed wearing my saris, and I like remembering and talking about my travels and how I came to be exposed to the culture. That video has 42,000 views and 10,000 likes and I have not one single clue why.

Lesson 5: I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GO VIRAL.

Viral is truly in the eye of The Algorithm (ALL HAIL THE ALGORITHM). There are hundreds of influencers and people who are significantly smarter than I am who can tell you strategies and tips and tricks to getting more engagement on your posts and all the right hashtags to hashtag and oh wow I am one hundred percent not that person so sorry if that’s what you came here for.

Besides the fact that my smattering of “success” does not in any way qualify me as an “influencer” of any kind, I have neither the will nor the interest in becoming a blue checkmark’d internet personality. It looks and sounds like way more effort than I’m willing to expend. Additionally, there are dozens of TikToks I have made that I was genuinely very proud of that got almost no engagement, so the idea of tailoring my myriad of Silly Little Ideas to what could keep me popular and relevant is not remotely why I make the videos in the first place.  

Incidentally, as I write this, I have a TikTok video calling out problematic behavior on the subway that is at 300 thousand views and climbing. I made it in less than five minutes and have gotten comments both thanking me for my words and calling me all kinds of names.  

This brings me to my final lesson: Viral does not mean “good” and not-viral does not mean “bad”.

 With the rising importance of social media presence in the industry, it’s easy to allow The Algorithm (ALL HAIL) to influence the way we view our own content. That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. But I implore you, if you feel compelled to do so: do it.  

Make art. Make good art, make bad art, make silly art, make art that only appeals to you and your five closest friends, make art that is poorly-lit, make art that is seamlessly edited, make art with too many filters, make art because you are bored out your mind and simply cannot do yet another re-watch of every episode of 30 Rock, make art because you are an artist, dammit.

And tag me! I will watch it. I will like, and comment, and share, and encourage you. Because the world needs art more than ever right now. The world needs you.

Facebook: Barrie Kealoha-Singer/Actor/Voiceover Instagram: @barriekealoha, @oneminuteonewomanshow TikTok: @hokuopio