Sitting in a yellow New York City taxi with my mom, I glanced at my phone briefly and was shocked to notice 30 unopened emails. This made my heart jump. Was I in trouble? Was the world ending? What could be this important on a Wednesday Morning?
All of the messages came from YouTube and were comments regarding the posting "Caroline Rothstein Performing 'Fat,'" a piece that I had done for The Huffington post a year ago. How were people just starting to see it now? One of the comments said "Gaga Sent me here." I gasped in disbelief; did LADY GAGA tweet about this? I pulled up her Twitter page and believe it or not -- she did!
That day hundreds of emails poured in, mainly beautiful comments regarding Caroline's riveting and courageous poem. Before the tweet, the piece had received around 800 hits, which is not to be overlooked, yet it seems miniscule in comparison to the 25,190 that it has today.
It seems like Caroline was no better prepared for this news than I was. She explained to me that she read the blast of emails from friends saying "you've gone viral!" while leaving her local synagogue after her morning of Yom Kippur Prayers!
It is amazing to see the platform that Lady Gaga has: 29,834,839 followers and more importantly, loyal fans. I respect and applaud her for using her fame as a way to cultivate positive thinking and to raise awareness about many valuable causes, as seen through her Body Revolution initiative.
By tweeting about Caroline's spoken word poem, she gave Caroline's message wings to fly and spread the message to more people throughout the world. As an aspiring journalist, this is all that I could hope for when writing about amazing women like Caroline. The message is so valuable and it is important for women everywhere to continue the dialogue on changing the pressure and stigmas attached to body image.
I am overjoyed for Caroline, and I know that she will use this attention and broadened fan base to get her word out to more and more people, mainly through her web series, 'Body Empowerment.'
This experience has been remarkable, a wonderful reminder of how powerful the Internet is and a lesson to continue to spread your message, to create genuine and thoughtful content for whatever size your audience is. For you never know who is reading your work and where it might end up.
WATCH: Caroline Rothstein Reflects on the Lady Gaga Tweet