It’s 2 AM. You’re scrolling again. Someone’s desk shows up — one perfect succulent, a leather journal, and a latte that somehow hasn’t gone cold. And you feel it — not inspiration, not envy exactly — more like a craving.
We turned living into a photoshoot. And no one’s really having fun anymore.
We stopped asking, “Am I happy?” and started asking, “Does this look like happiness?” One’s a feeling that makes you laugh so hard you can’t breathe. The other’s a grid layout with warm lighting and 847 likes.
The Performance ate the experience
Last time you did something fun, did you actually enjoy it, or did you think about how it’d look on camera first? I do it too. We all do. It’s like I can’t eat a sandwich anymore without thinking about its angles.
My friend went to a concert last month. She watched half of it through her phone screen — recording stories she’d post later, perfectly timed for engagement. When I asked if she had fun, she said, “I think so?” She wasn’t sure because she’d been too busy proving it to actually feel it.
We built entire identities around appearing consistent. Your morning routine isn’t just a routine — it’s content. It needs a story, a colour palette, maybe earth tones, or that chaotic, “maximalist” thing if that’s your vibe. Your bookshelf can’t just hold books; it has to say something about you. It should reflect your personal style and the persona you wish to project to others. Your brand. When did you become a brand?
Productivity aesthetic might be the worst. The 5 AM posts. Colour-coded calendars. “Day in my life” reels with lo-fi beats and someone typing like they’re coding the cure for heartbreak. Planning is fine. Discipline is fine. But it’s weird how we perform being organised more than we actually are.
I know people who spend two hours designing their planners and fifteen minutes following them. The planner’s stunning, though — perfect fonts, soft lighting. Means nothing.
Clean living but messy reality
Then there’s the “clean living” cult. Green juice. Minimal kitchens. Glass jars with exactly one cup of raw almonds. Everyone’s kitchen looks Scandinavian, and everyone’s lying.
Real life? The almond jar’s empty except for dust. You have cereal for dinner because you’re exhausted. There’s a mail pile you haven’t touched in weeks. A water bottle you’ve refilled too many times and can’t remember when you last washed it.
But that doesn’t make the feed. The feed’s a highlight reel — cropped and filtered to look like balance. Nobody posts their third anxiety spiral or the laundry mountain that’s now part of the décor. And when someone does post a mess, it’s still curated. The “keeping it real” content is characterised by strategic chaos.
I saw someone post a “messy desk” once. You could tell they’d arranged the mess. The coffee cup was too perfectly placed. Even our authenticity is fake now.
Chasing images instead of peace
The saddest part? We think if we just get the right setup — the right mug and the right morning routine — we’ll finally feel calm. We buy the $40 candle because it’s “clean-burning” and comes in concrete. We colour-code our books and can’t find any of them later. We make oat-milk lattes in mugs we bought just because they looked appealing on camera.
And we wonder why we’re still empty.
I tried it last year — the silk pillowcase, the sunrise alarm, and the meditation cushion. The perfect morning routine. Looked incredible. Felt nothing. Turns out peace doesn’t come in a beige package.
Maybe real joy doesn’t photograph well. It’s messy. It’s your friend snorting at their own joke. It’s reading the same paragraph five times because your mind’s wandering. It’s dancing badly in your kitchen to a song you shouldn’t even know. It’s having no idea what’s next but feeling okay right now. None of that fits in a grid.
Joy is ugly occasionally. Mascara running, everyone blinking, late-night nonsense talks. It’s the inexplicable moments that instill a sense of aliveness.
What now?
I don’t have answers. I won’t say delete everything and move to the woods — though honestly, it sounds tempting. Maybe just start small. Do things without thinking about how they look. Exist for a bit without turning it into proof.
Try this: do something that would look terrible on camera. Eat messy food. Wear the mismatched outfit. Have a hobby you’ll never monetise. Collect weird stuff. Read something and don’t post about it. Take a walk and don’t track it. Make something and show no one.
Stop optimising. You don’t need to maximise your life — you need to live it.
You don’t owe anyone a beautiful life. You don’t have to prove that you’re thriving or “becoming your best self.” You’re allowed to be ordinary. You are free to experience dull days. To feel things and not package them for the internet.
You’re allowed to just be.
The aesthetic is the addiction. And we’re all hooked — chasing feelings through images, curating our way toward something that can’t be curated. You can’t buy peace. You can’t aesthetic your way into happiness.
Reality’s the cure. It’s weird, unpredictable, too loud, sometimes painful — and it doesn’t match your feed. But it’s real. And real is what we’ve been starving for.
It just doesn’t photograph well.
And maybe that’s the whole point.