When life reaches the pits, we can all count on social media to make it worse. In a world of fake news and constant conflict, social media is where everything gets bottled up and spat out into a squall of scorn and slop: that is exactly what can be heard from the mouth of a pessimist.
The truth is, social media isn’t all bad. In fact, there are nooks and crannies of these platforms that often have the potential to lift the spirits of those who have been previously discouraged and dampened by their algorithms. Once one finds themself on this new side of socials, they may come across videos by popular comedian TikToker Khaby Lame or 2020 trend-setter and TikTok sensation Charli D’Amelio.
One may even be lucky enough to stumble across a captivating account that features everything from Pennywise-loving toddlers to Elf on the Shelf babies: the wonderful world of @brittikitty. More importantly, the owner of the account is only a walk across campus.
Brittany Christiana, the mastermind mother of @brittikitty is also KO’s Middle School Office Administrator and one of the most beloved staff members on campus. Spending time with her, you can find her waving bye to countless students, wishing them luck on a game, and ending with “have fun,” a representation of her authentic personality both offline and online.
Not only is Mrs. Christiana beloved on campus, but her daughters, three-year-old Violet and seven-year-old Lily, have become internet sensations. Mrs. Christiana has several accounts across multiple social media platforms, with names like @brittikitty and The Christiana Family.
The account with the largest following is @brittikitty on TikTok, which has racked up 16.6 million followers and 929.2 million likes. That means @brittikitty has gained more followers on TikTok than President Donald Trump’s account, @realdonaldtrump, which has 16.5 million followers.
To put this into perspective, Madison Square Garden seats about 19,500 people. If you were to fill Madison Square Garden 800 times, you still wouldn’t have seated all of her TikTok followers.
Seventh grader Anna Webb sums up Mrs. Christiana’s accounts perfectly. “When they’re happy,” she said, “it just feels like you want to be happy with them. It just automatically makes me happy when Lily is smiling or laughing with Violet.”
The Christiana family hasn’t always been TikTok famous, though. Interestingly, she started her account after an interaction with a few students in the summer of 2019, the summer before her first year working at Kingswood Oxford. Some students from Camp KO were walking past her office when she heard them talking about a TikTok trend of saving the turtles. For a true TikTok stan, this is also known as the VSCO Girl Subculture.
She didn’t recognize the name TikTok, so she scoured the internet later that night. In doing so, she was hooked. She created her TikTok account and posted her first video only a week later. However, she wasn’t expecting so many people to see it. “It got 300,000 views overnight,” Mrs. Christiana recalled, “and I was like: that was crazy.”
As of today, the video she was referring to has over 581,000 views. It’s a short clip of Lily as a baby doing a dance on her lap to a trending sound. The comment section is now filled with sentimental fans saying they scrolled all the way down to see her first video. However, that’s not her most mouth-dropping virality. Her most viewed TikTok, which is a video of Lily waking up and saying, “I waked up, I’m hungry,” has over 75 million views. According to Mrs. Christiana, it went uphill after that. “It snowballed,” she remembers vividly.
Mrs. Christiana values the community that she has created through social media, most of whom she believes are grandmas and people looking for sentimental content, rather than rude or provocative content. “The comments are really nice still,” Mrs. Christana explained, “and I haven’t had anyone be mean to us in any way.”
The KO community appreciates the @brittikitty name for sharing tidbits of innocence and joy and for giving them a reason to smile. Head of the Upper School Lisa Loeb, who occasionally works with Mrs. Christiana, cherishes getting to see the perspective of children in a celebrated, magical way. Ms. Loeb said she appreciates getting to see the joys of adolescence. “Experiencing moments of joy or even challenge because oftentimes it has to do with butterflies, or lizards, or worms,” she says.
When you look at any of the @brittikitty accounts, you’ll find exclusively positive videos. Per Mrs. Christiana, that is the whole goal of the account. “I don’t want to post anything depressing,” Mrs. Christiana said. You may come across everything from parent hacks to family expeditions to the most memorable moments, like documenting how Lily and Violet have grown and changed. On March 5, a new video about Lily’s continued habit of waiting outside the shower for her mom to come out was posted, and it received comments from people connecting with Lily or placing GIFs in the comment section.
There’s one GIF in specific that seems to be a huge hit in the great world of a @brittikitty comment section: an edited image of a fluffy cat sitting on an intimidating, almost devil-like throne that is engulfed in flames, yet the cat appears to be calm, even having a pink bow on its head. And no, this isn’t hate; rather, the fans’ way of describing the unique personalities of Lily and Violet in the form of an image.
Most importantly, Mrs. Christiana wants people to know that social media doesn’t have to be stressful. “We live such a normal life that it just fits in so easily,” she says. In posting only two or three times a week, she sees it as a small hobby, something that not only lightens other people’s moods, but also documents her family’s most special moments at the same time, or what she calls an “online diary.”
In fact, she even believes that if Violet and Lily lost interest in making videos, it would be an easy thing to leave behind. Unlike many other creators, @brittikitty features videos that are natural and show the raw emotions and curiosities of children. For instance, with a lot of videos featuring Lily’s peculiar love of insects and animals like bumblebees and birds, Mrs. Christiana doesn’t truly plan her posts; she just captures a video every once in a while.
Ms. Loeb believes that @brittikitty truly captures the essence of Mrs. Christiana. “It’s people like that who remind us of all the good that there is in people,” she says. “She just wears her good right on the outside.”
