With sparkly pink teardrops painted under her eyes, TikTok creator Kiara McGowan invited Washingtonians to shed tears together. 

McGowan, the 33-year-old founder of the viral TikTok account Crying in D.C. and a digital events coordinator, hosted her first “Cry n’ Vibe” for about 35 attendees to foster discussions about their emotions and encourage the normalization of crying at the Southwest Library on Tuesday. With a backing soundtrack of quintessential “sad girl music,” from Mitski to Cigarettes After Sex, attendees mingled in a library conference room over games, popcorn and crying-themed coloring pages before sitting down for an open discussion about processing and expressing emotions.

Upon entry into the event, attendees received blue teardrop stickers to place below their eyes. As the crowd settled into the library conference room, McGowan delivered her opening remarks.

She said she specifically wanted to make the event a space where Black women felt comfortable crying, as she often hid her emotions growing up because people would tell her she was being “dramatic” when she would express how she felt.

“People think that we’re being too much, or we’re doing this, or we’re doing that, but I really also want to make sure that as a black woman and as a woman, it’s okay to cry and because we do that, because it’s a human emotion,” McGowan said.

The group then launched into a bingo icebreaker, moving around the room to find people who fit crying-themed prompts, like “Normally cries from being happy” and “Cried today.” About five to 10 attendees fell into the “Cried today” category, while most others marked themselves down for “Cried in the past week,” citing the recent re-election of former President Donald Trump.

McGowan said she was inspired to start her account when she had the “worst time in her life” during the summer of 2023 after losing her job working in the Senate as a creative director — a position that drove her relocation to D.C. from Richmond, Virginia less than a year prior. She said after losing her job on the Hill, she worked two jobs while searching for a new place to live because she could no longer afford her rent. 

“I was crying all the time,” McGowan said. “Things were really rough just trying to figure out what to do next and how to maneuver the next steps.”

With a friend’s encouragement, McGowan said she decided to launch her TikTok account to document her experiences crying in public around the District, from Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library to Anacostia Park. 

A TikTok McGowan posted in July 2023 about crying on the Circulator bus, an experience she rated a “0/10” and said she would “absolutely not recommend,” now has 110,000 views. Her TikTok account now has more than 82,000 likes and more than 6,000 followers — who McGowan affectionately calls the “D.C. criers.”

About halfway through the two and a half hours-long event, McGowan invited everyone to sit down in their seats and opened the floor for attendees to share open testimonies about emotions they were currently processing. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, like breakups, confronting addiction within families and feeling concerned with the future of national and international politics following Trump’s re-election, as attendees spoke openly about the issues they were confronting.

One attendee got a little misty towards the end of the conversation — the only sign of tears throughout the relatively jovial event. 

McGowan said people across the country have unprocessed emotions from events that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, like the more than a million deaths from COVID-19, the spike in unemployment and the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd. She said the re-election of Trump has also made her “really emotional,” as she considers what effect his presidency will have on her and her family’s future. 

“We have all this collective emotional grief that we’re dealing with, and we’re not really doing it,” McGowan said.

McGowan said Washingtonians specifically have a tendency to not acknowledge their feelings and try to “work it away” even amidst the challenge of finding affordable housing and employment in the District.

“It’s cool to see me acknowledging my feelings has been a ripple effect across the city, and I’m just hoping that maybe it can go like a bigger thing, like worldwide or something,” McGowan said.

In the District, McGowan said her favorite spot to cry alone is The Yards at Navy Yard, overlooking an unobstructed view of the Anacostia River, while the worst was crying on the steps of a “random” building in Dupont Circle after finding out she was rejected from a fifth apartment.

“Sometimes all you have is yourself,” McGowan said. “So when you are crying alone you have to remember you are your best friend.”

McGowan said crying is often stigmatized in society because it is viewed as a more “feminine” experience. She said crying is a demonstration of strength, and she hopes sharing her sobs on her TikTok account helps normalize openly expressing your emotions.

“I’m excited to change the course of crying and make crying a vibe,” McGowan said.

Julie Zeballos, a 33-year-old human resources advisor who attended the event, said the concept of a “Cry n’ Vibe” is “new and rare” because crying is often stigmatized and not framed in a positive light. She said she previously struggled with crying, but became more “in tune” with her emotions during the pandemic, which helped her feel more comfortable with the act of crying.

“No matter how tough you put yourself out there, we all cry at the end of the day,” Zeballos said. “Shouldn’t be judged by it, just a thing that we all do.”

Zeballos said she grew up surrounded by single, independent women in her family and always saw them put on a tough face no matter the circumstances. As she got older, she said she realized through conversations with these family members that they still do not know how to release their emotions.

“I hate the fact I could think I have to turn myself off for a second,” Zeballos said. 

Daikayla Johnson, a 25-year-old project manager, said she used to try to suppress her emotions but now believes that crying is her “superpower.” She said she has lived in many different states, and has become more “robotic” in her emotions since living in the District due to the city’s “intense” vibe.

“It’s ok to not grind yourself to death,” Johnson said. “It’s ok to take a break and chill a little bit.”