Never in a Million Years…

Just when quarantine hit, I may or may not have joined TikTok, in an effort to better understand the app from a business perspective. Little did I know what an impact this app would have on my personal and business life; and my family would attest, it’s somewhat changed family home life too.

One-quarter of TikTok’s user base is #over40, but many who aren’t familiar with the app, think it’s only for kids; this is simply untrue. I’m living proof that there’s enough value for someone in my age bracket to enjoy this app.

In an effort to not just broad stroke understand this social platform, I studied content creators, algorithms and trends. I just lurked, without posting for almost 30 days.

I found myself turning to this app wayyyyyy more than any other social platform to date and even negated watching my favorite television shows. I have been overtaken by what I’ve learned about the app and even more what I’m learning in other areas of my life.

If I want a great recipe or to figure out how to care for my plants and garden better, instead of googling or youtube-ing, I’m now “tik-toking”. I can instantly consume answers to my questions in the form of videos in less than 1 minute; making it a perfect platform for those hungry for information & entertainment quick-like.

Never in a million years would I think this app would now become a part of my daily life; it has.

Saucy & Successful

The first video I posted was on March 4, 2020; it only got 56 hits. Not too shabby considering I had zero followers and was a virgin on all fronts.

On March 2nd, 2020 I saw first hand how this platform has more of a viral nature than any other platform I’ve experienced. I followed a #thingsinmyhouse trend, posted a video just like any other day and BAM, it got 91,447 hits, 7,251 likes, 65 comments & 11 shares.

I literally copied the concept of this #thingsinmyhouse trend, but I lead with a caption that enticed viewers to watch until the very end…where I shared a fairly intimate aspect of my home & husband.

@sharlacrawfordThings in my American home that don’t make sense. ##dontmakesense ##americanhome ##thingsinmyhouse ##myhousetour #♬ Classical Music – Classical Music

I thought to myself, I’ll never top that.

Little did I know 3 months later, that house tour video would be outshone by a ridiculous impromptu video that I didn’t plan to shoot whatsoever.

“Sorry Mom”

I may not be a movie producer, writer, or actor, but as a type-A, somewhat OCD freak, I do have a journal dedicated to my ideas and finding on TikTok.

That’s right, a journal for TikTok...who does that?

This one, right here!

Anyways, last Sunday I was doing shit around the house, I hadn’t posted in days on TikTok and knew I needed to get some new content out there.

I was going in between regular house chores and tending to my garden. It was time to blend up my compost bowl, where I’d been saving up scraps all week.

This whole blending up of food to compost is a new process for me; I’ve been trying to speed the composted process up a bit, by delivering liquified foods instead of whole scraps.

I was seconds away from taking the stinky bowl of food scraps to blend when I had this strange childhood memory that came to mind.

Mom’s leftover soup.

So, I whipped out the video and filmed myself blending up the actual trash, spoiled, rotten, and oh so horrible smelling compost bowl of goodies. I did a voiceover on this video likening this process to my mom’s leftover soup.

And DAYUM, this 22-second video went viral and went viral fast.

@sharlacrawfordSorry Mom. ##childhoodmemories ##foodhack ##composting ##gardner ##over40♬ Wet – YFN Lucci

Mindblowing TikTok Users & Analytics

For the first time in my life have I experienced the true power behind going viral.

This video may have been seen by the handful of my personal, real-life friends, but 99% I didn’t know in any capacity.

I got hundreds of comments, asking me if I lived in the house of @shanedawson.
There’s no way to even give you an accurate count on how many users were tagging @shanedawson, asking him if the house was his.
Some even seemed angry about me being in @shanedawson’s house…

Who the fuck is Shane Dawson?

No clue, other than his TikTok profile, he’s got 3.7million followers & is a verified account.

I can’t confirm nor deny if I live in Shane Dawson’s old house or not (because I seriously have no clue), but the fact that people could see the inside of my house from this 22-second video and assume I did, is wild shit to me.

@Shanedawson hasn’t answered any of the comments about this question yet, but I do hope he does…especially after the, soon to come, reply video I’m going to shoot.

I was also fascinated by this process where many had similar experiences with their parents/grandparents making horrible food, some even getting food poisoning from it.

Some comments were a touch disturbing, telling me:

• my house is haunted
• my mom should be arrested for child abuse
• said I should have been adopted out
• apparently I’m “troubled” & “not right”, neither is my mom
• and soooo many letting me know they almost threw up

Some also expressed…

• distrust for the white race (based on the fact I’m white)
• personal stories of their parent making them eat out of the garbage
• a handful didn’t know what composting was
• and several just “didn’t get it”, wanted to know where the joke was

Even though this video’s captions & description said “Sorry Mom”, followers & commenters have coined this video now as “The Forbidden Soup”…which I love.

What a wild journey, to say the least, reading all these comments over last week. What people are willing to say in public forums is mind-boggling.

“The Numbers are the Numbers and the Numbers Don’t Lie.”

Just within 6 days:

• I went from 452 followers to 1446
• That video has been watched 863,300 times
• Has been liked 175,400 times
• Commented on 480 times
• Shared 271 times

Cursed Blessings

So, how exactly did I come up with this video in the first place?

Let me take you back a bit…

As a young girl, God Bless my incredible mother, but she couldn’t cook for squat.

My brother, Bryant and I, took time to count the 11 meals that rotated through our kitchen. None of which were fancy, quite plain actually.

But nothing cursed our mouths as much as that occasional “leftover soup”, now renamed by TikTok users as “Forbidden Soup”.

This is when mom would rummage through the fridge and literally throw everything together, making a soup of sorts. This may not sound horrible, but it was.

This particular meal was one I’ve never been able to stomach, and I’ll eat just about anything…but it’s probably one of the reasons my brother and I learned and have fallen in love with cooking. We’re not too shabby at it either.

We learned early on that we didn’t want plain meals or ones combining way too many ingredients that don’t go together and calling it a meal.

“Knowing what you don’t want can be just as important as what you don’t want.”

So in reality, although my mom was a less than amazing cook back in the day, my brother and I attribute our love and skills in the kitchen, due to that very same fact.

So thank you Mom for giving Bryant and I the platform to be great cooks who love it dearly!

Love ya Mom!

PS…
My mom is a hell of a cook these days. So dad may be the only one that enjoys that daily, we certainly enjoy it when we come to visit.