Jiddana Dusturia couldn’t have expected that a video of her sneezing, which was unintentionally uploaded to her TikTok page @jiddussgrinaaa03, would attract so much attention online. The video shows Grina, as she’s affectionately known, simply sneezing as she was sitting down in front of the camera.
At the time of writing, the video has been viewed around 8.7 million times with 616,400 likes and over 12,900 comments since it was uploaded last Wednesday.
The majority of the comments in the video pointed out that Grina’s video appeared on their FYP (“For You” page) or homepage, which means that the video had gone viral on the app. Despite breaking TikTok’s algorithm, Grina’s video didn’t actually include any of the popular hashtags in the caption.
In an interview with Tribun, Grina, who hails from Banyuwangi regency in East Java, said that the video was essentially an outtake for another video she intended to make. She said that her nose got itchy as soon as she started recording herself with her phone camera, which caused her to sneeze.
“I left the [sneezing] video in the drafts. And then I accidentally pressed upload, and at that time I didn’t realize that it had been uploaded to my TikTok,” Grina said.
“After that, I played a game. The next day my group chats were flooded [by friends] who said that [my video] entered FYP.”
As popular as Grina has become thanks to this video, we must point out that she did not cover her mouth and nose when she sneezed. Perhaps a follow up video on sneezing etiquette from her would do just as well, if not better?
At any rate, Grina’s video embodies the same energy as another mundane but weirdly viral video uploaded in July by aspiring YouTuber Muhammad Didit, titled 2 Jam Nggak Ngapa-ngapain (2 hours of doing nothing). In the video, Didit stares directly into the camera in his bedroom for two hours and 20 minutes. The video has been watched more than 4 million times and was even covered by a number of foreign media outlets, including AsiaOne and Hindustan Times, as we struggle to figure out if there is such a thing as a surefire formula for making viral content.
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