When the New York Times published an opinion piece with the title “We Should All Know Less About Each Other” in late 2021, oversharing on TikTok hadn’t even reached the fever pitch it’s currently experiencing. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial that we all know less about each other. Unfortunately, some people insist on sharing anyway.



Take Heather Williams, who posted a video sharing the story of how she married her sophomore English teacher. Already we’re off to a great start. Before anyone can “jump to any conclusions,” Heather rushes to assure us that nothing happened while she was a student, and her husband jokes that he doesn’t even remember having Heather as a student. Just how old is this man if he’s already experiencing memory loss?


The couple reconnected when Heather was 20, when she ran into her now-husband near Heather’s childhood home. They struck up a conversation, in which Heather learned that her now-husband/former teacher’s dad lived a street over from where Heather grew up. After that, they became friends on Facebook and started chatting. She again assures us that nothing creepy happened, but before I’m willing to believe her, I have to know: how old is this man? (One Twitter user claims to have the answer: He was 32 when they reconnected.)


Heather continues that she used to avoid sharing this story, and when the news first broke of their relationship, she was bullied pretty badly on social media; feels like people are focusing on bullying the wrong person in this relationship. Now, however, Heather couldn’t care less what her former classmates think, and has blocked everyone who was giving her grief, including a few former friends.


The response to Heather’s video, which has since been deleted, wasn’t positive. A former educator posted their own TikTok in which they expressed concerns about Heather normalizing this kind of relationship, which they argue involved the husband grooming Heather as a minor.



Others on Twitter were more flippant, with most people wondering if Heather is aware that she didn’t need to tell TikTok this particular story. She’s definitely aware, but courting outrage is the easiest way to get views and subsequently money, so unsettling story times will continue until we’ve somehow shared everything unsettling about us.