From Heartbroken to 7 Million Followers on Social Media
👀 Whitney’s True Art & Raw Pain Went Super Viral
What if you could turn heartbreak into 7 million followers?
Bestselling poetry books? Poetry tours?
A multiple six-figure income from speaking your truth?
By articulating your pain, you help others with broken hearts know they’re not alone.
That’s what Whitney Hanson did.
(N.B. She uses a juxtaposition creativity hook that’s got her hundreds of millions of views. I’ve broken it down later so you can use this strategy to elevate your work.)
The Wounded Healer Archetype.
Whitney is a hyper-sensitive, multi-passionate creative soul who has always aspired to a career in music and poetry.
But she was told that was unrealistic.
So she went to college.
Bounced from one major to the next.
Nothing stuck.
Then COVID hit.
She went home and started posting dumb videos on TikTok.
Too scared to share her poetry.
She thought it was too dark, too sad, too personal.
But she was convinced to post just one poetry video as an experiment.
It had over 2 million views
And a new voice was born.
Whitney: The Poet of Pain (and Now Joy)
Whitney didn’t start with a creative brand strategy.
She had a broken heart.
The kind of grief that guts you.
The kind that drains the world of colour.
The kind that either buries you… Or births you.
For Whitney, it cracked open her true creative self.
She writes raw, soul-piercing poems about heartbreak and healing, the things we’re too scared to say out loud.
She gave pain a new voice.
And tens of millions listened.
She didn’t go viral because of trends or algorithm hacks—
She went viral because she’s a true artist.
She articulated her pain and tragedy in a way that expressed how the viewers felt, but were unable to communicate.
7 million people didn’t just follow her.
They felt seen by her.
Our truth can metastasise into shame, shackle us to a lifetime of misery, or it can be channelled into creative work that forges deep human connections.
The wounded healer philosophy is to heal yourself, use your pain to heal others.
Whitney didn’t niche down.
She niched up:
Whitney stacked up all of these
Poetry.
Writing.
Heartbreak.
Mental health.
Vulnerability.
Social media.
Art (She designs her book covers)
This allowed her to process her emotions and give words to those who can’t articulate their pain in the same way.
Everything flows from creative truth.
What Wounded Healers Do
Elizabeth Gilbert did it with Eat, Pray, Love.
John Lennon in a “jealous guy”
Adele did it in every breakup anthem.
Maya Angelou in “I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing.”
Olivia Rodrigo in “vampire” and “drivers license.”
The Wounded Healer turns their pain into clarity for others.
Whitney’s Viral Hook Strategy
This video hit 18 million views on TikTok alone.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
She uses a recurring hook:
“In English, we say: I miss you (the juxtaposition)
In poetry, we say: There’s a hollow space inside me that will never be filled.”
(The poetry is elevated by the juxtaposition)
In English, we say: “I still love you”
In poetry, we say: “I cannot find a way to untangle my heart from yours.”
The blandness of the first “ in English we say” line elevates the poetry of the second line.
Light vs. dark. Simple vs. soul-deep.
That one hook has generated over 16,000 comments, most starting with “In English we say…”
She’s repeated the same hook in scores of videos.
When a hook connects, rinse and repeat.
Whitney turned heartbreak into a creative career that’s touched millions of broken hearts.
She connects on camera
My guess is she does breathwork to centre herself and connect with the words before filming.
This is how to get into flow and become comfortable on camera.
She took a risk
If Whitney had listened to her fear, she would never have posted her poetry online.
And her life would have taken a very different trajectory.
When people say you can’t make a living from creativity, they’re wrong.
It’s not easy, but millions of creators make a full-time living from their art, their pain, and their online businesses.
The creator economy will surpass $250 billion this year, according to Goldman Sachs.
The more we enter an AI world, the more we’ll crave human creativity that soothes our soul — and connects us!.
AI is an incredible tool, but it has no soul.
This is why creative personal branding ( not the LinkedIn kind) will be the biggest competitive advantage in the AI era.
AI is replacing knowledge, but it can never replace human empathy.
Don’t stop sharing your truth!
P.S. - Day 18: I have posted 18 YouTube Videos in 18 days. No scripts. 🤘
P.P.S: I’m on holiday next week, back Aug 9th.
Have a great couple of weeks. ✌️