On Going Viral And Why It's Bloody Awful

Is social media taking more from me than it gives?

Photo by Ales Nesetril on Unsplash

Recently I shared a video across social media to promote my first Substack article (The Posterchild For Unattractiveness). In case you haven’t seen the original post or the video, here’s a summary: a huge company stole an image of my face and used my redness to represent ‘unattractive’, ‘unhealthy’ and ‘angry’ skin in a viral video seen by over 5 million people.

The brand ignored me and deleted comments pointing out their legally and morally dubious behaviour, so after reporting their content to every social media platform, I did the only other thing I had the power to do: I wrote about it and shared my thoughts with my followers.

The problems started when my content spread further than my lovely follower bubble. TikTok and YouTube are not my usual stomping ground: from past experience, the demographic swings male, young, and mean, which is the opposite of my usual followers. I didn’t expect much by putting the video up on those platforms, I just wanted to say my piece in the same spaces in which they had misused my image.

So when the views and likes and comments started flooding in, I was surprised. I don’t claim to understand algorithms or how to appease the social media gods, so everything in that entire department remains a mystery to me. So I just watched, slightly confused and concerned, as the numbers continued to go up.

Across social media, my videos have had 1,020,000+ views, 112,000+ likes and 5100+ comments, which I know is small fry for people who Actually Do Videos. But last week I had to turn off notifications and tell myself - out loud - to stop looking at the videos. Because my anxiety was through the roof and my mood was in the toilet. Every time my phone lit up with a notification, my stomach churned. I found myself bracing for an argument or an insult every time I opened the app. I just felt more and more defeated every time I read another hateful, ignorant, or rude comment.

I have been posting about rosacea on the internet for over a decade. I am well used to social media, trolls, and all of the associated ups and downs of being a person - a woman especially - on the internet. I am used to it (whether I should have to be is another conversation entirely…!) but this has been another level.

As always, I like to take things that are terrible and try to analyse them (some would say overanalyse…) so that I can try to glean some learnings or silver linings from the negativity.

So here are the things I’ve learned or things I want others to know, including a really important and vulnerable request at the end:

1. Most people do not understand copyright law. At all. And will loudly and confidently argue backwards and forwards with people who do know. To sum up, if you own a business or are creating content online, you cannot just take photos from the internet. ‘Found on Pinterest’ is not credit. Ignorance is not an excuse. You can either take your own photos or pay for stock images to use, that’s why that whole industry exists!

2. People will come to argue in bad faith. They are there to offend, upset, but mostly they want to get attention from you. These are people who are ignored in their daily lives, they feel powerless and invisible. So they come to the internet to prod at strangers, because any attention (even negative attention) is better than nothing. Once you realise this, they begin to lose their sting.

3. ‘Just don’t read the comments’ is not a helpful thing to say and completely disregards the job that I have. To do the work I do, I have to be online. Ignoring comment sections would have two repercussions: firstly, that would mean also ignoring the thousands of kind and supportive comments. Secondly, that would mean leaving up misinformation, abuse, and content that could hurt others. This is my platform and I am responsible for what other people might be exposed to in the comments. I am a one-woman-band, which means I do all of the moderation across all my accounts. For the past 3 weeks, these hideous comments have been flooding in across multiple platforms, around the clock. I haven’t been able to come online and do my usual work without being faced with that. Telling me to ignore it minimises the impact and the scale of what happens in these scenarios.

4. YouTube has an excellent ‘hide user’ feature which is so much better than blocking. Trolls see a block as a victory, the ultimate sign that they’ve got to someone. Hiding the user means their comments still get posted but they are the only ones who can see them. They can carry on whining and tantruming into the void. Obviously I still have to read every comment in order to identify these people, but it helps a bit to know that they’re wasting their time in my comments instead of harrassing others.

5. One of the best responses to people intent on being awful is reminding them that every single comment they leave boosts my video in the algorithm, helping my message reach more people. They really don’t like that and it usually shuts them up pretty quickly!

However, the most important thing I’ve realised in all of this is far too big for a bullet point. And it’s also the most vulnerable.

I’ve realised that I urgently need to re-evaluate the work that I do online, how it impacts me, and completely rework my boundaries. This isn’t a 9-5 Mon-Fri job, it’s constant. There are a lot of misconceptions about ‘influencing’ (I hate that word) but it’s not a job that I do because it pays particularly well. In fact, I haven’t done any paid work through my platforms since March. Would you still be showing up for work every single day if you hadn’t been paid for it in 4 months? Would you still keep going if - because you stood up for yourself and the community - you were faced with weeks of comments threatening you with some of the worst things you can imagine?

Talking publicly about rosacea is something I have been doing for over a decade because it is incredibly important to me. I consider it my passion and my life’s work. When things like this happen, of course I take it personally because it is personal. I’ve been doing this for such a long time and I’m so proud of everything I’ve achieved. But the past three weeks have been really hard and - I’ll be honest - it’s the first time I’ve seriously thought about stopping. It makes me so sad to say that, and I don’t want to stop, in fact I’d be devastated if I had to. And this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction based on my recent interactions with some bored incels, it’s something that’s been building for a while. I just cannot continue to ignore the impact this job has on my mental health: the constant scrutiny, the feelings of comparison, the pressure I put on myself, the balance between keeping my integrity and making money that enables me to continue to create free content for you.

I sometimes feel that, because I’ve been around for so long and doing this work when no one else was interested, I’ve become part of the furniture. People seem to assume that I’m always going to be here churning out content, sharing advice, and raising awareness so they don’t feel the need to engage with it anymore. It’s become a cliche for content creators to say ‘don’t forget to like and subscribe’, but it became a cliche for a reason. I will get DMs from people saying that my account has changed their life, but when I look at our interactions they have never liked or commented on anything I’ve shared. Those interactions are the only way I know that people are there, that they appreciate it, that they support what I’m doing. I think people worry that it’s weird to comment if they don’t have anything meaningful to say, but I promise it’s not! A heart emoji, a comment saying you learned something, just a thank you - literally anything to let me know I’m not just talking to the trolls (who, believe me, are always ready to pop in and let me know that they’re present). This job can be incredibly lonely and insular. I’m constantly trying to find new ways of presenting information that is not only easy to digest, informative, and useful, but also panders to the social media gods. Videos should be under 60 seconds! But don’t mislead people! Show your face! But not when it looks like that! Follow the trends! But don’t be cringe or Gen Z will laugh at you! Produce fresh content every day for each platform, but don’t do ads and get paid for that expected content because that puts people off!

This is a big reason why I’ve started this Substack. I still get to share information with you, I have the space to write what is meaningful and interesting to me and I get to be a part of this community, but it’s a step removed from the horrible and damaging parts of the internet. It feels safer, more comfortable, more like me.

Talking about all of this feels horribly vulnerable and icky. I really don’t like asking for help and I wish it wasn’t necessary, but unfortunately in order to keep supporting you, I need a little bit of support from you in return. Subscribing to my Substack is free for you to do, but really helps to show me that you’re out there and that you’re on my side. If you sign up for an account on here (which is also free!) you can leave comments, join the conversation, and show up in support which is such a boost for someone who works alone and sees you all as remote colleagues. It means a lot.

Thank you for being here.