We now call it the Great Realisation
And yes, since then there have been many.
But that’s the story of how it started,
And why hindsight’s 2020.
Tomos Roberts
On 29 April 2020 a bedtime story about the pandemic was uploaded to YouTube and quickly went viral for its brilliant story telling, imaginative content and message of hope for everyone living through this once-in-a-century event. The popularity of the poem soon skyrocketed and the luxury and lifestyle magazine Condé Nast Traveller published an article about it on May 11, 2020:
Chances are you’ve seen “The Great Realisation” by UK poet @probablytomfoolery, in which he reads aloud what might be the greatest fairytale of our times. The video, set in a post-COVID19 world and uploaded on 29 April, has been viewed over 30 million times across platforms, and the poem has been transcribed into several languages. Creator Tomos Roberts has requests for a children’s book from publishing houses and even Hollywood’s Jake Gyllenhaal.
The Great Realization is more than two years old and continues to inspire hearts and minds. You can watch it on YouTube here:
The poem was published as a book and is available from Amazon.
After more than two years of lockdowns, quarantine, travel restrictions and remote working, perhaps we will discover the truth of what Tomas meant when he wrote the following:
“And so when we found the cure,
and were allowed to go outside
We all preferred the world we found,
to the one we left behind
Old habits became extinct,
and they made way for the new
And every simple act of kindness,
was now given its due.“
Social Media Trends as of June 26, 2022
The hashtag #thegreatrealization produced erroneous results and generally didn’t have anything to do with the poem, however, the book’s front cover says the video has been viewed 60 million times.
Google Trends: “the great realization” as a search term registered about a week after the movie was uploaded to YouTube. Its popularity peaked during the week of May 3, 2020. The video has since been viewed over 7 million times.
Sources:
Ancheri, Saumya. “Tomfoolery’s viral bedtime story about the pandemic.” Condé Nest Traveller. 11 May 2020. URL: https://www.cntraveller.in/story/heres-the-twist-to-probably-tomfoolerys-viral-bedtime-story-about-the-pandemic/.
Probably Tomfoolery. “The Great Realisation.” You Tube. April 29, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4.