What I learned from becoming ‘internet famous’ for a day.
And why I'd rather just spend time with my kids.
In 2016, my family went to Disney World and took our 1-year old on her first ride. We chose Frozen Ever After because it was an all ages ride.
But, at the end of the ride, there was a drop.
It didn’t last for more than a second, but in the dark, my little girl opens her eyes wide, and with a flash and a sudden acceleration, she made a face.
A hilarious, hilarious face.
I say it’s hilarious because she didn’t wail and scream in terror, and only did our group discover this gem in the evening when we checked the Disney app and saw the photos that had been taken that day.
The next morning my wife and I had the same idea to make the zoomed in collage for our Facebook friends. Then our friends started sharing it. Then, at the prompting of friends I decided to post it to Reddit.
And then I started getting texts from friends saying they knew my Reddit username.
We hit the #2 spot on all of Reddit.
Then people photoshopped my daughter’s head over everyone else on the ride. And they swapped my head with my daughter’s. And they photoshopped a Where’s Waldo outfit over me (which was a personal favorite). One person even went so far as to give me a second arm and send my daughter flying into the air unrestrained.
After 24 hours, the internet found new things to focus on. I’m good with this.
But, I learned something.
See? The headline wasn’t clickbait.
I’ve spent thousands of hours on making films and writing novels, hoping to make something worthy of garnering attention…and a silly face made by my daughter made it to the front page of the internet.
I’m not jealous by any means. It was actually quite freeing.
To know that ‘fame’ (or just having attention) is largely a matter of lightning striking, it causes me to be less precious about what I work on (or at least place less emphasis on the importance of being known for it), and that I have to just keep creating things for myself and for others. If it’s something that is unique and entertaining enough, it’ll catch on and spread. If not, it won’t.
Getting that much attention from people you don’t know is kind of weird. There were also some questionable memes that still kind of haunt me and have caused me to be more careful with sharing things about my kids before they acquire their own digital baggage.
I would so much rather spend my time creating alongside my family than trying to become famous for what I create. Do I want the stories I write to connect with others? Of course. Should I hinge my self worth and sense of feeling like a success or failure on something I can’t largely control? Not a chance.
This event was a pivotal moment for me to shift my mindset from pursuing trying to hit the best-seller lists and instead making sure my creative efforts started to come from a place where I was creating out of love for an audience of one person at a time.
And if other people love it too, then that is just icing on the cake.
Why am I telling you this story?
I’m in the process of creating a step-by-step guide on how I brainstorm, outline, write, and edit a story with my own kids. I want to share that with parents and their kids so they too can enjoy the simple joy of reigniting a sense of creativity without the pressure of performing (and I really do believe that storytelling is going to be an important skillset for our kids in the future as we face a lot of AI-generated content).
There’s more to come on that but I’m aiming to launch that here on Substack this summer, and if you or someone you know wants in, please encourage them to subscribe for free here so you don’t miss it.
All the best,
-Ryan (half of C.W. Task)
P.S. Yes, a Photoshop job from Reddit did influence my Halloween costume of choice the following year.
