What the viral "Who TF Did I just Marry?" series tells us about older audiences on TikTok

On Valentine's Day, Tereasa Johnson, known online as Reesa Teesa, started uploading a multi-part storytime to TikTok. Throughout February, she kept sharing more parts to her story, each one 10 minutes long, culminating at part 50. 

In this 50-part series totaling more than eight hours aptly called Who TF Did I Marry, Johnson recounts her previous marriage to a man who she dubs a "pathological liar." She meticulously unpacks his elaborate web of lies and the red flags she refused to believe. 

Eventually, he broke her heart. 

Now, almost a month later, Johnson's Who TF Did I Marry? series has over 400 million views and her TikTok videos have over 40 million likes. Her virality caught the attention of Hollywood, because she recently signed with talent agency CAA. 

Amanda Hess, who writes about the internet and pop culture for the New York Times, attributed Johnson's success on TikTok to older millennials, as the platform has grown in popularity among 40-somethings.

Hess, along with fellow internet and pop culture writer CT Jones, who writes for Rolling Stone, joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to unpack Johnson's viral moment and what it says about TikTok's growing popularity among audiences over 40 years old.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, plus TV critic Hanna Flint's first impressions on HBO's new political satire The Regime, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: CT, you've spoken to her team since this went viral. What's the sense you're getting about how she's handling all of this attention? Because it is a lot of attention.   

CT: I don't think any of us really understand what it's like to go from just a normal person with a 9 to 5 to having a lot of interest. And I love how well she's handled it. I think she's been incredibly happy that people want to hear her story. People are listening. People are excited to hear about it from her. I do think she probably does feel a kind of way about how people are taking what she went through and viewing it just through the lens of a joke. 

It is a 50 part series and even she kind of talks about it through a humorous lens sometimes. But this was a pretty painful moment in her life. And I think what she's really appreciated the most is people who are relating to her story, because they were like, "I got scammed as well, or I've been hurt by a man before. Thank you for sharing this with me because it can be both painful and embarrassing." 

Elamin: I'm glad you brought that up, because I think every time that I've heard the story talked about, it's been through the lens of entertainment. Amanda, I think people have been talking about it as this sort of reality show that they're watching — as this gossipy thing. When this started unfolding, what was your reaction to it? 

Amanda: I was watching it while I was doing my laundry, after my kids went to sleep. And I couldn't help but watch it in the context of a reality show. But it was like a painfully honest version of these reality real estate shows where someone goes after their perfect house, but then at the end, you realise you can't have it. And I feel like that's such a common experience for people on the internet scrolling through Zillow or Redfin, as she is also doing for these houses that she thinks someday she might own. And I think people can really relate to that, even if we're not being led there by someone like Legion. 

Elamin: First, we should tell people that Legion is the code name that she gives her ex-husband in the story. I'm interested in the mechanics of this thing. If you had asked me if a TikTok series that is told over eight hours would go viral, my initial reaction would be "no." I get mad at two part TikTok videos. Don't make me go search for the second part, let alone a 50 part series. And so in my brain, this is counter to everything about how the platform operates. Why do you think this 50 part approach ended up reaching so many people? 

CT: I've reported on this a bunch. One of the things that TikTok's linear scroll system really promotes is a kind of a natural reward. So when you're scrolling, I don't know if you guys have seen this before, but when Suits and Ugly Betty got really popular last year, one of the biggest reasons were because people were uploading full episodes in 40, 50, 75 parts and seeing people watch and ask, "What is the show? Where can I watch it?"

And they would watch it on TikTok, even after they found out that they could go on Netflix, which they had, and watch a whole episode. So it's kind of this reward system because it's easier to keep scrolling than it is to stop, exit out of your app, go online, find the episode, and click back where you're on. So it's this constant scrollification. You're getting immediate feedback and you want to watch more. And I think to Reesa's point, it works even better when you're desperate to know what happens next.

And in this 50 part series, every time you think it can't get worse, it does. 

Elamin: Amanda, both you and CT have written about the story, but in your piece with the New York Times, you linked Reesa Teesa's viral success to this idea that I'm really interested in, which is TikTok's growing popularity among 40-something millennials. Can you talk a little bit about that, about the idea that TikTok is now maybe for a different audience than it was before?

Amanda: We know from Pew Research Centre data that almost 40 per cent of TikTok users are in their 30s and 40s. And actually people who are in their 40s and 50s are more likely to post on the platform as opposed to just watching it. And watching Reesa's story, I thought it was really reflective of that demographic. This is an adult story with grown up themes. 

There's a pregnancy loss in this story. There's a divorce. There is a mortgage pre-approval that comes up over and over again. And so there are all of these markers of midlife in the story that can appeal to anyone. But we're really, I think, speaking to a millennial audience that is staring down middle age. 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender