Thoughts on going viral over the weekend

And the cost of visibility

Good morning, lovelies! I have something not-publishing-related to bring to you all today—but of course in my mind I’ve absolutely found a connection with publishing, because that’s my brain, so we will get there in the end. 😂

On Saturday, the fam and I went downtown Chicago for the No Kings protest. We marched with about 75,000 people and raised our voices with chants like No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here, and No justice, no peace and many others.

For context, the fam is me, hubs, and our three kids (ages 12, 10 and 7). For my 10 and 7-year-old boys, it was their very first protest. My 7yo Zac even made a sign (barely legible but adorable ;). I felt quite passionate about bringing the kids along, because they’ve been very aware of all that’s going on. Though my kids are white, their school is predominantly brown (mostly Latino), and after the migrant arrivals from Venezuela (via Texas) two summers ago, the migrant kids became their classmates. This is one of the populations that ICE is currently targeting, so it’s a Thing that the kids have become aware of and are afraid of.

Rather than tell them not to be afraid (because there is good reason to be), I wanted to give them a chance at feeling empowered, and turn their worries and stress into action. I believe that the population that feels empowered, and hangs onto the belief that change is possible, is the population that is actually able to make change. If we’re defeatist (even if that may feel more realistic), change never even has a chance. So—downtown we went. As soon as we hit the stairway leading up from the L station on Washington street, even though we couldn’t see anything yet, I could hear it: the roar of the crowd (always brings me to tears).

As we stood in the street, shoulder to shoulder with so many others who care about what’s going on right now and are raising their voices for justice, due process, upholding the Constitution, etc, my 10yo Ben spontaneously started a call and response chant. “Show me what democracy looks like!” Immediately, the crowd around us responded, “This is what democracy looks like!” As his proud mom, obvi, I grabbed my phone and recorded the moment.

Long story short, I posted it online—and it went viral.

We’re currently sitting at 70k-something views on Instagram—and 1.7 million on TikTok. (Video at the links) Uhhhh… whoa. 😱

I very quickly learned three things:

• TikTok comments are overwhelmingly positive. Some idiots, some meanies, but mostly people saying things like “Go lil guy” and “Hope for the next generation” and “The kids are alright.” ❤️

• Instagram, to my surprise, is dominated by the bullies. Dear heavens.

• Um it turns out you can disable comments on Instagram hahahaha. I know y’all knew that. I think somewhere in my brain I must have known it too. But I didn’t remember it until, with an exhausted finger as I blocked yet another account after 2 days of nonsense, I realized, it doesn’t have to be this way. I turned off comments, and YAY. 🤩

Though I’m not giving the haters any extra space, I do want to highlight one I found to be slightly amusing: “That kid is gay.” Which, obviously, the commenter meant as an insult. However, I found it to be a backhanded compliment to the LGBTQ+ community. I’m imagining the hater watching the video and being like, ‘who is this kid who is tuned into what’s going on in the world, is peacefully and joyfully using his voice for change, and has hope for this country? Ah… must be gay.’ I had to crack a smile. I mean, kudos to the gay community for being known as the voices of democracy, courage, love and free speech. 🌈🌈🌈🙌🙌🙌

For the record, I have not told Ben or my other kids about the viral moment, for a whole slew of reasons I’m not going to get into right now. I’m saving that for when they’re older. But fun moment—when I put the boys to bed and told them how proud I was of them after the protest and that I knew they’d both inspired lots of people, Ben said, “how many people? Twelve thousand?” (Side note: he’s my numbers and math kid, so he quantifies absolutely everything) I just grinned. “Probably more than that.”

One day I’ll tell him.

But not today—today I just want him to enjoy the actual moment that happened, and the impact that he felt in real time—not the approval or disapproval of internet strangers.

… & now, the publishing tie-in

This has all of course been a reminder to me of the things that come along with being more of a public figure—i.e. being an author. I’m by no means famous (at all haha), or very well known, but my books are out in the world, and people don’t just have opinions—they can also be needlessly and senselessly cruel.

I’ve written before about my experience reading reviews of my work—and the experience of going viral with the video of Ben reminded me of this. I have fairly strong mental boundaries, but part of the reason I didn’t share the viral video with my kids is that… they don’t. Yet. Which was yet another reminder of the importance of working on those boundaries—building them, strengthening them, honing them.

For me, this is what it looks like:

• If I don’t know someone, I am always mentally training myself not to care about their opinion (this may be more or less successful depending on the circumstances, but it’s something I’m very aware I want to achieve)

• If I see a comment that I can tell right away is negative, I don’t read the full comment. Why bother?

• I will not engage with negative comments online—ever.

• I will use the block, hide, or delete function wherever it’s available. Liberally. ;) Bye.

• It’s okay to turn off comments, and next time I will do that on the double instead of 48 hours later with an exhausted thumb 😂

• I will set all the boundaries and safeguards I can, both internal and external, to prevent strangers from crowding my brain-space

Of course this is not always easy to do. Also, some cases are more brutal. Targeted stalking and harassment, for example, is not something I’ve experienced, but I have multiple author friends who have, and that is a whole different and terrible beast.

All I can say is, if you’re making your voice heard—whether it’s in the realm of politics, art, writing, or whatever—take care of yourselves. For better and for worse, when your voice is heard in our very online world, s$%& will come. There’s no excuse for it—but there’s also not much we can do to control what comes our way. It’s up to us how we manage that. For some of us, that might be blocking. For some of us, that may be a break—or a removal—from social media. For some, it might be using a pen name or an avatar and keeping our personal information more protected. There is no one way—but I think it’s incredibly important to proactively find the best way for you.

On that note, I’d love to hear your methods for dealing with online negativity—how do YOU protect yourself?