last week i went viral on tiktok.

not the kind of viral where everyone you know (and don’t) sees it without you even telling them about it. but the kind of viral where you post something, close the app, forget about it, think about it midday the next day, open the app again, see a shit ton of notifications, see it’s gotten over 1.5M views overnight (4M as of writing), immediately panic-close the app, and then later check again to see you have dms from nbc news and meme pages wanting permission to repost or use part of your video. the kind of viral where your long-forgotten google alert pings because cafe mom has shared your video and even used your legal name alongside it. the kind of viral where, days later, over the weekend, your partner is reading the news over coffee and sees an op-ed in the guardian that links to your video.

so, realistically, not that big of a deal. but still decidedly weird.

a decade ago, before being an influencer was really even a job, when being internet famous was helpful for one’s career in tech, and when i really just wanted to feel seen, i would’ve been really fucking excited about this. today, though? today, i feel... ok... about it?

part of that is probably due to the content of the video. last week, when someone on threads discovered their “about you” section of their amazon settings filled with kind of weird and awfully specific data points about them, several people started sharing what they found in theirs. i didn’t think much of it during the day and only saw a few posts about it because i’m actually trying to spend less time on social media altogether. but after my therapy video call that afternoon, i decided to take a peek. nestled right between “invested in the apple ecosystem” and “has a partner” was “has a bad father.”

so i made a video about it. because as much as i hate that amazon seems to know this about me despite not having alexa, not having the app on my phone, and using a privacy browser, it’s also really fucking funny. even if there is something kind of unsettling about being a normal person and knowing millions of people have seen your face, heard your voice, and know you have daddy issues.

and yet.

if i’m being 100% honest, in my deepest soul of souls, in my heart of hearts, in the little locked part of my brain i don’t want to admit is there at all, it’s also felt kind of fun? not fun enough that i’ve felt the need to “capitalize” on the situation, though my friends have certainly been giving me very clever and good ways i could do that.

i may still make a follow-up video as a joke with a list of books i’ve read on kindle unlimited that may have inadvertently led amazon to the truth of my family situation, but it’s not like i’m trying to use this opportunity to become someone on tiktok. (that just seems like so much work and i have a hard time wanting to maintain even a regular presence on the app as it is.)

but, yeah, the point about me also kinda liking this teeny tiny taste of “being known” stands. it’s there. and i’m not gonna beat myself up over it because it feels very human? who doesn’t like some sort of attention? and for me, a disabled recluse (i’m not a recluse by any means, just less social than my partner), i think it's felt extra good.

and then there’s the small (but very real) part of me that wants my dad to see it—which is absolutely something i will be discussing with my therapist in our session next week because i absolutely loathe that i feel that way. i haven’t spoken to him in so long!! i don’t even think about him most days!! he’s basically dead to me!! i already held the funeral for him in my heart!! so whyyyyyy am i like this? why do i feel petty enough that i want him to have come across the video somehow and bristled or felt embarrassed? i know it won't change anything. for him it would likely just be further evidence of me just being an ungrateful child when he was the absentee, emotionally-manipulative, misogynist, egotistical father who blamed me for “ruining my brother’s life” when i finally told someone he’d abused me for years when we were kids.

… ahem. so there i go making it awkward...

but realistically i think what bothers me most right now is not that amazon somehow knows i have a bad dad (whether by accident or not, as their data collection seems to be pulling in a lot of false positives from reviews and such for other people), or even that a bunch of strangers do. i think what bothers me most right now is knowing that there’s still someone in me who gives even the smallest shit about my dad at all, even if that tiny, microscopic shit doesn’t care in a positive “i worry about him” kind of way but more like a “why do i still feel so hurt” kind of way.

i want to be beyond this. i don’t want him to have any space left in my head. he’s been evicted. it’s fucking done. he’s dead to me. but i guess it is ghost season right now, and ghosts gonna haunt. or something. 👻