If you are reading this from somewhere in the Merrimack Valley area, you may know my name and face from my snapchat. It has been almost an entire year since I started a particular routine on the app, and it doesn't seem to be going away soon. Every day, I still get at least ten or so requests to do what I call "noonanite shoutouts" on my story, and new people I don't even know from other towns keep discovering me somehow. It has even gotten popular to the point where I walk into my local Market Basket, and people say hello and recognize me exclusively from my snapchat. Since the one year anniversary will be approaching in the coming weeks, I thought it would be a great time to reflect and explain how this routine and fame has greatly changed my everyday life, and how I hope to inspire other social media addicts to find an audience for their content.

To begin, let us trace back to February 2017, when this phenomena all began. Originally, I had some friends in my math class who I wanted to thank for making me these small squares made of glass and ceramic. In particular, they wanted me to give them a shout out on my snapchat story. For anyone who doesn’t know what a shout out is, allow me to explain. A shout out is when a person (usally on social media in this day and age), brings attention to a particular group or person by saying their same on their social media platform. Although I figured this would be the only one I would ever do, I was proven wrong very quickly. Those same friends began to ask me to do more and more, and eventually other people at my school latched on. Within a week or so, people were adding me left and right from my home town. At this point of rising popularity, I decided to dub them “noonanite” shoutouts as reference to my last name “Noonan” with “-ite” at the end. Noonanite shoutouts started to become the talk of my town, when my views went from about 80 or so to over 400 within the first week. Additionally, they became more than just saying a particular name over my snapchat account, with additional details about particular people being thrown left and right. Groups of friends began to joke around with each other, by having me state something humurous or controversial about their friends. Soon after these initial weeks, I began to attain a younger following of middle schoolers and even people from various other towns around the area. In a sense, I became a local legend.

In general, I would say that my snapchat stardom has made me feel a sense of accomplishment that I have always desired. If you ever knew me personally before, you would know that I am someone who loves attention and wishes to win over those he meets in his lifetime. By having so many people laugh and smile at my simple snapchat routine, I feel that I have won a lot of people over in a way, and that satisifies me for the most part. However, the positivity doesn’t stop there. It is hard to describe in words how incredible it feels to be rceognized by people like a celebrity when I enter local public places. As stated at the beginning with the Market Basket example, a lot of people now know me from my shoutouts. This not only makes me feel more connected with people around me, but like someone that people really admire. I have had people that have cheered at sighting me in public and even asked for my autograph. Of course, I have never declined this kind of positive attention. In other words, I find the rising popularity of Noonanite Shoutouts to be an overall positive experience for me to get a taste a fame and having a fandom like never before. Additionally, I have found better ways to determine what shout outs are humurous and which are not.

Essentially, the gradual rise in followers from my snapchat routine has lead to a mostly positive outcome for me. Not only am I happy that I have a following and get a good amount of attention, but that I have even have fans at all! I understand that my fame isn’t really that huge in relation to a true social media celebrity, but within my community it feels quite large. I also hope that I inspire my fans of all ages, to realize that at any time a simple request of a friend could turn into a growing source of attention and praise. Fame can be found in many unlikely places, and in my case, I hope that some day it will grow to something even greater than I have ever seen before. Overall, Noonanite shoutouts have been very sweet to me and my ambitions in life.