She stands alone in her room.

Purple and blue lights illuminate her face. Her phone is delicately balanced on her mirror, perfectly leveled for a full body shot. She faces the screen, counting along in her head as the timer counts down. 

Three. 

Two. 

One. 

Showtime.

Sophomore Eryn McHone only needs 10 minutes to make and post a TikTok to her profile. That’s all the time her fans need to give it thousands of likes.  

 Fifteen seconds of fake blood dripping from her eyes in one post. Keep scrolling and there’s a 10-second video of Eryn dancing to Playboi Carti in her car. Then five seconds of her posing in the bathroom mirror from weeks before.

Eryn’s videos come in short bursts. So do the moments of her life. 5 years old. Her parents divorce. Her father keeps the house. Her mother spirals into depression.

“At that age, you don’t understand why your mom doesn’t want to get up in the morning,” Eryn said. “You don’t understand why she isn’t fully there.”

The abrupt ding from her iPhone snaps Eryn back to reality: another notification. 

“Ur so hot it’s unreal.”

Ding.

“The most iconic person on this app.”

Ding.

“Be my wife”

Ding.

“Okay but if we’re being real here i’d die to look like you.”

Eryn’s thumb flicks through hundreds of compliments rushing in on her screen. Each comment is another boost to her self esteem, something she still can’t believe. “It’s probably one of the best feelings in the world that I’ve felt so far,” Eryn said. “It’s baffling, in a way.” 

It wasn’t always like this. 

In fourth grade, her voice was silenced, useless noise because being bisexual was “just a phase” to her mother.

In seventh grade, Eryn would walk down the halls of her middle school and fall to the ground on purpose in an attempt to make the other kids laugh. There was nothing she wanted more than for people to like her. Because, quite honestly, she’d been finding it hard to like herself. 

In eighth grade, the pictures on Instagram replaced her meals. Her body grew weaker, and so did her will to live as she refused food.

Ding.

“Ok, yes ur attractive.”

Ding.

“This is what pretty looks like.”

Ding.

“I want to meet u so bad.”

“It is insane to me that people can look at me and feel that way, because I wake up every morning and I’m like ‘Oh this is my life,’” Eryn said. “Whenever I see these comments, it’s so much more than just ‘getting a comment.’”

The comments started the summer before sophomore year. She thought nothing of it when she posted her video; it was just supposed to be a 10-second video of her face and some music. She didn’t know it would get over one hundred thousand views. She didn’t know that, nine months later, she would have over one hundred thousand followers and over one million likes on her account.

“Within an hour, it had like two thousand likes,” Eryn said. “I was like ‘Ooh my god, this is crazy.’”

Eryn’s follower count has yet to stop rising, and neither has she. These days, though, other things are on her mind.

She has yet to come out to her father as bisexual.

She has goals to become an environmental prosecutor.

She’s forming her own ideas about politics, and she refuses to remain silent.

“I feel like my purpose is to post things about feminism, not TikTok,” Eryn said. “Now that I have a platform, I want to get [my opinion] out, whether people disagree with me or not.”

Today, Eryn isn’t standing alone in her room. Today, she’s with her friends, holding up a sign in the 2020 Women’s March. She’s lighter. Happier. And while the march may only be captured in a 20-second TikTok video, it was the most liberating moment of her life.