Ask Riona O’Connor’s hundreds of thousands of followers why they tune into her comedy clips, and chances are it’s because her witty observations so aptly hit home.

Take her recent bikini reviews, which include her now viral admission that her ‘thighs don’t gap, they clap‘, which has generated an avalanche of comments praising her message of body positivity. Said video starts out with her talking about exorcising her low self-esteem and being ’97 per cent lycra and three per cent hope.’

Rosanna Davison’s kids are ‘so excited’ as the countdown is on for move to family’s ‘forever home’

She goes on to talk of how the sight of her thighs hasn’t caused anyone to drop dead on sight which leads to the realisation that maybe no one gives a crap that her ‘thighs don’t gap they clap’ something that many of her followers can relate to.

According to the comedian, however, that’s not quite the self-esteem boosting win it appears on the surface, and in fact, she would prefer if her followers didn’t resonate so deeply with her work and for good reason, she tells EVOKE.

‘Every hour, [she receives comments praising her relatability], and do you know what? It’s lovely, and also it’s so sad that there are so many of us. I don’t want people to resonate with what I do.

‘I’d prefer if they didn’t, because that would mean that we were all healed and better and being good about ourselves… and no more trauma bonding, but that’s it, we’re all trauma bonding in the DMs so literally every hour I get messages saying thank you so much, you’ve stopped me crying today, watching that video has made me feel like I can put on that bikini, I’ll go to that family party and just laugh my way through it rather than feel awkward and not able to have conversations with people and I get detailed messages like that all the time.

Going further, she credits low self-esteem and years of being really hard on ourselves as the reason so many people can empathise with her work.

‘I think it’s just being brutally, brutally honest, for me, my brain can be quite a violent place to live in, and I think a lot of us can relate to that.

‘We have really self-deprecating thoughts, or a lot of people have really low self-esteem, or we really struggle with fighting those thoughts in our heads that they have, and it’s almost before you can get out the door, you have to climb a mountain of trying to convince yourself that you’re okay and what you’re doing is fine and you’re allowed wear a skirt or shorts or whatever, I think trying to get to the point where we can leave the house in our bodies and not have so much negativity about it, that’s almost a weight off.

So for me, I’m just trying to be brutally honest about where I am and not sort of dressing up and saying “hey I feel amazing!” because I don’t all of the time, so I think for me that brutal honesty seems to resonate a little bit.’

In other videos, she acknowledges her wobbly bits, saying, ‘but this body paid bills, made humans, parallel parked, survived mild inconveniences and major emotional meltdowns in Aldi, so this body deserves a bikini in the sun. ‘

In another, she calls her bikini ‘a declaration of independence from shame.’

Body positivity, in particular, is something she has always had a hit-and-miss relationship with.

O’Connor’s relationship with body positivity hasn’t always been smooth. At one point, she ran a Facebook group of over 10,000 members called Body Positive Mama. But the pressure to love her body felt inauthentic.

‘I tried to lean into that, but I just didn’t feel it,’ she explains. Instead, she’s embraced what she calls brutal honesty. ‘The voice in my head was raised in the ’80s and ’90s the era of ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’ I’ve been on a diet since I was 15. I’m tired of it.’

Rather than fight those internal messages, she acknowledges them. “That voice won’t disappear overnight. But we can face it. Just because we think these things doesn’t mean they’re true.”

‘It’s a voice that’s probably going to be there for a long time because it took a long time for it to get in there, so it’s going to take a long time to get out.

‘So, for me, if I can be brutal about what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking and the thoughts that are going on in my head, but still get out there and sort of live in my body without having to think negatively over it or talk negatively about it all the time, it’s like I’m almost outing my negative thoughts and the sooner we talk about them, the sooner we admit, that’s what we have because we’ve grown it, we’ve nurtured those negative thoughts for 30 years.

Beyond her comedy skits and viral affirmations, Riona is also a talented singer and performer. She recently wrapped up her stage show, This Is All Too Much, alongside fellow performer Olga.

In a world where online personas are curated and polished, Riona O’Connor stands out for her mess, her humour, and her unfiltered truth. And in doing so, she gives others the courage to show up clapping thighs and all.