A Toronto Tiktoker catapulted to social media fame after vlogging the intimate moments of her breakup. Bridgette Vong, a 24-year-old social media and influencer marketing specialist, took to TikTok to document the end of her five-year relationship with her former boyfriend (from their very last talk to their final hug), and the videos have now reached millions of people online. Narcity’s Brooke Houghton chatted with Vong about her newfound TikTok fame and how her life has changed since that breakup video went viral.
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00:00 So yeah, I set up the camera as our final goodbye was like a hug and he helped me move into my new
00:04 apartment in Toronto and it was super emotional and really heartfelt and I posted it and it was
00:11 it just went off. Wow, so that's it, huh? Just four o'clock and you are gone for good.
00:18 Why am I so sad? Am I doing the wrong thing? Absolutely not. It's just that sometimes
00:26 goodbyes are a bitch. Hey Bridget! Hi, how are you? Good, thanks so much for coming on
00:32 to Narcity to chat. Amazing, I'm super excited to be here. It's gonna be great to talk to you.
00:37 Okay, beautiful. So your TikTok journey actually started with vlogging a breakup with your long-time
00:42 boyfriend. What was that like? Yeah, so I guess I never really expected or kind of planned to have
00:51 it blow up but I was a really tiny creator. I think I had like 200 followers at the time and
00:56 for my job I do like little TikTok videos so I just had my own personal account and
01:01 I ended up vlogging like our final goodbye and it went super super viral, very unexpected.
01:07 I think it's at 13 million views right now and I ended up gaining I think like 15 to 20
01:13 thousand followers from that one video so it was crazy for sure. And what was the thought process
01:19 behind that like setting up the camera saying okay I want to have this moment recorded? Yeah, I get
01:24 that question all the time. I think that the way that my like marketing brain works and especially
01:29 because I was creating TikToks already for my tiny channel, I just started to vlog and diary entry
01:36 almost these little sad moments of like my five-year relationship ending just honestly for myself and
01:42 my tiny like my friends really. So I wanted to vlog our final goodbye. We were moving cities and
01:49 it was really it was really just meant for not me like actually me but I was like no one's gonna see
01:54 this and I just I want it to have like I want it to be emotionally set and setting up the camera
02:01 was pretty normal for our relationship just with like whether it was cute moments or whether we
02:06 were going through something like this it was just kind of like a natural thing that I would do and
02:10 he was like super okay with it and always like yeah like whatever whatever works for you like
02:14 I'm here to support you. So yeah I set up the camera as our final goodbye was like a hug and
02:19 he helped me move into my new apartment in Toronto and it was super emotional and really heartfelt
02:25 and I posted it and it was it just went off which for me posting something like that was like not
02:32 normal but it wasn't weird but I definitely looking back now understand how like raw of a
02:37 moment that would be to be posting online but I think when you're like in this like blurred breakup
02:43 heartbreak phase like you're not really thinking about stuff like that. 100% and what was your
02:48 reaction when it blew up and you know millions of people watched it? I was shocked I did not expect
02:54 that at all um I think what I was most shocked to hear was a lot of people right away in the
03:00 comments were just sharing their breakup stories or something that's similarly happening or
03:04 concern about how they can prevent something like that from happening and I think it got a lot of
03:10 traction because you could really see like we didn't care that there was a camera there like it
03:14 was just a real last moment that we were ever going to see each other and like um yeah it was
03:20 just it was like it was a big shock I was like overwhelmed actually for sure. Yeah and how did
03:25 that kind of spurn on your content creation because now you're bolstering over 50,000 followers?
03:30 Yeah so I think I don't know I guess for me content creation has always been like a natural
03:38 thing it's just part of my job as a social media manager so once I got that following um I think
03:44 it was like 25k is when it kind of like started to chill out a little bit more but I continued to
03:49 post my breakup journey literally like what I was doing day one day two I called it my healing girl
03:55 era um which it definitely was and it was just kind of the term I used to talk about how I was
04:00 getting over the breakup and um what going no contact was like and how living alone was like
04:05 and it was just um I just figured it would be a good opportunity to share more of my story because
04:11 people were I was like talking to people who had similar stories and it just felt really like
04:16 natural to lean into that. I love that and for you you've mentioned that you work two other jobs what
04:20 other jobs are you working right now alongside content creation? Yeah so my full-time job um
04:27 is as a social media and influencer marketing specialist um for for a large company and then
04:33 I also do freelance digital marketing management for like a bakery that has six locations um so I
04:39 do kind of all of their assets and kind of like their online stuff so I do that and then the
04:45 TikTok is kind of just what I like I started it as really just like a passion project or a hobby
04:50 but it's definitely been um super fortunate to have that kind of turn into something else.
