Going Viral - the first 24 hours
From a parking garage to the Ukrainian front lines
The first 24 hours of going viral were the craziest 24 hours of my life outside of my son being born.
Not only because I was going viral…but I was real life busy.
Not ‘I have to drop off dry cleaning’ busy, but “I have to go to court, attend a Republican event, get home, be a dad/husband, then wake up a few hours later and fly to New Orleans for a bachelor party” busy.
Here is how it went down, retroactive diary style:
Wednesday, March 8th, 2023, 1 pm: the tweet
I spent lunch on the phone with a good friend. He’s been single for about a year and his dating life has turned brutal. He’s always been able to date decent women, but not lately. Feeling frustrated for him, I decided to tweet about it from my office parking garage. I hit send. Time for court.
4 pm: the first WTF
I get out of court and check twitter. I have 20+ notifications. Not out of the ordinary, but definitely a lot for not tweeting much.
I click on the notification button and start scrolling….and keep scrolling. I thought my phone was broken. Nope! I am getting notifications faster than I can read them, and they all appear to be about my earlier tweet. I click on the tweet:
20k views.
I am blown away. I don’t know if I’ve ever had 5k views, let alone 20k. I laugh and do what I’ve seen many others do when there is a chance they are going viral:
I shamlessly tweet about my substack!
Over the next hour I try to get work done while texting Mrs. Kong, but I keep looking at my phone.
5PM: 50k. WTF?!?
I hit the road for my political event.
6:30 pm: the second WTF
I arrive late at my destination. Before running in, I decide to check my phone:
350k views.
My jaw almost hits the floor. I run inside, shake some hands, then grab a drink. I spend the next 90 minutes socializing, schmoozing, and listening to a few speakers. I really do care about fighting modern communism…but I also want to check twitter REAL bad!
I start wondering why things have escalated. I see a DM from a jungle friend that has a link to a tweet:
I reply to her, wonder who is she, then check the OG tweet:
1M views.
I must have had a look on my face, because someone comes by and asks if I’m ok.
What do I say? “Actually no, my secret jungle twitter account where I am a public speaking and legal monkey is blowing up.” I can’t say that, Kong is a gorilla. I think?
Luckily this is the whitest room I have been in since my fraternity days so I probably could say that without any blowback, but I pass. Time to head home and act normal.
10 PM - things have escalated
I try to put my son to bed while listening to Mrs. Kong describe her day AND say inappropriate things on the bachelor party group text.
There’s nothing going on between my ears other than wanting to click the notification button and see it do that thing where it automatically reloads. She can tell I am not paying attenting.
“Are you excited for your trip?”
I should have smiled and nodded, but I did not.
“Honey, remember that secret twitter account I have?”
“Yeah, with all your ‘internet friends’?”
“Yeah that one. I sent a tweet and it’s going nuts. Guess how many people normally see my tweets?”
“Three?”
“Be serious.”
“Thirteen?”
“Ok I don’t actually know but maybe 100 or 200. Guess how many this one has?”
“Three hundred?”
(I check my phone).
2.2 million
Mrs. Kong stares at me in disbelief, then says the following:
“What did you say?”
“Modern women are broken.”
“Why is that?”
I can sense a late night argument brewing, so I try to de-escalate.
“Tom is having trouble getting a date, just seems weird.”
“Maybe he should be more interesting.”
Point taken, argument averted. I start packing for my trip, try to ignore my phone and get ready to travel. I go to bed.
3:30 AM
I wake up and immediately check my phone:
4.2 million
Is this real life?
I shower, shave, grab my stuff and start driving to the airport. There’s no one really on the road, should I….check my twitter? My internal dialogue says the following:
“NO, that’s stupid, you could crash and die. For what? A few quote tweets?”
“Good point. But still….this probably is a once in a lifetime thing, I should embrace it.”
“Maybe embrace braking because that’s a red light.”
I brake, stop, then check my phone. Win win!
7-9 am
I am obsessively checking my phone at all times, and I’m around 6 or 7 million views. I try to respond to jungle folks when I can, or really to anyone. I plug another substack article, then see a DM from BowTiedTikTok with helpful suggestions to get more followers. I implement said helpful suggestions.
Around this time, I get a DM that Malcolm Nance, Mr. Fighting for Ukraine but not really, is now one of my reply guys. I start going in on him:
After what felt like seconds but was actually an hour, I realize I am nowhere near the gate to my connecting flight. I sprint to where I need to be and make boarding just in time. One last check of the phone before taking off, then it is Nola time!
March 9, 2023, 1 pm
I land and immediately check my phone:
6 million views.
Today was a good day.
Lmao. Anon is the way to go if we're going to discuss more controversial ideas.
Wait, what was the TikTok advice tho? 😂