The internet told us to romanticise our lives, but what if that performance only isolated us further?
On some days when I don’t have much to watch on TV or on Netflix, I watch family vlogs. Yes, I am guilty of increasing views of some very questionable vloggers, but that’s not the point. Every day, I sit down with my breakfast or dinner to see that the vlogger has woken up in the same room, same home, same family, yet everything around them is all new and adventurous. Every mundane moment is running on adrenaline, every dialogue is being delivered on a higher octave, and every movement is filled with purpose and plan; it is as if I am sitting down to watch their version of The Truman Show (and I enjoy it).
The true question behind this feigned adventure is: how can someone create ‘content’ every single day? How can each day of life be view-worthy? How can someone wake up, brush their teeth, dress up, have breakfast or just simply breathe, knowing that people will watch all of it, so everything needs to be curated perfectly?
A few days ago, my cousin and I were sitting down for a general catch-up. Mid conversation, she said, ‘I don’t know why people want to be the main character. It’s so problematic. I like people who are easygoing and aren’t too concerned with themselves. They are just standing well at the back.’
This got me thinking.
From childhood, our TV shows and movies have trained our minds to think of our life as a Dharma movie or a romantic song filmed in Switzerland, or as a novel filled with problems and then solutions set in a backdrop of perpetual yearning between the protagonists. As we grew up, social media relentlessly bombarded our misguided minds.
I open my Instagram and discover a girl whose boyfriend recently broke up with her, educating me on how to be the main character of my life. I scroll down to find a guy showing me how to dress up like an alpha; there is a girl on the next reel showing me ways to romanticise a morning routine, with already done hair and makeup. There are people, content creators, just everywhere on my Instagram, telling me why it’s not ok to live a simple, boring, well-hidden life, which sadly, I prefer.
As I kept on contemplating my aforementioned conversation with my cousin (yes, I think a lot, and yes, I have a lot of time on my hands to think), I realised that we are a lonely, just very lonely generation.
When we don’t have real friends to wish us on our birthday, we take our own picture in front of the standing mirror of our locked room, in the dress we bought and saved for some special day, and post it as ‘the birthday girl going out with her friends in the dress someone special gave to her’. When we don’t have any family to wake up with, we create reels of perfect slow morning routines, with sunlight on our face and a cup of green tea in our hand. The comments and likes keep coming in, but mind you, it will never fill the void that we were alone when we woke up, and we will be alone when we shall go to sleep.
Eventually, the audience becomes our ‘internet family’, and we deceive ourselves into thinking that at least we have someone, and we are not so alone anymore.
Nonetheless, we begin to perform for the approval of our new fake family.
When we are curating our own little world to show the real world, self-branding, as you may call it, we are putting a veil of romanticism and main character energy on our loneliness. This romanticism is a façade, and this main character energy is a synonym for self-centredness. There is nothing wrong with trying to think for yourself. We live in a world where the majority of our relationships will eventually disappoint us, often leaving us with only ourselves to take care of: However, there is a fine line between looking out for yourself and being apathetic about other people’s needs. The famous main character syndrome makes us cross this very fine line:
We are the centre of the universe, and everyone else is just helping us serve our purposes.
Not all content creators are selfish, and not everyone who posts fake birthday pictures is a lonely, self-centred person. However, such behaviours in their chronic run will lead to people who are alone, desperate for attention, and extremely self-serving. This trend is alarming.
Nonetheless, I will stop writing any further because I want to watch the new video my favourite vlogger just posted.