Curing The Internet's Baby Fever
How I became "The Girl With The List"
Since it’s inception, the internet has been an infernal dumping ground for images and videos of cute babies. Anyone born before 2003 may recall the internet classic “Charlie Bit My Finger,” which garnered over 90 million views in it’s first year online and for a brief moment was the 12th most watched video on YouTube (900 million views) until it was dethroned by the likes of Gangnam Style (5.2 billion views) and The Baby Shark Dance (14.6 billion views).
Viral videos like this one started a internet frenzy. Once people realized that there was fame and money on the line, there was no turning back. Just 3 years ago the Charlie Bit My Finger video sold as an NFT for over $700,000. Of course, not every parent uploads their home video of Little Timmy saying his first words with the expectation of mega stardom, but the potential for that kind of notoriety certainly keeps the uploads coming. And I would know, because as TikTok’s “Girl With The List,” I get tagged in hundreds of videos of kids (and parents) doing crazy, funny, and adorable things every single day.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction… or something like that.
TikTok is bursting at the seams with cute videos of babies and toddlers taking their first steps, saying their first words, and smiling their first smiles. In the comments you’ll see a lot of “aww” and “so cute!” as well as “now I want one!” and “this gave me such bad baby fever 🥺.” But I, personally, have a slightly different reaction when videos like this came up on my FYP: scroll. It’s not that I don’t like cute videos of babies or that I never watch them. I still might find myself shedding a tear or two over deaf babies hearing their parent’s voices for the first time, or toddlers getting their first pair of colorblind glasses. But most of the time, I strongly prefer cat videos. One day in 2021, I started to wonder if i was the only one who felt that way.
In July 2021, almost 3 years ago to this day, I made my first video of a series that is now over 250 videos long which I lovingly called “The Free Birth Control Series.”
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The video went viral, and today it has over 6 million views. The concept was simple: I’ll take these videos that are often shocking, often funny, and often relatable, and put a different spin on them. Instead of giving people baby fever and making them want kids of their own, I’ll cure their baby fever and help them appreciate the peaceful pleasures of a life without kids. Instead of only showing the best and cutest parts of having kids, I’ll show some of the harsher realities and the real challenges that come with raising a human being. After all, how can you make an informed decision that will impact the rest of your life without seeing both sides?
Once I saw how many people resonated with my message, there was no turning back. 3 years and hundreds of videos later, TikTok has fully embraced the idea of “The Girl With The List Of Reasons Not To Have Kids.” And now I’m bringing The List to Substack! I’ve been a Substack reader for about 6 months now, and I’m so excited to start writing my own newsletter. It feels like a natural next step into a more “long form” space. If you’re here and you’re reading this, whether you’re new to my content or you’ve been watching since the beginning, I can’t thank you enough for supporting the next phase of this journey online. Thank you for reading, and don’t forget to take your birth control!
omg the girl with the list i love your work