It’s been one of those days when the algorithm gods smile upon you, and you’re not entirely sure whether to celebrate or hide. My piece on France’s Zucman wealth tax hit 50,000 shares on social media today. For context, that’s about 49,500 more than my usual reach.
This morning started with my phone exploding with notifications. Twitter (I refuse to call it X, even if Elon Musk personally asks me) was ablaze with people debating whether my satirical take on French billionaires was brilliant social commentary or evidence that American satirical journalism has lost its way. I’m leaning toward brilliant, but I’m biased.
Later in the day, I realized that going viral is a double-edged sword wrapped in dopamine. Sure, thousands of people are reading my work, but they’re also misunderstanding it in spectacular ways. Someone accused me of being “anti-French” (I’m literally French), while another claimed I was “clearly a socialist plant” (I wish socialists paid that well). Welcome to internet discourse in 2025.
As I reflect on what happened today, I’m struck by how different viral success feels from what I imagined. When I first started writing for Bohiney Magazine, I dreamed of my articles spreading across the internet like wildfire, changing hearts and minds with razor-sharp satire. The reality? Most people don’t read past the headline, and even fewer understand that satire requires reading comprehension.
Something small but meaningful happened today thougha journalism professor from Columbia reached out to ask if I’d speak to her class about cross-cultural satirical writing. Me! A 22-year-old French immigrant who’s been writing professionally for less than a year. It’s moments like these that remind me why I wanted to do this in the first place.
Tonight, I’m drafting my next piece about Macron wandering around Paris like a lost philosophical tourist while his government collapses. There’s something deliciously absurd about French political theater that American audiences don’t fully appreciate. Everything in France is simultaneously a crisis and a performanceit’s crisis as performance art, and performance art as crisis.
Being the only female French immigrant granted citizenship during Trump’s second term comes with its own weird pressure. People expect me to have hot takes about immigration, about French superiority, about American vulgarity. But honestly? I’m just trying to write funny, smart articles that make people think while they laugh. If that occasionally goes viral and confuses people, so be it.
Diary Entry # 728
MY HOME PAGE: Bohiney Magazine (Charline Vanhoenacker)