I was obsessed with TV and movies growing up. I remember being about five and crying because my uncle told me that my eyes were going to become permanently square from all that screen time, and I thought it would literally happen. But it didn’t stop me from watching. My mum would try to get me to play outside – and sometimes she succeeded – but I’d only go out there to pretend I was in The Secret Garden, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Captain Planet, or whatever other story was capturing my attention that week.

As a teenager my addiction to screens continued and expanded to include the internet. It was the early days of chatrooms, discussion forums and MSN messenger, and I couldn’t get enough. I’d spend hours on Dawson’s Creek fansites, arguing over whether Dawson or Pacey was the superior choice (Pacey, OBVIOUSLY), while simultaneously logging in to Blink-182 chats to analyse why Adam’s Song was the most meaningful ballad of our age. The only thing limiting my time online was dial-up internet and the fact I had to share the phone line with everyone else in my house. If it weren’t for that, I might never have done my maths homework, no matter how much my mum nagged.

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Sorry parents, this is no cautionary tale about the dangers of too much screen time. Quite the opposite. I mean, sure, I can barely do long division, but you know what? I’ve literally never needed it in my career. You know what I have needed? My obsession with pop culture and the internet.

If you had told teen me that I would grow up to be very successful by spending all my time on the internet, talking about the shows and movies I love, I would never have believed you. My mum certainly wouldn’t have. But I’m here to say suck it, Mum (sorry, I still love you, please don’t yell at me), because that’s exactly what I did.

I worked for five years at BuzzFeed Australia, starting as one of a team of three building the local brand from nothing. It took about two months of experimentation and learning before I had my first truly viral hit – 37 Signs You Grew Up In Australia In The ‘90s. It quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views, with people commenting on how relatable it was and how it took them straight back to their childhoods. I realised that a whole generation of Australians was as terrified of EC from Lift-Off as I was.

A couple of days after that post, I made my very first quiz – “Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?” – which became my first post to reach a million views. A few months after that, I wrote up my first Game of Thrones post – about the popular fan theory that Jon Snow’s mother was Lyanna Stark – which went even more viral. In those early days, it was pretty mind-blowing that millions of people would be looking at my writing, let alone enjoying it and sharing it. The thrill quickly became addictive, and my competitive instincts kicked in. I was driven to constantly be learning, creating, experimenting and iterating. By the time I left BuzzFeed, I was getting 10 million views a month globally, with one million of those in Australia alone. Purely for writing about things I love. It never really got old.

BuzzFeed has gotten a lot of flack over the years, commonly derided for its “listicles”, its cat content and its “no haters” policy. But a list is just a framework for telling a story, and if you don’t like cat content then frankly what’s wrong with you? (Also, we posted more about dogs anyway.) As for the “no haters” policy, for me it wasn’t about being mindlessly uncritical – far from it. It felt more about recognising the fact that the internet can be a nasty, negative place, and countering that with a bit of positivity. It was an ethos that empowered employees to be themselves, to be playful, and to write with freedom.

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That’s the big secret to internet success, at least as I know it from my time at BuzzFeed. Talking with wonder and passion about things you love. People are drawn to that kind of enthusiasm, especially if it’s about something they love too. And there will be people out there who do – because that’s the beauty of the internet. As unique as we all think we are, as niche as our interests may be, it’s not hard to find those who can relate. That’s what drives us to share, to tag our friends, to retweet. We’re saying “this speaks to me – this speaks for me – does it speak to you too?” At the end of the day, we all just want to feel less alone.

That was the key to everything I created at BuzzFeed – and I created a lot over five years of working there. It all came down to one simple thing: if I was interested in it, if I wanted to tell my friends about it, chances are other people would too. Whether it was a ranking of Australian lollies and chocolates, a quiz about which Chris was the best Chris, or a list exploring what it’s really like to have anxiety, I knew hundreds of thousands – and sometimes millions – of people would understand and want to share it. That’s what going “viral” is about. It’s not a cynical numbers grab, not for me anyway. Every view was a real person, and how they shared and talked about my work taught me more every day not just about creating content but about being human and forging connections.

I know, I know, I was writing “listicles”, not performing brain surgery. And there were times when I questioned if what I was doing mattered at all. But then I’d get a message telling me a post I’d done about 10 Things I Hate About You had made a depressed person smile, or a comment saying a round-up of dog tweets I’d put together had entertained someone stuck in hospital. And then I’d remember that it made me happy, too.

So I guess the moral of my story is this: embrace your weirdness, follow your passions, and some day, someone might just pay you for it. Even if you never really did finish that maths homework.