Substitute teacher decides to record her first day at school. By the end of the day, she is ‘mischaracterized’ and fired

Miata Borders thought filming a “day in the life” TikTok on her first day as a Mississippi substitute teacher would boost her online brand. Instead, the video cost her the job within hours and exposed how fast classroom “content” can cross the line.

A 24-year-old substitute teacher in Mississippi, Miata Borders, was fired on her first day at Lake Cormorant High School after posting a TikTok from inside the school. The video showed students and included a controversial comment about a girl walking down the hallway.

In the viral clip, she narrates over a group of kids walking past and says, “Damn, shorty, sheesh… man, I gotta get up after these school kids tryna take me down.” The video was framed as a “day in the life” post for her 100k-plus TikTok followers, but it spread far beyond her audience and landed quickly on X, Facebook, and outrage blogs.

The “shorty” comment wasn’t taken well by audiences, since it was directed towards a minor. Additionally, the video recorded identifiable minors without parental consent, which is a criminal offence. As the video gained fire online, school authorities stepped in on the matter swiftly. DeSoto County Schools told staffing firm Kelly Services that she was “no longer allowed to be a substitute teacher” for them (via Wreg).

Upon receiving backlash and the news of her termination, Borders uploaded follow-up TikToks, explaining her stance. She claimed that she was “automatically mischaracterized,” insisting, “I am by far no predator or anything close to it.” She also explained her “shorty” comment, saying that she used the word because “those kids were smaller than me, shorter than me, younger than me. They are shorties, they are young.”

She stressed that it “absolutely means nothing with flirting” and her “intentions were never bad.” Presenting it as an honest mistake, Borders claimed that she didn’t know she couldn’t record students. “I had absolutely no idea […] I assure you that it would not have been posted,” she added. But it doesn’t take a law degree to know that your “content creator” persona can’t come into the classroom with you.

While some of the internet reaction was a little over the top, the incident crossed the line pretty clearly. If your first instinct as a teacher is to farm your students for content and call them “shorty” on camera, the school doesn’t need a second day to decide you’re not a fit. Unfortunately for Borders, the collateral damage was too real. She reportedly lost her full-time direct support professional job, too, after backlash on the video.