Hi, everybody!
So, I don’t really know how this whole… reddit thing really works? As you can tell from the title, I’m more of a TikTok kinda gal. I always heard and felt reddit was more like… a nerd thingie, but honestly, no offense to all of you. I just figured you’d be pretty smart then, so maybe you can help me in my situation.
I’ll start explaining all of this from the very beginning. I bet most of you know how TikTok works. After all, it’s super famous. And if you ever scrolled a bit through the so-called “For You Page” (the FYP, in short, but I feel like I have to explain this like you’re my grandparents or something like that - just in case), you might have learned that there’s lots of different sides of TikTok.
The side I was usually on was all about dancing, facial expressions and/or mouthing along to different, popular sounds. It was really fascinating to watch, honestly. And most of those TikToks have, like, hundreds of thousands of views and sometimes even more than a million likes. That’s insane! Those people even earn their money with it! Not that I’d ever say that they don’t have talent, because I know they do; after all, you have to be a marketing genius to get this popular on TikTok just by doing a couple of basic things, right? But I guess it also helps if you’re pretty.
Now, let’s be for real for a second. School absolutely sucks. You all know it. And work sucks, too. My mom is always overworked, tired, and barely has time for me anyway. I don’t want to work; and if I can help my mom to stop working so much by becoming a TikTok star, why not? At least that’s what I thought back then.
So I tried to post regularly on TikTok. Do all of the popular dances, use only the most-used sounds, try to hop along onto every different trend… but nada. Nothing. Some views here and there, and some likes, too, but nothing in the spheres of stardom I was looking for.
Well, at least not for a while. But then, couple of days after New Year’s Day, I woke up to an enormous amount of engagement. One video apparently trickled through the algorithm and landed on the FYP of a lot of people. This one video had an absurd amount of likes - over 100k! - and an innumerable amount of comments.
I was elated. Ecstatic. Obviously. This would be my first step!
The only thing that was a tad confusing was the video itself. It was just a video of me dancing. It wasn’t even a good one, more like a draft I just posted the day before in the hopes of it catching on. So maybe people just thought I was pretty or something?
But then, I started to actually read the comments. And then I realized why my account really blew up. Here’s an excerpt from some of the top comments:
0o0oo0000: she’s always in the same room. she always has the same pained expression. and then, the camera?? this doesn’t feel right
kittyTheKatten: does anybody know her? I feel like I saw her face in the news
Jessica Bunny: there’s a camera in top right corner of the room!!! Someone’s watching her. we have to HELP her!!
user128401284: anyone contacted the police yet?
juls: like she’s doing the signal for help…
Audrianna: Wear a red shirt in your next video if you’re in danger.
Sooo fucking weird, right? The ‘camera’ they were talking about was just ceiling decoration I thought would look cute. In my opinion, it didn’t even look like a camera. Yeah, okay, maybe it was a bad design choice, but thinking it’s a camera?
Also, ‘pained expression’? Excuse me? That’s just my regular face!
I didn’t comment or like anything and decided to let it rest for a day. However, the next day I realized that people started liking and commenting on all of my older videos, too. Similar tone, similar stuff.
So, not really the side on TikTok I wanted to end up. Or the kind of thing I wanted to blow up for.
But, like, engagement is engagement, right?
Of course, my moral compass told me not to do it, because toying with people’s emotions is shitty and all that, blah blah blah… But well, in the very same evening, I made another video of me dancing. In a red dress, of course. With the ‘pained’ expression (fuck you, user with o’s and 0’s as username). And yeah, maybe I did the help signal with my hands once while dancing.
Again - blowing up. Jesus. People were freaking out. Comments of we have to do something, that poor girl, and oh my God, it’s so obvious now!! were flooding in. Audrianna, very smartly, even commented again: Oh my God, I told her to wear red if she’s in danger and now she’s actually wearing red!
