We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the aftermath of accidentally going viral. Spoiler alert: they did not have fun!
Warning: Some submissions include topics of sexual harassment, body-shaming, verbal abuse, death threats, and stalking.
1. "My manager at work recognized me from an extremely cringey Tumblr post that went viral. To make matters worse, she only told me this on my last day of work. Meaning that for the entire two years I worked there, I was known to upper management as “the cosplay girl” without my knowledge."
2. "I posted a random TikTok a year ago about my husband’s dental hygiene routine...The worst part was the constant troll comments about fluoride! I did get some nice comments on my bathroom, but the troll comments and attention triggered my anxiety so bad I haven’t looked at TikTok since!"
3. "It’s really surprising how much people love to put others down over the smallest things. My TikTok video of DIY-ing magnetic spice jars has 2.1 million views as of right now (@mossimakes) and I thought it was ridiculous how much people loved to nitpick the weirdest things."
4. "I went semi viral in a video about my dad dying and my mom having to go get his body from the airport. I received so much hate because he was a cop and a military contractor who died overseas. I don’t recommend doing anything like that again unless you want death threats in your DMs."
5. "I had a TikTok video do really well to the point that Addison Rae lip synced to my voice. That ended up sending hordes of her fans in my direction. I was harassed by a lot of them because they thought for some reason that meant I knew her. She and I do not share the same target demographic..."
6. "I had a tweet that got a fair amount of attention on K-Pop Twitter. I made a joke about how this one member of the group, I literally was a stan account for, 'isn’t as innocent as people think because he got his girlfriend pregnant lol.' Stans thought I was an anti and said horrible things about me by quote tweeting it."
7. "My comment on a tweet went viral. I was totally broke at the time, so my friend convinced me to add my Venmo underneath my viral comment. I got no donations and no likes, but I did get comments telling me that I wasn't funny anymore now that I was looking for money."
8. "A meme I made went viral. I shared it to a Libertarian political page I follow with like 2,000 followers never thinking anything of it. Other pages removed the word 'Libertarian' and added 'Republican' or 'conservative' or 'free thinkers'."
9. "I made a (semi-jokey, mostly-serious) tweet defending Brie Larson/Captain Marvel back in 2019 when everyone was sending her hate constantly and it blew up overnight. It's currently sitting at around 55,000 retweets, almost 200,000 likes, and 1,000 replies. For almost a month I was getting death threats in my mentions and DMs from people (mostly men, though the occasional woman as well)."
10. "I went viral on TikTok twice and the worst part is the constant flood of notifications. My videos went viral in summer 2020 and I still get a ton of likes and comments every day to the point where I can’t even keep track of the notifications from my friends and followers."
11. "The trolls. I'm semi popular on Tumblr and I get daily anonymous hate calling me slurs and telling me to go die. It's bloody horrendous..."
12. "I posted a TikTok of some cool tape I found. It got a million views and is still adding up. When I post videos of myself? 100 views. So apparently I'm not as cool as a tape."
13. "I was Vine famous for adult reasons and one of the people who worked for my insurance company recognized me. By name."
14. "Back when Tumblr was super huge, one of my posts went viral. The only 'bad' thing I can think of is the NOTIFICATIONS. SO. MANY. NOTIFICATIONS. They blended with my regular notifications, so I had to scroll for ages to see comments on my art or commission requests. More of an inconvenience, really."
15. "I have a new Instagram for business and by far my most popular post is a picture of me holding sprouted garlic heads. I'm a Psychologist and Fertility Awareness Educator, but I'm afraid I'm going to be known as Garlic Girl LOL!"
16. "I went viral a few times on one of my old accounts. The only problem being it was during my wild (and I really mean worryingly obsessive) Harry Potter phase..."
17. And "Stalkers. Some wanted to date me and some wanted to kill me, all were terrifying. I would get marriage proposals and death threats in the same day. I had to move."
