Despite my limited interactions with the outside world during this period of quarantine, I am happy to share that I have acquired a memory I am confident will carry me through the rest of my life. The experience that comes to mind took place on an app known as TikTok.
The first two weeks of my time in quarantine were uneventful. I sat in my bedroom playing Sims 4 and watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for a minimum of 12 hours a day. The monotony of my routine grew old as my mind grew restless. My weary eyes were scarred and flirting with perpetual blindness from countless hours of TV, and I finally felt I needed a new creative outlet. I opened the TikTok application and was immediately presented with a video of a young girl showing off her vibrant eye color. I found myself amused at the idea of watching that same video, with the vibrant eyes replaced with manure-brown pupils. In a moment of sleep deprivation and narcissism, I filmed this video and posted it. I laughed for minutes on end, despite the joke’s lack of comedy. That night, I went to sleep as an unknown soul for the last time.
I awoke to my phone glitching due to the sheer quantity of notifications I had received. I rubbed my eyes, blurry from sleep, and unlocked it, only to find that my TikTok had gone viral. My first few moments as a Registered Influencer™ were enlightening, though I admit that balancing fame and daily duties can be a challenge. I greeted my family with confidence comparable only to Kanye West and tried my hardest to remain modest, despite the tsunami of incoming likes and comments. As celebrities do, I read through my comments and immediately understood that my target audience stood between the ages of 6 and 10, but nevertheless, I had made it. I spent the rest of the week in a haze due to my new celebrity status. Thank God we are quarantined, because as a pillar of the Spence community, I would hate to tarnish our grounds with the hordes of paparazzi that would have inevitably been following me. Although this day was nearly six weeks ago, I have barely started to recover. Each day that I leave my house for my daily walk around my block, I pray I won’t be caught by TMZ or the wicked wench that is Perez Hilton. I am looking forward to experiencing the full weight of my new influencer title in our post-quarantine world.