Likes, engagement, stitches (which is when someome makes a video about your video, y’know, but it’s not that important), everything! I felt like an absolut star. Now, I didn’t quite now when the money-part would kick in and how to actually earn money with all of this, but I did know that I enjoyed the attention. A lot.
So I did what every rational thinking person in the 21st century would do: I engaged. I delivered the content the people wanted. Wearing the colors, trying to look pained, etc. It all went perfect, really.
Well, until…
Jake: This is obviously fake lmao
Sarah Paulson (not really): My biggest flex is that I didn’t believe this from the beginning
KissyPoutMouth: Hate when people do this. Takes away from people who are really struggling…
redditorNo1: How do people still believe she’s actually kidnapped?! No kidnapper would allow this! Big L
Hiya: If you still believe this, just watch the video of SevenGreyHounds.
Obviously, I watched the video mentioned in the last comment. I even knew the account. It was from my best fucking friend, Kara, who, in her most recent video, showed some pictures of us and told the world I’m not kidnapped and that this was just my room. Stupid bitch. I didn’t even text her for days, how could she be so sure?!
So now people were calling me fake. I had to do something about it, because I couldn’t lose my TikTok stardom so quickly. I tried to ignore it at first, but even when I looked even more pained in the following videos, and wore all the colors they wanted me to wear, they didn’t believe me. Even when I looked off-screen behind my phone, they didn’t think there was an evil guy there who watched me doing all my dances!
Before I continue, please believe me that I know it sounds drastic, but honestly, what did you expect me to do? I couldn’t exactly google “How to fake kidnapping on TikTok 101”!
I just thought about what a kidnapper would do. So, I, uh… I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an absolute idiot, so I’m just gonna say it super straightforward: I ran straight into a wall. Face first. Multiple times.
When I finally heard a satisfying (and painful) scrunch, I knew I suceeded. I felt the warm blood running down my nose and over my upper lip, and it just made me grin. I knew I had found my way out.
Of course, a kidnapper would never allow me to be filmed like this. So I wiped away the blood, and even put some heavy make-up over my swollen nose - but it was still obvious how swollen my nose was. It even looked a bit crooked. At least to me.
I made some videos, and this time, I didn’t even have to fake having a pained expression. (Well, according to the people commenting, I never had to anyway, right?)
It took two more days; two more days in which I was lucky that my mom was so overworked, because she didn’t even notice anything about me. Even that my nose got bigger. But then, after two days, there was the comment I was hoping for:
The Great Gaysby: it just me or does her nose look broken?
It was perfect.
People were engaging with my content again. And while I was softly patting my still painfully pulsating, throbbing nose, that sometimes even still bled, I couldn’t help but grin.
Of course, this didn’t last for ever. But this time, I was prepared.
I tore up my clothes. Just small cuts, but I wanted them to see it.
I cut off parts of my hair. Made my hair a bit messy, but still acted like I tried to cover it up again.
Then, I used a boxing glove that once belonged to my dad I found ages ago in our basement. This was especially annoying. I thought it’d be easy to get a black eye, especially with a boxing glove, but it honestly wasn’t. I still tried my best, though. Just taking a deep breath, holding it, and then boxing myself again and again, in my left eye, until the pain was so dull, it vibrated through my whole skull and body.
But even then, they still started to doubt again.
Even when I bound my hands behind my back and let myself fall down a couple of stairs.
Even when I chipped my tooth while doing that!
Even when I obviously limped and could barely dance anyone…
They still said it’s a filter. Or that I’m acting. Or that this was all fake and that nobody could believe that this was actually happening to me.
After a while, I felt myself ready to go live. You can do that on TikTok, too! Really cool, huh? Anyway, I went live after I beat myself in the stomach with my boxing glove and when I felt my eyes going puffy and teary. People in the comments were going wild. I tried to look off-screen as often as possible, to make myself look scared, helpless…
And then it happened.
My mom burst into my room.
