Who TF Did I Write About?!? Listening to Social Media Conversations Around the 50 Part TikTok Series by Reesa Teesa.

On February 13^th TikTok user Reesa Teesa stitched a TikTok that asked, “What’s a [crazy] thing that your ex did to you?” In her stitch she noted how, in 2020, her then boyfriend’s (and now ex-husband) grandmother passed away from Covid only for her to later find out that not only did his grandmother pass in 2008 but he was lying about several other relationships and family members and forging fake documents in the attempt to buy a house. Teesa went on to say that she had “married a pathological liar” and asked the TikTok audience to “Let me know if you want to hear more.” This TikTok received over 4 million views and almost 300 thousand likes and, upon audience requests, prompted Teesa to create a 50-part series documenting the lies her ex-husband told which she titled Who TF Did I Marry? Each part of this series pulled in anywhere from 1 million views per part all the way up to almost 30 million views on one part with an additional several hundred thousand likes per part and 10s of thousands of more comments on top of everything else. TikTok users were hooked and needed to hear more of what Teesa’s ex-husband could possibly lie about. This was a quintessential viral moment on social media. 

Now, it’s important to note that Sprinklr currently does not have the available tools to scrape TikTok data in the way that it can for other platforms such as X. However, after just typing the word “who” into the X search bar, one of the first results at this moment in time is for #whotfdidimarry. After inputting that hashtag into Sprinklr, it’s clear that this story has not been contained to TikTok. From February 13^th up to now, #whotfdidimarry has been used across all the social media platforms that Sprinklr covers over 80 thousand times, and it has reached over 300 million users. These non-TikTok discussions likely come from those who were extra invested in the entire series and took to other platforms to continue the conversations. Further, these conversations, which primarily took place on X, peaked on February 20^th, three days after Teesa posted the 50^th and final part to the series. Some of the main themes associated with the hashtag were “Legion,” the Bible referencing nickname Teesa gave her ex-husband, “proof of funds,” something her ex-husband refused to provide when attempting to purchase a house, and “Legion on the phone every morning,” which became a sort of meme about how her ex-husband faked phone calls in front of her every day. 

In terms of sentiment, the related discussions were split at about 46% positive and 54% negative which could be explained by the fact that Teesa’s story, while very negative in content, spurred lots of jokes and memes based off how crazy the string of events was. It is also no surprise that these conversations were primarily based in the United States as Teesa’s story took place in Atlanta, Georgia. Further, the participants in the conversations skewed more towards women likely due to the fact that many women found solace in the fact that even their worst relationships paled in comparison to the one Teesa found herself in. Finally, looking at the audience members and influencers that Sprinklr identified, there were no clear mainstream accounts participating in the #whotfdidimarry discourse. This story is one that is fully grassroots from an everyday person like Reesa Teesa posting it to normal everyday people talking about it online. This is truly a viral story unlike any other that shows how hot topics such as this one cannot be confined to the bounds of just one social media platform.

Author: Ben Katarzynski