I will admit it. I am someone who loves things that look cute. I love a good matcha, a Target run and the small satisfaction of putting together a space that feels visually pleasing. There is something comforting about a clean desk, a color coordinated shelf or a room that feels put together. But recently I started wondering when the desire for a nice space turned into the pressure for everything to be aesthetic.
Spend five minutes on TikTok and suddenly your apartment, your dishes and even your toothbrush feel like they are failing some invisible design test. The algorithm is full of perfectly styled bedrooms, beige bouclé chairs, acrylic makeup organizers and kitchens that look like they were designed specifically for a “get ready with me” video. It starts to feel like adulthood is not about stability, relationships or figuring out who you are. Instead it feels like a checklist of products you are supposed to own.
For a lot of college students, that pressure hits at the worst possible time. Most of us are living with roommates, hand me down furniture, and whatever random décor we could find at Target during move in week. Our apartments are not minimal Pinterest dream spaces. They are lived in. There are laundry piles, mismatched plates, and posters taped to the wall because we are not allowed to use nails.
But when you scroll long enough, it starts to mess with your perception. Suddenly the white refrigerator in your apartment feels embarrassing, your couch that came from Facebook Marketplace feels wrong and your space starts to feel like a before photo waiting to be fixed.
The strange part is that many of the spaces we see online are not even real everyday homes. Influencers often film in luxury apartments, Airbnbs or staged rooms that exist mostly as content backdrops. The goal is not to show real life, instead, the goal is to sell a lifestyle that looks polished enough for the internet.
That lifestyle usually comes with an endless cycle of buying things. New décor for fall, a spring apartment reset, a kitchen restock video or another HomeGoods haul. None of these purchases are necessarily bad on their own, but together they create the idea that our homes should constantly evolve with trends.
At some point the aesthetic stops being personal expression and starts becoming performance.
It is easy to forget that a home is supposed to be functional first. It is where we sleep after late night study sessions, where we cook quick meals between classes and where we decompress after a long week. It is not supposed to feel like a set for a TikTok video.
Personal style, whether it is fashion or home décor, usually develops slowly. It comes from the objects we keep, the memories attached to them and the things that genuinely make us feel comfortable. That process cannot happen if we are constantly replacing everything with whatever trend is currently circulating online.
Liking beautiful things is not the problem or wanting a cozy space is not shallow or materialistic. The issue starts when the internet convinces us that our lives need to look curated at all times.
Your apartment does not need to look like a Pinterest board, your kitchen does not need matching containers and your room does not have to pass an aesthetic check to be good enough.
Sometimes a home is just a place filled with things you actually use. And honestly, that might be the most authentic aesthetic of all.