Why Real Change Is About More Than Just Going Viral | Taylor Cassidy | TED

In my life, I have always been attracted to two things.

One, filming videos.

I would always grab the family camera

and film these dramatic stories with my little bitty toys.

And on the other hand,

my parents were always making it a priority

for me to learn Black history,

because they knew that it wasn't going to be a priority in my school's education.

So from a very young age, I developed the sense of voice,

creativity and my message.

I'm Taylor Cassidy.

I’m a social media content creator

and today, I want to share with you

why social media virality doesn’t have the impact that you might think.

So we're going to go over to my high school years.

It was 2020, and a new app just came out, called TikTok,

and all the cool kids were getting on it.

And I'm a cool kid, so I got on it as well,

and I thought, "This is amazing.

This is a time for me to combine the two things that I absolutely love

and put them into one."

And so that's exactly what I did.

Sitting on my bedroom floor on the first day of Black History Month,

I created my first Fast Black History video,

where I talked about a Black figure in 60 seconds or less,

and I posted it.

And it went viral, y'all. Wow.

It went viral.

And, I mean, thousands of people were looking at this video

and seeing this message.

And I was so excited, because the passion that I had,

the passion that I had for Black history,

people were loving it, and spreading it as well.

And so I continued to do it.

I continued the Fast Black History series

and along with other videos, I grew my account.

I got 200K followers, yeah. 500K, whoo.

A million followers.

What? Like ... Wow.

(Laughs)

And when you look at these numbers,

I wonder if you think to yourself,

"Wow, this girl, Taylor Cassidy, is so impressive."

And I thank y'all so much.

But -- (Laughs)

I also want to ask you,

even though you might look at these numbers and see, like ...

"Millions of people are watching her, she must have a great impact."

Let me ask you, would you think the same thing

if I told you I only talked to a thousand people a day?

What about 500?

What about one?

Now while you think about this, I'll take you to February of 2021.

And it was one year after I started my Fast Black History series.

And I thought to myself,

"Man, if that many people looked at my videos last year,

they're all going to come back, right? I mean, probably even more so.

Who wouldn't want to support this message?"

And so I pulled out all of the stops.

I got a green screen, I got costumes,

I got an external video maker.

I went bougie with it.

(Laughter)

And I created my first Fast Black History video for 2021,

and I posted it.

And in the end,

I was disappointed.

I mean, where did everybody go?

There weren't half as many people watching as there were last year.

What was wrong?

And mind you, there were still thousands of people watching my videos.

But that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that my mindset was so focused on those numbers

that I thought to myself,

if millions of people weren't watching my videos,

did my message even really matter that much in the first place?

And because of this, a deep insecurity developed in me,

and I started drastically changing my content

to try and adhere to trends, to try and make it go more viral ...

And, I mean, it worked.

I had many viral videos after that.

But why, whenever I looked at my account,

why, whenever I looked at my own videos,

did I not feel fulfilled?

And it took this one video that I posted.

It was a motivational video,

and, I mean, I had posted them before and I still post them.

They're so much fun.

But there was this one video ...

And I filmed it, posted it,

and it went viral --

600K views, yes.

But after a while, I privated it, I took it down.

Because whenever you looked into the comments,

it was only spam, random emojis

and fake accounts commenting on the post.

But not only this.

I knew that whenever I looked back at that video,

the pep-talk sentences that I was giving ...

meant nothing to me.

They weren't connected to me,

and I knew that they were just buzzwords that I was using for virality.

And in the end, I didn't feel inspired.

I felt sleazy.

And that moment took me down a very important and long journey

of understanding that social media virality

doesn't always mean impact.

2020.

We had a pandemic.

All of our social avenues were taken away.

The way that we use our voice, they way that we interact,

was completely changed.

And so we all flocked to social media.

And in fact,

TikTok in particular had an 800 percent increase in users

by August of 2020.

That's crazy.

That means that it's easier than ever

to have millions of people listen to what you have to say

with the click of a button.

But that notion,

that desire for our virality,

has changed the way we think about the definition of impact.

Who's a Gen Z out here? Raise your hand.

Let me see y'all.

Hey, I see y'all.

We grew up with this notion of fame.

We know what instantaneous fame looks like.

We know it, and I'll prove it to you.

Look at the TV shows that we used to watch.

"Shake it Up" is about two girls dancing ...

But they're famous.

"iCarly" is about a group of friends, you know, making funny skits.

But they're famous.

"Hannah Montana,"

this one is about just a regular girl going to school...

but she’s famous.

(Laughter)

And because of this -- I bring this up

because we've grown up believing that the highest point of achievement,

accomplishment and impact

must be achieved through fame, right?

But that makes it all the more hard

for somebody who doesn't have a big following

to believe that their voice and their perspective matter,

because we've grown up believing

that the bigger the following, the bigger the impact.

But those two things don't add up.

