Quarantine Goes Viral

“Hey everyone!” I hear from the other room. I roll my eyes. Listening to my teen sister live broadcast all day long is getting old. Who wants to watch Samantha eat Rice Chex?

“It’s Sammy here!”

Another annoying thing about Samantha’s live broadcasting is that she calls herself “Sammy”. No one, not even her followers, or her best friends, or even me, has ever called her Sammy.

“It’s Day 32 of COVID-19 Quarantine Live Broadcasting Posts, and I’m back today with another morning routine! Ooh, I see some of the live comments popping up already! Oh my! Rebecca J., how rude! I know that this is the third morning routine, but guess what? There’s not much else to do!”

“Calm down, Samantha!” I call from the living room.

“My name is Sammy!” My sister shrieks. “And OMG! I’m going viral! Haha! Bet you could never go viral, Jackie!”

Alright then. If she wants me to go viral, I’ll gladly do it. The only reason she’s going viral is because we are fighting on camera, live. And that’s pretty boring. So going viral can’t be that hard.

I go up to my room and pull my phone out of my top dresser drawer. (I keep it there so Benny can’t get his hands on it. He puts everything in his mouth!) I look around my room for things I could use to go viral.

Empty Easter eggs won’t do anything for me, unless I decide to make a scavenger hunt for Benny and broadcast it.

I could live stream me cleaning my room, because it’s pretty messy. But no one would want to watch that!

I could do a “How To Train Your Dog” video, if I had a dog. I have a cat, and you can’t really train a cat.

Some people do a video on how to draw something. If I was good at drawing, I could do that. But I’m not.

I could do a morning routine. It’s ridiculous that I’m even thinking about that, because it’s so stupid. Then again, this would my my first time. Not my third.

I finally decide on a gymnastics video, because I’m best at gymnastics.

I have a YouTube channel that I never post on. I have one or two videos, from about six months ago. I think they’re of me showing off my gymnastics tricks on our trampoline. Yep. Gymnastics, my one specialty.

Those videos got at least two thousand likes each, so if I do much better tricks this time, when people are bored enough to watch anything at all, that equals viral, or at least I think it does. Ok, time to go live.

“Hello, everyone!” I say. Comments start popping up. Most of them say, Hello! or Finally! Another video!

“Currently I’m outside, jumping on my trampoline. Why? Because there isn’t much else to do these days, is there? Unless, of course, you want to be like my sister, and post a morning routine for the third time this week.”

The comments agree with me. They are just as bored with morning routines as I am. How can my sister be going viral right now? I impress my following guests with a back flip. My likes and followers grow. Give them a back handspring and I’m at three hundred followers. This is easy! People like gymnastics. Really, I guess they’re happy to watch anything these days, they’re so bored. Quarantine has been keeping us inside all the time. Sometimes we go out on walks, and to the grocery store, but that’s about it. And even then, we have to wear masks. I made masks for my whole family. It’s as simple as a bandana, two rubber bands and a special fold.

I tell my followers about the masks I’ve made and the friends I’ve seen on walks. I point out how terrible it is to have to stay six feet apart. Once again, they agree.

Within the next ten minutes, my followers have grown to 1k.

As I am about to do a back handspring, I hear from inside the house: “JACKIE! BECKY R. SAYS YOU’RE LIVE STREAMING AND STEALING ALL MY THUNDER AND BEING WAY COOLER AND MORE INTERESTING THAN ME!”

“I’m... sorry?” I say. “I can’t help being awesome.”

My followers grow from 1.7k to 2.3k. I continue to entertain them will my wonderful gymnastics skills. “I learned all my skills at the YMCA. My teacher was named Ms. Pam. I don’t know how any of this is relevant, but since watching someone else do gymnastics isn't very interesting, I want to fill in some blanks. Anyway, Ms. Pam was a great teacher. She let me take everything at my own pace. Before the time of coronavirus, I won lots of competitions because of her.”

Feeling as if I’m in slow motion, I do a split in the air and land- badly.

I howl in pain, and shout, “Samantha!”

My sister is mad with me, over a stupid YouTube rivalry that had gone on for less than half and hour! In despair, I cry, “SAMMY!”

My sister runs out with her vlog in her hand and says, “OMG! Jackie, are you ok?”

“Hm, I wonder about that.” I say shortly and sarcastically. “DO I LOOK OK?!”

She drops her camera and carries me into the house. She lays me on the couch and holds my hand.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “I should have yelled. My followers mean too much to me.”

“It’s ok. Maybe I shouldn't have done my own live stream. MAYBE.”

She just laughed. “Maybe instead of being YouTube rivals, we could be friends? We could do a live stream together!”

“Yeah.” I say. “But NOT a morning routine!”

She shrugs. “Its practically afternoon, anyways.”

I look at my watch. It’s ten o’clock, but I’ll let it slide. Then, at the same time, we remember our vlogs! Sammy’s is lying on the grass by the trampoline, and mine is in a tripod attached to the trampoline net. She runs out. I follow her, limping. She grabs my camera first, and looks at it. Her face registers shock. She brings it down and shows me.

“Jackie. You have four million followers.” she says quietly. Then, she screams.

“YOU’RE VIRAL!”

“No.” I say. “We’re viral.”