Reesa Teesa Talks About Viral Fame
In less than a month, Tareasa Johnson went from being a regular Atlanta woman to an internet celebrity. Johnson, known online as Reesa Teesa, went viral in February for her wildly popular 50-part TikTok series, “Who TF Did I Marry?!?” In the story, which spans eight hours, split into 10-minute increments, Johnson recounts in detail her six-month marriage to a man who she says turned out to be a “real pathological liar.”
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00:00 I filmed it literally in my rush hour mute.
00:04 Here is part one of "Who the F*** Did I Marry?"
00:07 Living in Metro Atlanta is about an hour and ten minutes.
00:11 So it was just natural for me to record it while I was driving.
00:17 I can see the benefits of making this into a book.
00:27 For one, a book can be translated into however many languages reach however many people worldwide.
00:34 I can see the benefit of it becoming a movie.
00:36 People can go and see the story, see it actually acted out.
00:39 Especially if you're like me and you're a visual person.
00:42 I see it in television also because if you think about it, there are layers to this story.
00:48 I told my experience, but since then you've had other people come out also with experiences.
00:54 And even then there are people all around the world who've had similar experiences.
00:58 So it's almost like this story could be a catalyst for even more things.
01:02 I didn't get into that creator fund until kind of midway into the series.
01:12 So it does not count for the videos that I have already, you know, that I had already published.
01:17 It only counts going forward.
01:19 Then it only counts eligible views.
01:22 My understanding is that a video would have to be on your For You page and people would
01:27 have to watch it from their For You page.
01:30 If someone went to my page and they clicked on the playlist, it's not going to count that view.
01:36 So it is a very strict guideline that they have, which is fine because again, my purpose
01:42 was not to get money off of it.
01:48 There has to be a level of ownership that I had to have.
01:52 I'm the one that told my experience and I told it on a very big platform.
01:56 No, I didn't think it would take off, but I knew that if enough people saw it and they
02:02 were interested and they, you know, you wanted to have the internet detectives, if they wanted
02:07 to find him that they would.
02:09 And I always knew that if given the opportunity, he is definitely going to say whatever story
02:18 is in his head at the moment and try to make money off of it.
02:21 So I wasn't fully surprised.
02:25 Just a little bit more.
02:26 It was more disappointment than surprise.
02:28 You know, he's saying he wants to take legal action against me.
02:32 And if he does, then that's a choice that he makes.
02:35 And certainly I will be more than ready to fight it tooth and nail.
02:43 I would have done everything in my power to upload all 50 at one time instead of batches.
02:50 That way it's pushed out.
02:52 People can watch it.
02:53 I would have taken a little bit more time to be very careful on what information I released.
03:00 There were mistakes that were made in terms of I did say people's real names, not intentional,
03:06 but because I didn't pause and just kind of, again, take your time to do it.
03:11 I still would have told the whole story, but I just would have tweaked it a little bit
03:15 to safeguard the people who were involved in the story.
03:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:23 (upbeat music)