“I was randomly scrolling through TikTok and a girl had made a video — it hadn't even been at one million views yet — and so I was like: I gotta do a duet right now. I just filmed a duet where I was walking through the app as she's explaining the idea.”

Duet a viral video before it hits 1M views — early responses ride the wave, late ones disappear

Timing matters more than polish on TikTok. Maddie Kirby spotted a video describing something that sounded like One Second Every Day before it went viral and immediately filmed a response — no script, no approval process. The duet surfaced One Second Every Day to everyone who later found the original 13M-view video. Late responses to viral content are invisible; early ones become part of the wave.