She Wanted To Capture The Truth About Motherhood; Hundreds Of Millions Of Views Later, I Think People Can Agree This TikToker Nailed It

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5 hours ago

"[After my son's birth], I felt so incredibly powerful and creative and in love and connected to the very fabric of humanity...But I was also leaking and overstimulated and bone tired and dealing with my shifting identity in the hardest season of my life while also caring for a newborn," Shawna Lander (aka shawnathemom) shared with me as the inspiration behind her super viral TikTok series.
For the uninitiated, let me back up: Shawna Lander is the creator, writer, director, editor, and solo performer in her multi-part TikTok series that follows the ins and outs of the extended McAllister family and their friends in the community.
The characters and situations often relate to the dramas and pratfalls of everyday life, from an overbearing mother-in-law to the anxieties of hosting a child's birthday party.
If you want to get a quick sense, here's a video from Max's 5th birthday, during which a snafu with the guest list and an overstepping in-law situation ultimately lead to chaos (I won't say more so as to not spoil it!).
Shawna Lander via TikTok / Via tiktok.com
Shawna's skits include so many characters (again, all played by Shawna herself) that pinned on the top of her TikTok page is an explainer video of "Who's Who In The Shawnaverse?"
The slide-show-style explainer video has over seven million views.
In the caption of that explainer video, Shawna describes the titular character of Shawna accordingly: "This is Shawna. She's not me, she just has my name. Slightly neurotic, sometimes awkward, very sincere, and means well. She's sort of the 'everymom.'"
"Everymom" is kind of key here, as many of Shawna's skits explore the familial and community-based dynamics experienced by mothers in particular.
As mentioned earlier, motherhood was a large part of Shawna's inspiration behind creating the Shawnaverse. In Shawna's words, "I made my very first slice-of-life mom skits when my firstborn was 10 months old, about 9 years ago. I didn't post very often, and I shot them like actual short films, in landscape with mis-en-scène, acting across from my real-life husband, John."
(Note that "John" is also the name of Shawna's husband in the Shawnaverse.)
The overlap of names made me wonder how much Shawna draws on her real life for content and inspiration, to which Shawna clarified, "My own journey into motherhood was the catalyst for me to start creating, so my content is rooted in authentic experience, but I don't recreate my life in skit form."
Shawna Lander via TikTok / Via tiktok.com
"I do have a John, but he's not skit John, and I do have a Max and a Piper, but those aren't my children's names, and I don't put anything they're really going through on the internet. I know some Barbs, but my mother-in-law is not a Barb. So I've been inspired by real life, definitely, but the story has a life of its own."
For context, Barb is Shawna's mother-in-law (in the skits, not in real life). And if Shawna is the "everymom," then Barb is the "every-mother-in-law" (presuming your mother-in-law doesn't respect boundaries and is very badly behaved, which I recognize isn't every mother-in-law, but you know what I mean).
Barb oversteps. She's difficult. At her worst, she's manipulative and narcissistic. But also, she's human. She desperately wants to feel included and accepted in a moment when she fears she's being pushed out of the family. Also, at her best, she's goofy and funny and shows up for her kids when they're in need of her motherly love and support. In other words, she's a genuinely complicated character, which is what makes her so relatable for so many viewers.
Also, when I asked Shawna who her favorite character was to play, she told me, "I'll say Barb, but just know that she's A favorite, not THE favorite, because I love them all and it's too hard to choose! But yeah, Barb is pretty fun to play!"
I was curious about how the Shawnaverse came to be, and Shawna shared that while she's a full-time creator now, when she first started, she "was a stay-at-home mom trying to figure out how [she] could have a baby and still pursue acting."
Shawna told me she started posting to TikTok in late 2020, on a friend's recommendation.
Shawna continued, "I started making [the videos] because I wanted to act, but also because I wanted to capture the truth about motherhood...Motherhood creates an unexpected evolution of identity and of relationship dynamics in the lives of so many women. I wanted to create a show that captured our shared truths."
You might assume that, due to the focus on parenthood, this is a series that would appeal primarily to parents. But I'm not a mother, and I'm a huge fan (and my friends with whom I regularly text about the Shawnaverse aren't parents, either).
While many of the skits are about parenthood, the stories focus on a variety of topics, including trying to make new friends, introducing your family to a new partner, and the difficulties around holidays and anniversaries and other life events (and so much more that doesn't require parenthood as a prerequisite to reliability).
I asked Shawna why she felt audiences resonate with her content, and she said, "I think it's because the story is specific but the themes are universal... Everyone has an upbringing. Everyone has ideas for how life will go. Everyone has experienced their carefully laid plans veering wildly off path and the emotional fallout that occurs when that happens. It's all relatable."
And on that, the Shawnaverse fan community is really strong, as well. Not only are there a ton of positive comments on the videos, but there are also countless fan-theory videos that aim to predict what's next for our favorite characters.
u/rachleahx via TikTok / Via tiktok.com, u/thedelightfulclinician via TikTok / Via tiktok.com
I asked Shawna about the response to her series and if anyone has ever reached out to her, to which she shared, "I post and I have instant feedback in the comments and in my DMs. People from all over the world tell me about the Barb in their family, or their Jennifer [Shawna's sister-in-law], or their Frank [Shawna's father-in-law]...Honestly, the community is an integral part of the McAllister world at this point because people share so vulnerably, respectfully, and hilariously in the comments."
As a fan, I had to ask Shawna what she hoped for the future of the characters that make up the Shawnaverse, to which she said, "I would love for everyone in the family to have their lovely healing arc, I would love for rifts to be mended, and for everyone to feel heard. I'd love to end the series in a really wholesome, uplifting place! But I also know what I have planned for the rest of the year soo... We'll see!"
But here's my recommendation: don't take my word for it. Check out the Shawnaverse for yourself! You can find her videos on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
Let us know in the comments if this is the first you're hearing of the Shawnaverse, and definitely let us know if you decide to check it out. Also, if you have any other favorite social-media storytellers, let us know in the comments, as well.