TikTok, Reesa Teesa, and the history of Black digital storytelling
I spent the last few days working my way through Reesa Teesa’s riveting 52-part TikTok memoir: Who TF Did I Marry?!?. (All told, the series is almost eight hours long; it’s essentially an audiobook told in first-person.) Over 437 million people have viewed the series, which details Teesa’s marriage to a man who faked his identity and lied to her about his family, his job, and his bank account. In addition to being a gifted storyteller, Teesa doesn’t spare herself (“I told you I’d tell you everything, even if it makes me look bad,” she repeats) in an effort to help other women avoid the “United Nations of Red Flags” she chose to ignore while dating her future husband.
If you want to avoid the pitfalls of dating while desperate (and have eight hours to spare!) I highly recommend it.
On Medium, Black studies scholar Dr.
argues that Reesa Teesa’s story — and, most importantly, the way she chose to tell it — are part of a long tradition of Black oral storytelling. Reesa Teesa “used oral storytelling to offer a comedic tale and a testimony of spiritual protection to young women in her community, which was reminiscent of another story that gained popularity on Black Twitter a few years ago,” Day writes. She compares Who TF Did I Marry?!? to A’Ziah King’s ‘Zola’ story, a 148-Tweet thread that went viral in 2015 and concerns a road trip between two strippers and ensuing chaos. It was adapted into an A24 film a few years ago.Both Who TF Did I Marry?!? and the ‘Zola’ thread push the limits of social media platforms designed for short form content. They prove how powerful storytelling can be as a tool to convey deep life wisdom, and to warn other people against danger. They also prove that, in the words of one commentator, social media hasn’t shortened our attention span — it’s just shortened our interest span. Our bar for being interested is much higher than it used to be. But if we’re truly interested in someone’s story, we’ll happily spend eight hours learning from them.
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