Have you ever seen one of those videos?
The ones where they promise you everything you ever wanted, just for a tap of a little like button?
I have, too.
I always thought they were bull. Like everyone else, probably. Usually I would skip past them. Sometimes I’d leave them on while I finished styling my already perfect hair, so the viewer count would rack up and my good deed for the day (supporting some random creator on the internet) was done.
I never actually ‘claimed’ any of these things. Why would I, when I was already the perfect girl? I had a perfect body. A drop-dead gorgeous face. The smarts to back it up. I had the popularity, the boyfriend, the money. What else could I need?
So no, I never did hit that like button.
I remember going to sleep, about a month ago. I had been scrolling through my for you page for an hour or so, but I was getting tired, so I’d decided that I’d watch one more reel then hit the hay.
That reel happened to be one of those videos.
The case on my phone screen had made a clink! sound as I set it down on my nightstand, the screen off and the video forgotten. It was just another night in my life. I was more worried about my calculus test tomorrow than some video I’d seen countless versions of before. Nothing had ever come out of not liking the video, so why anything happen now?
I woke up the next morning and I was ugly.
I don’t know how to explain it. My eyes were too far apart, and my right eye was slightly higher than my left. They were dirt brown too, a stark contrast to my usual symmetrical blue eyes. My nose was too big and wide and hooked at the end. My lips were dry and crusted with dead skin. One of my cheeks puffed out, and the other sunk in. My forehead was more of a seventeen-head, so large and shiny I could probably use it in place of my mirror. The acne all over my face solidified the hideousness. It was such a horrifying sight that I’d double checked with my phone to see if this was my real face.
Spoiler alert–it was.
I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I hadn’t done anything different from my daily routine, and anyway, I don’t think even extensive plasic surgery would’ve change my face so drastically. I simply couldn’t go to school, so without leaving my room, I begged my parents to let me stay home. They allowed me to, but made me swear that I would go tomorrow. No biggie, right. Just gotta figure out how to reconstruct my entire face at home in 24 hours. Easy-peasy.
I spent the next three hours scrolling on my phone, crying and texting my friends. They all assured me I was probably not as ugly as I thought–my friend Maddie even joked that I would probably freak out over a single, microscopic flaw on my face. But when they’d asked for pictures to reassure me that my fears weren’t valid, I couldn’t bring myself to take the photos. I could hardly stand to see myself in the mirror, much less stare into my shit brown eyes long enough to take the photo. So I, too stressed out and overwhelmed, returned back to my safe haven of Instagram reels.
Then, I passed another one of the same videos. This one was about ‘claiming your dream body!’. I scrolled past it as usual, searching for some content that would take my mind off the hideousness of my face.
I must’ve fallen asleep sometime after that. It was exhausting worrying about how ugly I became overnight.
But it was a true nightmare to wake up and find out that my body was now just as horrific as my face.
It wasn’t that I was fat. Well, I was fat. Just not in all of my body.
In some places, I was terribly thin. In those spots, every bone was visible, and I looked like I would float away on the slightest breeze. On the other hand, I was also tremendously overweight in other parts of my body. In those areas, I looked like I weighed 700 pounds just from a single body part. My legs, for example. One was stick-thin, the other a chunk of pure fat.
This continued into other aspects of my life. My parent’s relationship, my friends, even my boyfriend was affected. Ex-boyfriend now, I guess. Two weeks later, I’d had enough. I had to find out what was causing this before I ruined my life beyond repair.
I realized it pretty quickly. I had done nothing but scroll on my phone for those two weeks, so it had to be something I was watching. I checked my history, and there it was–the same creator, popping up all over my feed and showing me these glow-up claim videos. I decided to experiment, and I opened up one of their newest videos. It advertised getting your dream face, for the simple price of liking the video.
So I did.
And the next day, I woke up with my pretty, symmetrical face back.
So I claimed another video, for my body.
And the next day, I had my well-proportioned, attractive, perfect body back.
So I did it again, to fix the other parts of my life that had gotten ruined.
And it worked. Everything was reversed, back to the way it was. The initial fright was over.
But I forgot something.
I checked my history again this morning. Everything was going well again–my friends weren’t made at me, my boyfriend was considering getting back with me, my parents weren’t fighting anymore. I was pretty again. And despite the grade drop I’d had from missing all that school, my grades were back up to A+. Everything was working out. I was happy again.
Until I saw it.
From the same creator as the other videos. On the very first morning, one month ago today, when everything had started. The video about my dream body hadn’t been the only video from that creator I’d seen that morning.
I’d watched one other video, and I hadn’t even realized.
I’d searched frantically for a counter to the video, but there was nothing on the creator’s page that would provide a sufficient solution to the problem. I was overcome with fear, anxiety, denial. I’d always thought these videos were just bull. But they weren’t, and I knew that now. I knew it too late, and now I would pay for it, because there was no way to stop it.
As I write this, I’m sitting at the top of my bed, overcome with fear and dread. The knot in my stomach keeps tightening, like the noose around my neck that had been the constant pressure of these stupid videos.
All I could do was obsess over what might happen, trembling from fright with beads of sweat dripping down my face. All I could think about was what might happen, in just three minutes from now.
Three minutes from now, at 7:27am, the exact time that I scrolled past that fateful video.
These might be my last moments, but I need to post this so that everyone else knows. Sometimes those silly little videos that you scroll past without a second thought could actually have a lasting impact on your life.
So what was the video that I didn’t realize I had seen?
“Hit the like button to claim your immunity from certain death exactly one month from today!”