If you’re like me, then lately your social media feeds have been filled with creators showing their lives – “spend a day with me,” they caption it, usually followed by their occupation and/or location. For example, “Spend a Day with Me as a Model in New York City,” or “My Morning Routine as a Student at Harvard,” and so on. Almost always, the video is fast-paced and yet well-edited, showing flashes of their daily routine accompanied by a voiceover explaining each little clip.
One such video might go like this – a conventionally attractive content creator wakes up, gracefully stretches (you know the cliché), and then immediately gets up and makes her bed. She pulls out a journal to write her morning affirmations, before going to wash her face and complete her skincare routine (which involves at least five overpriced products). Afterwards, she heads to the kitchen to eat a nutritious breakfast (usually some variation of toast with eggs and/or avocado) with an artfully crafted iced coffee. Then, she heads to the gym to do a full-body workout (she’s not even sweating?), before going back home to shower and finally get ready for the day. And somehow, they do all of it before 8 AM. I read the comments on these videos, and unsurprisingly, most of them are in awe. “How do you do all of that so early in the morning?” someone asks. “It would take me a week to do what you get done in one morning,” another remarks. We all seem to collectively wonder – how do they do it?
Though these videos are usually advertised as their completely normal daily routine, let’s be honest – this is social media we’re talking about. Each clip, sometimes less than a second in length, will have been perfectly posed, performed, and edited to show exactly what the creator wants to show. If us viewers can agree that this is the life and level of discipline we aspire to have, then surely, it’s not impossible to think that these creators might have the same desires, and opt to show the best possible version of their daily routine – rather than the one that perhaps is most accurate.
Maybe it’s time to consider the possibility that these videos seem so unrealistic because they simply are so unrealistic. Unfortunately, realism doesn’t quite garner as many views, and so while there are realistic versions of these videos out there, they don’t usually end up on your feed. A realistic daily routine posted by your average social media user probably isn’t as glamorous as the ones posted by popular content creators with money and time to spare. So why are we so attracted to these videos if we can’t relate to them at all? Well, these videos are undeniably satisfying to watch – we get to see the lives we all aspire to have. A life in which we wake up early without setting ten alarms and actually accomplish everything on our to-do lists.
While it’s not so harmful to use these videos as inspiration or motivation, it can definitely be harmful to think that the majority of people online are genuinely living such polished lives. If all we see on social media is highly edited and aestheticized representations of peoples’ lives, then it’s unsurprising that we find ourselves beginning to believe it’s the standard and feeling inferior in comparison. Not to mention how these videos disproportionately affect women – I’ve seen one too many comments that say something along the lines of “I don’t think I’m girling right”. Even those of us who recognize how unrealistic these videos are can sometimes still struggle to not feel guilty that we aren’t being as productive, as organized, as put together as these creators online.
So, is it actually possible to have a daily routine like the ones we tend to see on social media? Maybe it is – but it certainly isn’t as common as social media makes it seem. So next time you see a daily routine video on social media, remember that it’s probably not real, and “having your life together” is little more than a well-edited myth.