I stopped the livestream as quickly as possible as she began yelling at me, pointing at her phone, where a TikTok of me was playing.
“What is this?! Why are you making people believe that you’re kidnapped?!”
I jumped up from the chair I was sitting on.
“I don’t!” I yelled back. “I just make… TikToks!”
But my mom didn’t believe me. “Kara told me everything! What you’re doing, that you aren’t texting her any more, that she’s worried… Why are you doing this?!”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “You wouldn’t understand! Now, leave me alone, I’m busy!”
“Oh, I’ll leave you alone alright, but not before…” And then she just got into my room. Completely manic, really. She ran towards me and practially tore my phone out of my hands.
“Give it back!”
“I definitely won’t. I knew I shouldn’t have worked so much…” She sighed for a second. “You’ll see this again if you behave. Do you hear that?”
So overdramatic.
And she didn’t even say more than that. She just left my room.
I stormed after her. “Give me back my phone!” I yelled, again. “I’ll earn more money than you ever did with this! This is our future!”
“You’re crazy! How do you think you’ll earn money like this?!” My mom turned around, next to the stairs, holding my phone up. “This… this is destroying you. I should’ve listened to the other moms. Social media is pure poison for a young mind like you…”
“I’m thirteen!” I nearly screeched, as I ran towards her. I grabbed my phone, with all of my power. I felt my bones and my body with all of it’s scars and wounds protest, but I didn’t care. I wanted my phone.
“Stop it!” My mom yelled.
I didn’t care. Instead, I pulled her wrist towards me, grabbed her arm and bit in it. With a surprised yelp, she tore her arm away, not letting go off the phone, and while I tried to reach for the phone again, I just got her shoulder - and I pushed her away.
I honestly didn’t mean to push her down the stairs. Who would’ve seen that coming? I mean, you probably did the second I said she stood next to the stairs, but how should I have known?
She fell down all of them. It reminded me a bit of the few times I flung myself down the last couple of stairs. Not the entirety. It was honestly surreal seeing anyone else do it.
The scrunch I heard when she reached the floor reminded me of me breaking my nose. However, given the angle in which her head stood away from her body, I guess it wasn’t her nose that broke.
I felt panic rising in me. I quickly ran down the stairs, as I saw a pool of blood forming beneath my mom. With a heartbeat that was strong enough for it to echo in my ears in a loud rush, I reached down towards her, for her hand, that lay just atop of her chest…
And let out a sigh of relief as I saw that my phone didn’t even have a scratch.
Until the moment I realized, it wasn’t my phone. It was hers. I was just about to look for mine, when I saw her receiving a message.
Mike:Did you stop this nonsense?
So, this is were it gets really weird. Because I obviously. clicked on the chat, because, who the hell is Mike?
And then I found this:
Mike: We’re getting her tomorrow.
Mike: She’s old enough, anyway.
Mike: Clients have been asking for her already…
I scrolled up, and that’s where I started to feel really dizzy. Because the clients they were talking about were, like, old. Like really old.
And the things they were describing there - what they wanted to do with me… Things that… I definitely didn’t want to do.
Seems like my mom did have a plan to get herself out of poverty. It just didn’t involve me.
I tried to rush out of the door, but it was locked. I don’t know where my mom keeps her keys, but I know I’m not strong enough to get out of there.
I felt panic rising up in me. I really, really don’t want those guys to pick me up.
But I also didn’t know what to do about my mom, because she was definitely not breathing any more.
So… I was thinking… Maybe I should just, like, explain my situation on TikTok? You know? And maybe you guys can help - help explain that I’m actually about to be, I guess, kidnapped? Maybe then everything will be fine?
I don’t know what else to do. It’s the only thing I’m good at, I guess. I don’t want these guys to get me. I don’t want to do these things with the clients they described to my mother. But if I call the police, they will only care about what I did to my mother, right?
So, reddit - can you please help me? What am I supposed to do?