Monda's page "ship" is almost 10 years old. It's been going strong since 2016 and has over 400k followers. But the page's format hasn't always been the same, and, more importantly, it wasn't always Monda's page! We chatted about the inception of "ship" with the creator, and she told us some intriguing things about herself and the vision she has for the page.
At the moment, Monda is the only person behind the page. She's a 37-year-old behavior analyst from Florida who lives with her boyfriend, three cats, and a small dog. "I have a bachelor's and master's in applied behavior analysis, and in my professional life, I'm a board-certified behavior analyst working with kids & families with autism," Monda tells Bored Panda.
Currently, Monda is based in Daytona Beach, where she has her independent practice. As you scroll through the content from her page, you might notice that she's always been interested in human behavior, especially in dating and relationships.
The story of how this page came to be is quite interesting. It turns out that Monda actually isn't the one who created it back in December 2016. "My brother (a much bigger memer with a higher following at the time) bought this handle @ship from some guy on Twitter named Satan at the time for like $800," Monda tells us.
"Since my brother was pretty busy with his own big following, and with my interest in relationships, he gave me the page basically and I took over it immediately," she continues. "I'm not sure if the Satan guy realized the potential of the short handle and this page being relationship-oriented. Maybe he just thought it would be a page about ships, I don't know…"
Monda's main goal with the page has always been to provide people with some wholesome entertainment. "I've always had a mission in mind for this page, and that has consistently been for 'ship' to be a space on the Internet where anybody can come for a pick-me-up," she tells Bored Panda.
"Whenever I feel down or upset and I need something to distract me and make me feel better, I can just scroll through my own page and all the posts usually make me laugh or make me feel good, or usually elicit some other type of positive emotion," the creator goes on. "That is the main mission." When deciding what content to include, Monda most often goes for fun and cute quirky stories, funny incidents or funny thoughts, and self-empowering posts.
Monda also tells us that she wants "ship" to be a safe place where people can come to have a laugh without being triggered or offended. "I try to keep the space mostly wholesome, mostly feel-good to get away from all the triggering stuff on the Internet."
