How could I describe the last few months? Hmm, well, one could call it bizarre, extraordinary, fantastic, miraculous, new, remarkable, singular, uncommon, unheard-of, unique, unparalleled, unrivaled, unusual, aberrant, abnormal, anomalous, eccentric, exotic, freakish, idiosyncratic, marvelous, modern, newfangled, novel, odd, out-of-the-way, outlandish, outré, preternatural, prodigious, signal, sui generis, and unexampled, but that’s just off the top of my head. Hi, my name is Gwen Stephens, and I’m really good at what I do.


When people find out I’m a social media manager in 2020, they usually congratulate me for being so brave. I just tell them “It’s all part of the job.”


This all started for me back in college when job internships and job openings starting popping up for a new position dealing with social media. No one really knew what to call it back then, so usually it was something inane like ‘social media wizard’ or ‘social media guru’ or ‘Steve.’ As someone who happened to be born just in time for Facebook, I figured I could learn the job on the job.


And I was right. I was lucky enough to land one of these positions the summer of my junior year. It was my job to post and maintain a social media presence for a very popular hotdog stand in downtown Houston. It was a fun first ‘real’ job and I learned a thing or two, but I wasn’t fully utilizing the way I thought I could be.


It wasn’t until my post-graduation job that I really hit my stride as a ‘social media Bazinga,’ which looking back, was by far the most degrading title. Regardless, I really sunk my teeth into the work there and was tweeting things and LinkedIn-ing things left and right. You should have seen it. My shit was poppin’.


But of course, like any up and comer, I was always looking for the next opportunity. When the time came and the job opening for social media manager at Papa John’s opened up, I took it. And you know what? Despite having a racist dude as a founder, the job was good. I felt I had honed my craft and could handle anything.


And then 2020 happened. How was I supposed to know that I would be guiding the nation through a pandemic as the head of social media? Since when am I supposed to be a therapist and a counselor and an entertainer all at once? It’s been exhausting.


So yeah, I just Googled ‘synonyms for unprecedented’ because I’m lazy.


Sue me.