Helping 1,000 people on Koko

This week, I spoke with one of our most active and celebrated Koko community members. She goes by @Cutieru1 on Kik and is one of the many hundreds of thousands of people who use Koko on Kik. Koko is a peer support community that’s organized around principles of cognitive therapy. It’s a place to get help and to help others.

It’s always exciting to get a chance to speak with members of the Koko community, but chatting with Cutieru1 was an especially noteworthy occasion. As of this blog post, she’s helped well over one thousand people on Koko!

If you’re not familiar with Koko, let me assure you this is an incredible milestone. Even more extraordinary is the fact that she contributes without any direct compensation; she uses Koko simply because she likes to help others. In her words, ‘People just need a good-hearted caring person to remind them its going to be okay.’ This is completely true, but I wonder if it undersells her contributions some what. Contributions from Cutieru1, and others like her, can be profound and can literally move people to tears. I had heard about people tearing up on Koko before and I’d even seen it happen in person (my wife tears up pretty regularly when reading Koko replies). But I wasn’t sure if this behavior was actually all that common.

After hearing more about Cutieru1’s personal experience on Koko, I decided to query our database to see how many Koko thank you notes contain the word ‘crying.’ I expected the number to be pretty small.

Instead, I saw a flood of heartfelt gratitude. To date, well over fifteen hundred people report having been moved to tears on Koko.

Thank you I really am crying it means so much. I love how deep this is, thanks. This was tearing me apart now I know… Really it means a lot to me from, anonymous xo

Thank you so much I’m crying, thank you ❤

Omg thank you I’m literally crying it’s the good people like you that keep this word going your a great person thank you so so much I appreciate it tremendously thank you ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank you! You don’t know how much that means to me. I’m crying now no joke xD ❤💛💜

I almost cried there… But, in a good way. But the things you said make sense… Once again, your words made me feel warm… Thank you. Ah geez im crying now

All this is possible because of wonderful contributors like Cutieru1. She said she was initially skeptical of Koko and wasn’t sure she would enjoy it. But she tried it anyway, because ‘you have to try everything at least once to know if you like it or not.’ Shes says you have to be open and ‘experiment in order to find what you like and dont like or you might lose out on opportunities.’ On behalf of the whole Koko team, we’re so thankful you took a leap and gave it a try!!!