We were fooling around in bed one night, me and Tim, when we came up with the idea. Where did it come from? Maybe it was the weed we’d smoked, pretty good stuff, and like Tim always said, Garbage in, garbage out. Obviously, the idea was anything but garbage.

Well, there we were, no clothes on and I looked down at him and said, So you’re the one that always gets the world in trouble, eh?

Who, said Tim—me?

No, I said. That. I pointed at his penis. I don’t mean you, I said. I mean men and their egos and their need to one-up each other. Stupid male hormones, testosterone poisoned maniacs leading the world to destruction!

Robin, that’s not right and not fair, said Tim. Men have a lot of good stuff to say and do in the world.

Oh, yeah? I said. I gave his penis a little tap. What have you got for us then, I asked it. Any wise words for the world? How about if I stick a wig on you, put some lipstick around that little slit to call it a mouth, pipe in a voice with witty sayings and film the whole thing on Tik-Tok? What do you think, Tim? Think it would work? Think your dick could influence for good?

I don’t like all that wig and lipstick stuff, said Tim. If the world wants my dick’s message, it will have to accept it from the dick as it is, not as some kind of doll puppet.

He half sat up. A message to the world! he shouted.

Sssshh, I said. Calm down.

If my dick could talk, we could go on TV with it and get rich, said Tim, sinking back onto the bed.

TV nothing, I said. Who watches TV anymore? That’s for old people. If you want to influence anyone, to be an influencer, you have to do Tik-Tok or Instagram or something like that.

Tim thought this over.

You know what, Robin—let’s do it, he said.

What, I said, dress up your dick and film it?

Not my actual dick, he said. How real does it have to look?

Real enough, I said. You have to be able to tell what it is. Maybe I can sew something. Or we can use a dildo, although where to get one of those I don’t know.

I bet you can order one online, he said. And then we can dress it up and make one-minute spots. Dick’s Words of Wisdom!

What a terrible name, I said. But I was grinning. And who would we be doing this for? How do we get people to see it and like it?

Dunno, said Tim. But you know what—I bet it would catch on fast.

Getting a dildo was easy. I checked online and discovered a sex toy shop in a nearby town. The proprietor spread five of them out on the counter for our perusal. I was tempted by the double-headed one but decided that it would be best to be more realistic.

Next came costumes and makeup. Tim and I tried various versions of my eyebrow pencils and lipsticks, but in the end, we had to conclude that it all looked pretty silly. The little wig was better. I made a kind of shirt out of an old sock, and we were done.

Setting up our new friend for his film debut was not easy. He kept falling over. Somewhere between makeup and wardrobe time we decided to call him Sweet Willy, after a character in an old Spike Lee movie. Willy delivered his message best, it turned out, when he was filmed with one of us out of sight holding him by the balls. We couldn’t fake any mouth movement, but after all, he was a penis, he didn’t actually have to move his lips to speak.

Sweet Willy first appeared on Tik-Tok at the end of August. It was a very short appearance. “Hi. I’m Sweet Willy, and I’m a penis!” he said. “And I have opinions about this world of ours. Maybe it will do you good to hear them. Stay tuned!” Fade out.

This Tik-Tok generated 75,000 likes and a lot of talkbacks.

Willy’s next appearance was a bit longer and included his first piece of advice (“Don’t eat at any restaurant that has pictures of food in the window.”) This post generated more than a million likes.

By the time Sweet Willy had settled down to his current political groove, we were generating more than three million likes daily. Franchisers managed to find out who we were and offered us deals. We refused to do live appearances, but we did agree to back hats, shirts, and bed linens.

That’s how we made our millions, all because of Sweet Willy.