This story was originally published on Passionfruit.
If you’ve been on the internet in the past seven years, you definitely know Sarah Schauer. Getting her start on Vine (and winning the last ever Viner of the Year award at the 2017 Shortys), she has had a steady evolution in her online content.
“I lost 847,000 followers [on Vine] in one day,” Schauer, who uses she and they pronouns, said in an interview. “It’s kind of funny. Anytime I post something that someone’s like, ‘I don’t really like that anymore,’ I’m like, I don’t care if you want to follow me because I’ve literally lost over 800,000 in one day. So it’s totally fine.”
After working as a copywriter for brands for a few years, they felt unfulfilled. Like other Viners, she had started a YouTube channel and grown her Twitter and Instagram followings when the platform shut down. However, content wasn’t their primary job, as the AdSense from their YouTube videos wasn’t enough to sustain themself. But then in 2019, she was fired from her corporate job for “a bogus TikTok.”
