What Does It Mean to Write and Publish a Viral Article?

Photo by Nadine Marfurt on Unsplash

Today’s post is by novelist and freelance writer Rebecca Morrison. Join us on Thursday, July 31, for the free class What Happens When Your Piece Goes Viral?

What does it mean to have a piece go viral?

To tell you the truth, I don’t know. There are different definitions out there, but not everyone agrees on what it means for a piece to go viral.

Here’s the story behind my three essays, and why I give them that label.

My first piece was what I’d call traditionally viral. I’d never written for a national publication and didn’t know what to expect. The day it came out on HuffPost, it shot to the number one trending story on Apple News. It went to number one again when they republished it the next year. was about my immigrant experience and what it means to have someone question your belonging. The writing was average at best. But it struck a chord. I’m convinced what made it go so wide was the last few defiant sentences about how we’re all American equally, whether our families have been here for hundreds of years or we’ve become American in another way. That piece has been viewed over 3 million times. It was like everyone that felt like an outsider because of their ethnicity sent it to anyone they’d ever met.

The next ones were different in terms of their viral-ness.

The second essay was about my complicated, sometimes dark mother-daughter relationship. It was published on Today.com. I shared the story of the pressure my mother put on me to be thin when I was young. And how it took years for us to come to a place of healing even if it wasn’t perfect or finished. The piece stayed at the top of their homepage the entire day, right next to Met Gala coverage and celebrity gossip, which is extremely unusual for a no-name writer’s personal essay. Several months later, the editor told me it had been one of their most-read essays for months. They republished it multiple times on their Facebook page. On one of the reposts, it received thousands of comments from mothers and daughters, sharing their own heartbreaking stories and saying the essay made them feel seen.

The third came out last September in The Washington Post. It was about Ozempic and the message we send women about their bodies. I shared my complicated feelings about being judged for my body and how our worth, especially as women, is so often tied to appearance. I ended it with a statement of resistance to the idea that we need to be thin to be seen as beautiful or worthy. That piece became the number one most-read story in the Well+Being section for several days, which is rare. It got more than 1,800 comments before they closed the comment section after three days.

All of this is to say that there’s no one way for a piece to go viral.

Sometimes it’s traditional, other times a publication shares your piece on their socials and it touches a chord there. You’ll know when it hits because people find you. They flood your inbox. They leave hundreds, sometimes thousands, of comments on social media posts.

I know my writing wasn’t what made those pieces go viral. Here are the things I think helped them reach a wide audience:

I told my story in a way that was easily understood and felt.The topic tapped into something that a large audience could connect to like immigrant identity, mother-daughter relationships, and society’s obsession with women’s bodies.I was vulnerable and honest in a way that is tough and scary, but that makes the piece feel like a close friend is confiding in you.

So what happens when thousands or millions of people read your work? There will be people that love it, hate it, and everything in between. I’ve been told to “go back to my own country” numerous times, even though I’ve lived here most of my life. When I talked about not taking Ozempic and having a bigger body, the hate and criticism I got were expected but still really stung. But with every piece, the vast majority of comments and emails I got were from people reaching out to say that they felt seen, less alone, connected.

Writing those deeply personal pieces have been some of the proudest moments of my writing life. And I’d do it again in a second. When you show people something real, whether they agree with you or despise you, it stirs something.

Note from Jane: If you’re curious about the before, during and after of viral essays, join me in discussion with Rebecca Morrison and Andrea Tate in a free class on Thursday, July 31, What Happens When Your Piece Goes Viral?