I’m Fighting For My Life In The Comments & It Feels Great

It started off small enough. One little comment — and a friendly-ish one at that — on a TikTok of a woman doing the “Trump dance.” Remember last summer, when Trump started pumping his fists in a double hand job sort of way on the campaign trail, and it went semi-viral? This woman, on TikTok, was doing it in her kitchen. To “YMCA.” The day after the election. The caption read: “Now my husband and I will be able to afford eggs and a new house.” I didn’t think. Not for even a moment. My fingers started typing, like they were possessed by some paranormal force. “hi, you’re actually wrong about this.” Send.

Until that fateful day, I’d always been content to lurk. I think most elder millennials are. We were there (and in our hot years) for the advent of Instagram, but we are now old enough to regard an overly online personality as a bit gauche. People who left comments on absolute strangers’ posts seemed wild to me, at best. Delusional, really. Like, hello MaxMad39, you think January Jones is going to see your fire emojis on her post and reach out? Start dropping winky faces on your dog pics? The comment section was for a different set of people. Weirdos. Trolls. Not 40-something women with a child and a job and a life that even in its worst moments was still pretty serviceable.

It took approximately four minutes for my “hi, you’re actually wrong about this” to get a response of its own — not from the original poster, but from some guy who took it upon himself to tell me about Trump’s tariff plan and how it was gonna bring back American manufacturing. Ho-ho! I went in. I explained the perils of punitive tariffs as if I were a learned economist, mostly by Googling and then regurgitating the talking points of said economists, like I was feeding a baby bird. This man and I went back and forth maybe 17 times. Finally, the original poster commented: “Can you take this elsewhere?” I looked up and realized I’d been at it for almost two hours. My 4-year-old was on her third episode of Gabby’s Dollhouse. I’d told myself I’d take her to a park after one.

I wish I could say that was the end of it. Any momentary shame I felt from being a person who wades into the comment section was eclipsed by a more powerful emotion. Addiction? Impulse? Both of those combined with the fact that, post-election, I felt helpless and terrified? At least this felt like I was doing something. After years of scrolling TikTok but never posting, I started making my own videos — all responses to other people’s posts or comments. I went viral on the platform, clapping back at a woman named Stephanie, who left a comment for me (after I left a comment on someone else’s video) blaming Biden for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I really went in on Stephanie. Acted exasperated. Begged her to “read a book.” Explained how justices are appointed to the Supreme Court. Thousands of people commented and reposted my video, thanking me while sneering at Stephanie. Stephanie deleted her comment and blocked me.

Within 10 days of “hi, you’re actually wrong about this,” I’d officially become the guy who leaves fire emojis.

I spent hours a day making TikToks. I made one in response to a woman who posted that, thanks to Trump, presumably, her daughter would be safe in bathrooms. I pointed out the lack of statistical evidence that women are being attacked by trans women in public restrooms, and juxtaposed that with testimony from the E. Jean Carroll case, which found the president liable for sexual abuse, which Carroll claimed happened in a department store dressing room. I made another about grocery prices and the bill Elizabeth Warren pushed to combat price gouging, which the GOP swiftly voted down. I posted yet another about believing any idiot with a podcast mic over “liberal” media sources that have been reported, fact-checked, and vetted. Each time I posted I felt a giddy rush, followed by a good session of self-rationalization as to why I was posting. I was right. I was teaching people. Why does the “left” always have to be the nice ones? Then I’d waste hours checking reposts and comments, feeling slightly more justified every time someone agreed with me that Trumpers were absolute idiots.

A friend’s response pulled me out of my spiral. In the middle of a conversation over text, she offhandedly mentioned that I was “super active” on TikTok. There was no assigned value, just the observation. But it was as if she’d caught me binge-eating a box of doughnuts. The shame was palpable.

It’s not that the points I was making were wrong, and yet: What the f*ck was I doing? The election was over. Trump won. I wasn’t exactly convincing anyone to embrace the light by writing stuff like “My apologies you’re so stupid.” I blew past a mid-November writing deadline — the first I’d missed in my almost 20-year career. Worse, I commented “boo” on a Kim Kardashian post shilling her new Skims line, just because I imagined she’d voted in a certain way. Within 10 days of “hi, you’re actually wrong about this,” I’d officially become the guy who leaves fire emojis.

I realized that if I found my online posts shameful, I shouldn’t be posting them. I deleted all my videos — including the viral one, which didn’t not hurt. I deleted the drafts of the ones still in progress. I deleted my “boo” off Kim Kardashian’s page, even though it could be mistaken for me calling her “boo” as in “my boo.” (Embarrassing either way.) I deleted TikTok from my phone.

Three weeks later I re-downloaded it. I really missed the recipes for high-protein bagels and weeping girls dishing about awful dates. I still watch TikToks of people making absolutely insane political arguments when they pop up in my algorithm, though I’ve replaced some of my TikTok scrolling with a new vice: mindlessly playing Royal Match — a phone game I spend almost $100 a month on — which doesn’t make me angry, just dumber.