Sassy Mom Makes Tech Student’s Post Go Viral

All it took was a funny picture and a snarky comment from her mom to make a post go viral.

Gracen Daniel, a senior agricultural communications major, went to the annual conference of the Mortar Board, a national honor society for college seniors, over the summer. While there, Daniel—who is president of the society’s Tech chapter—took a photo of herself jumping off a chair.

She posted it on Facebook. The caption was: “I’m jumping into the new year as the president of Mortar Board.”

Her mother commented: “If you would have jumped that high for jr high cheerleader tryouts you my have made and would not have cried for two days.”

Photo provided by Tumblr.com

“I thought my friends would think it’s really funny on Twitter, and so I tweeted it,” Daniel said.

From there, she got on a flight from Phoenix to Dallas, and discovered upon landing that she already had 200 favorites, within two hours of posting the screenshot. By the time she had boarded a plane in Dallas and landed in Lubbock, her posting had already appeared on WorldStar, Ifunny and other viral Twitter accounts.

“I thought it isn’t an inappropriate thing,” Gracen Daniel said. “My mom isn’t embarrassed by it, so I just left it. I’m a communications major, so I know how bad viral things can go and I really thought well it’s not a bad representation of me. It’s just a funny moment between my mom and I, and so I left it up.”

Cindy Daniel, Gracen Daniel’s mother, said the picture brought back memories of her daughter being devastated two years in a row because she couldn’t jump.

“We come from a small East Texas town where everyone comes out of the womb preparing for cheerleading,” Cindy Daniel said. “She tried out for cheerleading two years in a row and just could never jump. I even took her to a friend to coach her on jumping, and she just never could. It just became a joke because she jumped like a little rabbit.”

Within three or four days, the comment had blown up on Twitter, causing the Tech senior’s mom to get multiple Facebook requests from people around the world. Because of that, Cindy Daniel deactivated her Facebook account and then started a new one.

SoFlo Antonio, whoever that is, had grabbed it off of WorldStar and all these comedy accounts and put it on his Facebook,” Gracen Daniel said. “So my mom started getting all these weird friend requests. At this point, it had entered the realm where my mom could see it.”

Photo provided by SoFlo Antonio from Facebook.com

Photo provided by SoFlo Antonio from Facebook.com

She took down the tweet, but it left the post on Facebook.

“It died down on that Facebook page until probably about a week ago, and then it got about 20,000 more likes and shares,” Gracen Daniel said. “At this point, it’s kind of old news; all my friends had already seen it.”

The post originally appeared on Aug. 6. Months later, it is still circulating.

“It’s kind of shown me the instantaneousness of the internet,” Gracen Daniel said. “All it takes is one retweet and then things just light up like wildfire.”

The Tech senior has about 1,100 followers on Twitter, so some of her tweets have been popular before—but never to this extent, she said.

Most of her Twitter posts are about Texas Tech or Lubbock, so they do not appeal to a wide audience. This screenshot is different, she said, because any girl with a sassy mom can relate.

It wasn’t the only time her mom had made a funny comment on one of her pictures.

“She usually gets more Facebook likes than the actual photo,” Daniel said. “Recently, … I posted a photo on the football field and jumped again, not thinking—it’s out of my mind at this point—and she’s like ‘I told you, you can’t jump’. She got like 25 or 30 likes on her comment.”

Cindy Daniel said she and her daughter have a love-hate relationship on social media because Gracen Daniel always calls her out in comments. This is also not the first time she has posted a screenshot of what her mother said.

Photo provided by Twitter.com.posted a screenshot of something she said.

“I would send her a text and she would screen shot the text and put it on Facebook,” Cindy Daniel said. “She’s ratted me out before so this is just our joke between one another.”

The jumping comment may have sounded harsh coming from a mom, Cindy Daniel said, but it’s just what they do to each other.

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, what can you do?” she said.

Gracen Daniel said her mom is the reason for the quirky sense of humor she has today.

She added: “I’m glad that the stars of the Internet chose to align on this post and not something negative.”

About Natalie Morales

Natalie Morales, a senior Journalism student, graduates in May of 2016. She has always loved English classes, and writing, and is now pursuing it as a career. She hopes to get a job as a news reporter for a television station in West Texas so that she stays close to home. She wants to eventually be an anchor in a top market.