Source: Atlanta Black Star / YouTube
Viral moments are sometimes born out of moments of Black people possessing the ability to turn pain into comedy. That moment came when Johniqua Charles was captured during her February arrest after exiting Diamonds Gentleman’s Club in Dillon, South Carolina.
“Being agitated with not knowing why I was being detained and knowing my rights is where that whole scenario came from,” Charles told Atlanta Black Star.
Charles said on the night the video was captured, she was trying to re-enter the club because she left her purse inside. In the midst of it, she got into a verbal altercation with security guard Julius Locklear, who is in the video with Charles.
Locklear was actually the person who posted the video to Facebook, which then took off.
The moment quickly went viral with remixes and celebrity re-enactments. In the height of racial violence and social unrest, Charles’ song was turned into a protest anthem, even making its way to this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live.
“I think the first time that I’d ever seen my song played at a big protest, of course I dropped a tear because this was amazing,” Charles said.
Charles acknowledges that her viral ascension opened a lot of doors, while reflecting on her life prior to the video.
“It placed people in my life that I probably turned away because of the habit that I had,” she said.
“I was in and out of the streets begging since I was probably 19,” Charles revealed. “I was at my wit’s end, I was at the bottom, the lowest, the deepest that you could be.”
Charles’ sister helped create a GoFundMe account which raised over $50,000 in an effort to help her turn her life around.
However, the success has also caused great pain. Charles revealed that she’s in conflict with her sister who initially served as her manager in the early stages of her internet fame. Charles claims she is locked out of the original Instagram account, but has since created another (@loseyojobgirl) in hopes of regaining momentum.
“I have been in control of nothing that’s been going on with ‘Lose Yo’ Job’ over the last past three or four, maybe five months, that’s why the world has seen nothing,” Charles said. “A lot could’ve popped off with ‘Lose Yo’ Job’ when it came to this election, so much stuff, but she’s made it so hard for me.”
In the gap, Charles says she’s focusing on raising her four-year-old son and is expecting a second child with her fiancé, due in April.