04:55 Amazing and for your TikTok too is that also a source of revenue for you or just a creative
04:59 outlet? It's definitely become a little bit of like a passive income it's not anything that's
05:04 like my bread and butter but it is definitely nice to be getting like smaller brand deals and
05:08 just talking with some of my favorite brands in Toronto and things like that. I love that and for
05:13 you in the future do yourself do you see yourself becoming a content creator full-time eventually
05:18 or do you think you'll always kind of like straddle different pockets even though you're
05:21 kind of all in the same sphere? I feel like I love keeping busy I think it's like really important
05:28 for me and just like my mental health to always be doing something and I've always kind of had
05:32 that motivation to never like sit still so I don't even know what my life would be like if I wasn't
05:37 as busy as I was but it is definitely a dream of mine to be a full-time content creator and I know
05:43 people say that all the time and it's definitely it's a crazy ambitious goal and it's you know it's
05:49 an unstable income but it would be amazing if people followed my journey because they liked
05:54 me and it was just like a very authentic transition into like this transformation of like my life.
05:59 Yeah I love that and your content is super raw it's like what I'm spending as like living in
06:04 the city like my rent like what I'm doing for the weekend it is super transparent and you know with
06:09 your content how do you feel about sharing so much of your life online? I think that I don't really
06:16 see any other way to do it I feel like even just from the beginning posting the breakup stuff to
06:22 like what I spend and what I do this weekend going on like my first dates and like I just feel like
06:28 when I get the feedback is when I realize how transparent it is because going into it I'm like
06:34 I'm such an open person and I try to be really friendly so I feel like when I'm making these
06:38 videos I'm really it's almost like I'm facetiming a friend like I'm just like sharing little updates
06:43 so when I get the feedback of people being like oh you're so transparent or thank you so much for
06:47 like sharing like a real day in Toronto that's when I realize that it's like not a common thing
06:54 or it's not necessarily the norm that we're seeing online so I like sharing my life online
07:00 I'm there's definitely negative feedback and positive feedback but for me if it's helping
07:05 like one person or even just like making someone smile which I know sounds so cheesy but it's like
07:10 I don't know I have nothing to hide really and like as long as I'm safe then I feel like I'm
07:14 happy to share and like be a little bit more vulnerable and a little like authentic. I love
07:19 that and you know looking back at that breakup video now how do you feel watching it? I definitely
07:25 see it come up with like my TikTok notifications as it trickles in like the likes I think there
07:32 was times in my breakup when I would look at it and I couldn't watch it and I almost never watched
07:38 it especially when it was blowing up and I was right in the heat of my breakup back in July
07:44 but now I look back at it and I have such like happy memories because I'm very thankful that my
07:49 ex-partner and I ended on such amazing notes and it concluded so mature and wonderful and it gave
07:56 me a crazy platform that is something I've always wanted and things like that so I look back at it
08:02 and I am just like I'm happy it's like it's weird because it's definitely like a very sad TikTok
08:08 but I think for me I just like can feel all the love that was there in that video and like I don't
08:14 know it's just it's um it's definitely an important part of my life. I love that that's so sweet and I
08:21 feel like it really does show and it did give you a platform for now you can kind of share your
08:25 Toronto life so how did moving to Toronto fit into the mix all of us? Yeah so my best friend actually
08:31 um I went to school here I went to TMU um a while back and I ended up meeting a boy we moved away and
08:37 and did the whole thing and then the minute that the breakup was starting to happen my best friends
08:43 were like you need to move back here like you have to move back here there's just no way around it and
08:48 I am I wasn't a Toronto girl I kind of like moved away into a smaller town but I was like you know
08:53 what what better place to be than with like my best friends as like a young 20 year old um so
08:59 yeah we packed up my best friends helped me look for a place and within like a week the ball was
09:04 rolling it was pretty fast but I mean everything was crumbling down really quick anyways so we had
09:09 to move quick and yeah I knew I wanted to live alone um it's really important for me and like
09:15 my healing journey to like find the means of like making sure that my income was enough to be able
09:20 to live alone in Toronto and um it was a crazy fast move but I'm so so grateful to have a space
09:27 where I can just like feel at home and feel like myself. That's amazing and you know with future
09:32 partners do you think that you'll vlog your relationship again? I think I'd like to keep
09:37 that part of my life not necessarily private but I don't think that it's something I don't want to be
09:43 like throwing a camera in anyone's face who isn't comfortable and I don't necessarily have the
09:48 largest platform in the world but I do know that like some people aren't as you know content creation
09:53 passionate um so while I'm happy to share kind of parts of like my dating life my dating story and
09:59 like updates from hinge and things like that I feel like um because that's me and that's truly
10:05 what I'm going through that week or that month or um I don't think it's something I want to be like
10:10 plastering my partner's face over the internet if they're not comfortable with it. 100% well that's
10:15 awesome thank you so much for taking the time to chat today I really appreciate it. Yeah absolutely
10:19 thank you so much for having me.