Most individuals would prefer not to let anyone catch a glimpse of the contents of their teenage diaries. Those chronicles from the time of puberty, filled with entries about crushes, changing bodies, and being grounded, adorned with colorful glitter, would be too embarrassing or even traumatizing to revisit, even in the privacy of their own space. However, Mackenzie Thomas breaks away from this norm.
Mackenzie Thomas, a 24-year-old, has garnered a following of over 440,000 on TikTok by sharing videos in which she monotonously reads aloud her old diary entries. In one entry from 2012, she ponders, “How are the boys at school supposed to understand me when my brain is a computer?” In another, written two years later, she documents the peculiar act of eating lip gloss that her mother had bought for her, exclaiming, “It was from Sephora. It was vanilla coconut flavored. And tonight in my room I squirted the whole thing in my mouth and digested it.”
She continues, “I am a gross girl. I am a sad girl.”
The contents of her teenage memoirs, in their unsanitized and largely unedited form, strike a chord with many TikTok users. The comments section overflows with viewers sharing their own mortifying teenage memories. Ms. Thomas remarks, “It’s become a space for people to feel less alone and less weird about themselves.” She sees her ability to transform past humilities and shame into content that resonates with millions of people as the ultimate gift.
One TikTok user, Edwin Malavé Maldonado, a 36-year-old illustrator from Puerto Rico, expressed his connection to Ms. Thomas’s posts in a comment, writing, “I feel like you’ve lived random episodes of my life in a weird multiverse kind of way.” In an interview, he elaborates, stating that the diary entries capture “the surrealism of our teenage thoughts, those first-world problems that drown our mundane existence.”
Ms. Thomas, residing in Brooklyn, recalls the first time her mother bought her a journal when she was 11 years old. Growing up as a mixed-race child in a predominantly white school, she often felt alienated. Writing became her much-needed outlet, where she poured out her innermost thoughts, fears, laughter, loves, and frustrations.
Since then, she has accumulated over 20 diaries, although some are only partially filled. They sit in a neat stack next to her bed.
In 2021, Ms. Thomas graduated from Emerson College with a degree in comedic arts and was living in Los Angeles. She had already built a modest following on TikTok by posting funny videos. To keep herself and her followers laughing, she turned to her diaries. Whenever she felt down, she would read them, reminding herself that her “problems were actually hilarious.” Sharing that joy with the world seemed like a natural next step. Ms. Thomas explains, “I’m over cringing at myself, and I have been over it for a very long time.”
Many of her diary posts have garnered millions of views. Even the painful ones, like a 2016 entry about her mother telling her she had “a creepy alien touch,” induce laughter. In another post, Ms. Thomas reads an entry about overhearing her father misleadingly telling someone on the phone that he was taking her to violin lessons when, in reality, he was taking her to improv class.
“As an adult, it’s easier to be celebrated for things that make you different,” Ms. Thomas reflects. “When you’re a kid, what keeps you safe is being the same as everyone else.”
Revisiting those times, when she felt like an alien and was sometimes even told she was one, has become a healing experience for Ms. Thomas. “I can be an older sister to myself,” she shares, embracing her role as an only child.
Heather Suzanne Woods, an assistant professor of media and communication at Kansas State University, believes that Mackenzie Thomas’s videos exemplify meme culture by using humor as a means to delve into shared emotions. Professor Woods notes that society often overlooks the wisdom of young people, considering it superfluous, but Ms. Thomas’s videos offer valuable insight into their unfiltered thoughts.
Sheryl Hadad, an accountant in Israel, immediately felt a connection with Ms. Thomas when she first came across her posts. She describes it as a sense of closeness and personal understanding, as if someone is finally articulating what everyone is thinking and feeling. In fact, Ms. Hadad was so moved by Ms. Thomas’s diaries that she got a tattoo of a line from one of her entries that reads, “A wet sack of potatoes knows more about happiness than I do.”
Overall, Mackenzie Thomas has found a unique way to connect with her audience through her unvarnished and relatable teenage diaries. By sharing her experiences and embracing the humor within them, she has created a space where people can feel understood and less alone in their own embarrassing memories and thoughts.
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