Or, as TikTok users would say, "the math ain't mathing."

(Laughter)

But what if I told you that you have the power to change the world

even if you just impact one person?

I’ll show you how. Let’s get into it.

Have a clear message and goal, and then stick by it.

Here's an example.

This is a journal entry that I wrote at the beginning of my TikTok career,

and I basically wrote down what TikTok meant to me,

what I wanted to do with it, and what my goal was.

And in doing this, I gave myself a mission statement,

so that if I ever got lost or frustrated, or confused,

I had something to come back to.

And even to this day, I come back to this

and I abide by these same themes.

Now, for you, what that means

is this is the part where you cement in yourself

that your perspective is needed

and that it matters.

And even if somebody else is doing the same thing that you're doing,

or talking about the same message that you want to talk about,

you stay steady and share it anyway,

because your perspective and the way that you have developed,

and developed your voice in this world,

nobody else has done it like you have,

and that is your superpower.

Alright, we've got our message, we're sticking by it.

Now we need to check where your resolve is placed.

What is resolve?

Resolve is the characteristic that helps you to keep on going

towards your goal,

even when there are inconveniences or discomforts.

It's what helps you to watch that one more Netflix episode,

even though your eyes are falling asleep.

It's what helps you to keep on doing your homework, Georgetown,

even when you don't feel like doing it.

It's what keeps you going.

And I say "check where your resolve is placed,"

because in sharing your message or goal,

it is so easy to fall into putting it

into seeing how many people you can get in front of you,

seeing how many people you can reach.

And in doing that, you sacrifice your message

and exploit it for fame and popularity.

Instead, place your resolve in knowing

that you have the very ability to impact one person

and change their life,

because you have the ability to change the world ...

But you also have the ability to impact one person

who has the ability to change the world as well.

And that is still so cool.

OK, you may be thinking, "Taylor, alright, I've got my message,

I'm sticking by it, I know where my resolve is placed.

So why in the world, whenever I post a video on Instagram,

it doesn't even get 10 likes?

Why is that?"

And I'll tell you,

even though there might not be millions of people looking at your video,

you really don’t know who is going to stop on it

and truly take to heart the words that you have to say.

And that brings me to my last point.

Focus on the impact of one.

You see my transition? Yeah.

I’ll give you more examples. You know I come with the receipts.

These comments are from videos that I posted,

where somebody was inspired by them

or inspired by my account to go out and make a change in their own life.

And one of them even says that they are going into their school

and campaigning for more Black history to be taught,

the very message that I wanted to share in the first place.

And I show you these specific comments

because every single one of them

came from videos that a lot of people consider flopped --

did not go viral, "unsuccessful," failed.

But that goes to show that the videos that I posted

weren’t defined by the millions of people that did or didn’t look at them.

They were defined by the very ability that they had

to reach out and impact one person

to go and change their entire community.

And that is so much more valuable and sustaining

than creating something or sharing something

just for the purpose of getting quick virality.

Alright.

We've got our message,

we've got our understanding

that the individual impact is just as important

as reaching a thousand.

So why is it so hard for us to share our perspective and our voice?

How is it so hard for us to get over that fear?

I'll tell you one more story before I go.

[When] I was in high school, I entered a short film competition

where I made a short film about a young Black girl

going through school and finding her own identity as a Black woman

in the midst of stereotypes being pushed on her

by her peers and her classmates.

And in doing this, I was so scared,

because it was a story that I had went through,

was a very personal story of mine,

but I pushed on anyway.

Here are some stills from the film.

“Oh my gosh, Hayley Cassidy is just like Issa Rae.”

Wow!

Thank you, I appreciate it.

But I was so scared to make this film, but I pushed on anyway.

And at the film festival,

[when] they were showing all of the competitors’ films,

afterwards, a girl came up to me,

and basically said to me how much she related with the main character,

how much she understood what the main character went through,

and she thanked me for making something that connected with her

and helped her to feel seen.

And in that moment,

I understood something very, very important.

If I had let my fear of embarrassment, my fear of failure,

or my fear of lack of a reaction from people,

stop me from spreading this message,

I would have never been able

to give someone the permission to let go of their own fear.

For you,

what that means is that the passion, the urgency and the love

that you have for your idea and your message

must be greater than your fear.

And notice how I said "greater than,"

and not that fear will be nonexistent.

Because the very fact that fear and anxiety

are associated with your message

is proof that it has the power to change everything.

So,

as you go on into your life,

maybe you'll go into business,

maybe you'll go into art.

Maybe you'll become a Twitch streamer, I don't know.

They make a lot of good money.

Remember to keep steady in your message.

Protect your voice from being distorted by gaining popularity and fame,

and understand and focus on the individual impact of one.

Know that your perspective,

the way you act and interact in this world,

is the key to changing it.

I believe in you.

Keep rising.

Thank you so much.