What Going Viral Taught Me About Humankind
A video of me with lettuce on my head went viral over Christmas break…
Yeah, you read that right.
On Christmas Eve, I posted a short and silly video of our family creating our annual Collins Christmas card. To my surprise, when I woke up the next morning, the reel was poppin’ off with comments and re-shares. As I write this blog, it currently has 8 million views. Whattt?! You can watch the video on my instagram, here. Allow me to give some context for why we had lettuce on our heads.
Every year for over a decade, my husband’s family has been making “atypical” Christmas cards and sending them in the mail to a short list of family & friends. I have had the ~pleasure~ of being included in these holiday cards since we were engaged back in 2014. Throughout the year, the whole family spitballs ideas until one sticks and then as the holidays roll around, we get full family participation and execute the idea. The themes are all over the place - from “dreaming of a white trash Christmas” to “the family that bathes together, stays together” to this year’s theme “O Come Lettuce Adore Him.” You can peruse some of our past year’s cards on this Instagram post to see just how unhinged we have gotten. Why do we do this? For the sheer heck and fun of it! To spread a little Christmas cheer, to make people laugh, and to make a funny memory together as a family. My husband’s family, I realize now more than ever, is truly so one-of-a-kind in this regard. They will go to great lengths just to have a little fun together.
To be honest, when I noticed the video getting a lot of traction online, I felt a sort of panic at first. I had no idea it would take off and having that many eyes on it made me feel a little squirmy. As I saw thousands of people leaving comments, I was nervous to even peek at what people were saying. I know the internet can be a place for a lot of hatred and people often leave nasty comments as they scroll with little repercussion. But as I started to read what people were saying, the comments actually pleasantly surprised me and even, in a way, renewed my hope in humanity.
Here are 3 things I learned about humankind from the comments left on our video:
1. AI Can’t Replace Real Human Creativity
One of the most heart-warming comments I saw repeated over and over from viewers went something like this:
“You could have used AI to create this photo, but y’all literally put lettuce on your dang heads and did it yourself. Respect.”
It hit me. In a world where we can create almost anything we want using AI, people still want and crave something REAL. As ridiculous as our Christmas card was, people seemed to appreciate the real effort and participation it took to create it. The fact that everyone bought in, as crazy as it was, and did something real together was relieving for people to experience.
2. Family Is A Gift
It’s no longer a secret that our family is goofyyy, baby. The amount of people that said, “I love whatever is wrong with you.” confirms that. But as much as there were comments laughing AT us, most of those comments were also laughing WITH us and seemed to celebrate the fact that even if it’s weird and silly and goofy, nothing is better than family and if you have a family you can laugh with, you’re truly RICH. So many comments were just encouraging how wonderful it is to see a family spending time, laughing, and going the extra mile to make a fun memory with each other.
Personally, it made me realize how blessed I am in family. Few things matter more in this life on earth. The hilarious comments asking if there was a single brother they could marry or a way they could be adopted in made me realize how good I have it. When the time comes each year to make these silly Christmas cards, we all take turns rolling our eyes at how ridiculous it is. But at the end of the day, we all do it and we do it together. What a gift that I have a family to do this with, AS LITERALLY BAT $h!T crazy as it is!
3. Life Isn’t *Always* So Serious
One more theme of comments that pleasantly surprised me was how many people seemed to get a genuine laugh out of our family shenanigans. The majority of the comments overall were crying laughing emojis, hahahahas, and sentiments of “I just choked on my spit,” “I can’t breathe,” and “I’m dead.” I think some pessimistic part of me deep inside was just caught off guard that people would simply laugh and find joy out of something so ridiculous.
If you have a personality type like mine, sometimes you can use a good dose of levity in your life. (Hence why my phrase for the year is “who cares!!!” Trying to lean into that...) Life is and always will be hard, no way around it. So any chance we have to just laugh out loud is a wonderful thing. Laughter really is the best medicine. The more we can laugh & the more we can make others laugh is time well spent in this life.
So there you have it, 3 encouraging reasons to keep hope in humanity! There are a lot of trolls & haters out there in the world, but there are a lot of wonderful people, too. People who value authenticity, connection, & laughter. If losing my dignity on the internet was what it took to remind me (and you) of this today, I think it was well worth it.
Cheers to keepin’ it real & laughing with the people you love this year! xo, Suzy
If you didn’t get to watch the reel yet - enjoy!
If you resonated with any of this blog, you might enjoy some of these other musings, too!
My Instagram reel of our family Christmas card went viral over the holidays and I learned a few surprising lessons along the way.