Would you share your worst first-date story on Twitter?

Makela faced the ultimate first-date nightmare: the toilet at her date's apartment would not flush after she had answered the nature's call. She had found an unusual solution to the problem...   and then proceeded to share the entire story in a series of 18 tweets.

Makela's story got picked up by several major media outlets and brought the candid poop story protagonist over 20,000 new Twitter followers. This level of oversharing was bound to spread online. As Out in the Open producer Daniel Guillemette explained, "it had all the right elements to go viral in this weird media landscape we exist in now, because it's gross and funny and vulnerable."

As such, some people were skeptical—including Daniel, who had a good reason to doubt the viral story's authenticity. He recalled hearing an eerily similar story from an acquaintance, who, like Makela, also lives in Toronto. It had all the same elements: the awkward timing, the faulty toilet, hiding the poop in a bag. Except Gillian, the protagonist of this particular story, had gone viral the old-fashioned way: she told it at parties, shared it with friends, included it in a wedding speech…

And after some investigation, Daniel found a third woman with a similar story. Perhaps this was the real reason behind the story's viral nature, the fact that so many people could relate to the bathroom horror. ​

"The messages I've gotten have been, a lot of girls being like, 'The exact same thing happened to me!'" Makela told Daniel. "Except a lot of them are worse. A lot of them are really funny and they make me feel better."