March 31st of 2020 is a date that will be written in history books. That was a day of success, not only for America, but for one girl’s and her dreams that finally came true.
After strenuous weeks of training and dedication to the TikTok craft, I had still never got the credit I was searching for. I had learned the popular dances, including the Renegade, I tried to hop on trends, but still always fell short.
I got the TikTok to get some laughs but sadly, I’m not laughing anymore. I have dedicated so much time and effort into getting a glimpse of the fame I’m looking for, but still had nothing to show for it for so long.
I was almost sure my dream to be famous would never come, until I went viral.
On March 30th, a TikTok artist known as Elena.gjm posted a video of herself drawing her “nudes” (aka her torso) with a thermal filter on. As soon as I saw it I instantly fell in love with the style and wanted to give it a try.
Before anyone asks, no I didn’t draw my naked body; I got a picture of someones off of google (once again it was actually a torso).
The only difference between Elena.gjm and my pieces was that she used pastel chalk and my medium was acrylic paint. She also used a filter when she started her drawing, I just put the colors where I thought they looked best.
I know that I pretty much stole this idea, so I figured I would give her video some credit when I posted my video. On TikTok, for those who don’t know, you can make a duet with another video, so both show side-by-side, and I tagged her so she could get the credit she deserved. A few hours later I had my normal amount of likes, nine, so I was proud of myself.
Later that day, I looked at my post and it went from 9 to around 200, then 200 to 600. I was shocked. I went to bed that night, not thinking too much about it, but when I woke up, I had 62.6k views on my video.
My journey to fame had just begun.
I had friends text me to tell me that my video was on their “For You” pages and that I had so many likes. I finally felt like a TikTok Queen; it was my turn to run this app!
Then April 1st happened, a day after I had gained my fame, I had my heart broken. I wish this was an April Fools joke, so I could be laughing instead of grieving, but it isn’t. Around ten o’clock, I got a notification from TikTok saying: “System Notification: A video you posted on 2020-03-31 has been removed for violating our Community Guidelines. Please observe these guidelines to help us maintain a safe, respectful TikTok community.”
At 83.7k views and over 3,000 likes my TikTok video was taken down. This message made me question my whole life; should give up on TikTok now, or if I should just keep disappointing myself?
After I started moving on, I checked on Elena’s page to see if her artwork got deleted…it didn’t. How does that make sense? It doesn’t, and I want to get to the bottom of this.
I now know that someone got a little too jealous of my TikTok taking off and reported me. I know my painting was a “nude,” so they must have decided to report my video and chose the “I’m waaaay too jealous that this video is going viral and I want to crush someone else’s dreams” option. That is the only explanation that makes sense in my eyes.
So now I write to whoever is reading, as an average person again. I am back to nothing, and need to pick myself up. Out of all that chaos, I have gained followers and I have to keep pleasing them.
I will continue my art journey on TikTok and hopefully my time will come again. For those who viewed and liked my video, I appreciate the support.
