CONFESSIONS
What Happens After Your First Viral Post?
The bitter-sweet experience that isn’t talked about enough
People love to talk about how their stories went viral. They write stories about all the views they got and celebrate their success under the pretense of a thinly veiled “I did it so you can do” disguise. It makes it so that you can’t help but hope that one day, one of your pieces will go viral too.
Well, I finally had that happen. At this point, most of my stories were receiving a modest 20–30 views. My best article at that time had nearly 100 views, and I was pretty proud of almost reaching that milestone.
My first viral post was a humorous piece fashioned as a love letter to Costco — you can find it here. It went viral when I shared it with my local Costco Lovers Facebook group.
Within an hour, this story had 1000 views and the number was continuing to climb. I was transfixed. It was like watching a stock ticker climb up. This magical experience of having a post go viral was finally happening to me!
I did my happy dance around the kitchen, texted a few friends who regularly have to put up with my Costco obsession, and then went back to my laptop so I could continue refreshing my stats page. I took the time to respond to every person that left a comment, and I was touched that a few folks even reached out with private messages to share how much they liked my writing.
The next morning, this story had hit 2000 views. I greeted this news with another happy jig and then, as I sat down and prepared to start my usual writing, I thought to myself, “Oh, what now?”
People seem to enjoy writing about the success of their viral posts. But there’s a flip side to it that I don’t think enough people talk about.
Sure, you celebrate and you’re obviously happy about it. But then, what happens after?
It raises the bar and, even if you don’t want it to, your expectations. Not necessarily your expectations about the quality of your writing (since I hope you’re always striving for high-quality writing), but your expectations about the stats. And when it comes to the world of algorithms and competition for eyeballs, that’s a different ballgame.
I don't think I was actually ready for my first viral post when it happened.
If I consistently hit 100 views per day, I’m content with the progress I’ve made on my writing journey. I don’t have a large reader base or following, I’m still trying to find my voice and style as a writer, and I feel like writing catchy headlines is a perpetual thorn in my side.
After you have a viral post in your stats, it overshadows everything. Unless you’re consistently slamming out viral posts, it will make all your other daily views look inconsequential, even though they’re not. But when you check on your stats, it’ll look like this:
I wanted to celebrate small. I wanted to modestly grow with time. I wanted to temper my expectations because I want to be in writing for the long haul. It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.
But a viral post will overshadow all your other non-viral posts. And when you hit the smaller milestones that previously would have inspired you to do your happy dance, you instead look at it with a tilted head and think, “Hm, not bad but not as good as my viral post.”
To be honest, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. A viral post robs you of the happiness you would have felt achieving the smaller milestones along the way. And while viral posts are glorified, mine has been a bit of a bitter-sweet experience.
