The ordinariness of A Day in the Life
I’ll admit this right at the start: I love TikTok.
I was a fairly late adopter; I’ve been using it for less than a year. Since then it’s become my favourite social media platform, much to my surprise. YouTube passed me by for the most part: I occasionally use it to watch movie trailers or look up a specific DIY tutorial, but I don’t check it regularly or subscribe to any creators. I didn’t get into Vine either, back when that was around, and so I imagined that I just wasn’t into video, preferring platforms that supported the written word. I went from MySpace (when I was a teenage musician) to Facebook, and there I stayed, with the occasional dabble in Instagram and a brief period half-heartedly using Snapchat.
This is not about TikTok but it is about a thing on TikTok.
I was under the illusion that TikTok was just teenagers dancing, but even if that’s how it started, it certainly isn’t that way anymore. The algorithm is finely tuned and quickly figures out what you want to see, and while yes, there are concerning aspects to this, I appreciate it. I mostly see the following types of content: books, writing, home decor, funny or heartfelt stories, ADHD stuff, and fat fashion. Mostly by women creators. My 12 year old son’s TikTok feed is mostly video games, anime, and memes complaining about school. We occasionally watch TikTok over each other’s shoulders, and are both equally bored by the other’s feed.
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One of my favourite types of content is Day in the Life videos. This is something that doesn’t translate well in writing. I promise to never send you a newsletter that states that I woke up in the morning, had a coffee and made myself breakfast, had a shower, got dressed, caught the train to work, got my eyebrows done on my lunch break, it was a cloudy day, I went home, cooked dinner, did some writing, hung out with my dog while watching Netflix, and read a book before going to sleep. Sure, Michael Chabon or some other literary genius could write that in a compelling way, but even he couldn’t write it multiple times, without drama, and hold people’s interest. I wouldn’t read it.
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Yet I will almost always watch people’s Day in the Life TikToks if they come up on my feed. There is no drama. They are the most humble of videos. An average day in the life of an ordinary person. I don’t learn anything in particular from them, and they’re not there to teach me. It feels as though they show a slice of a human simply existing (though I acknowledge that effort goes into making them because most of us don’t have cameras following us around as we simply exist).
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Social media infamously shows us the most glamorous or interesting parts of other people’s lives. It feels accessible and genuine to a certain extent, even as we remind ourselves that it’s not. Feeds are curated and photoshopped, images and words carefully chosen to portray a specific story or vibe that we want people to believe about us. It’s aspirational at best and dangerous at worst, and the downsides of those cultivated feeds have long been recognised.
The gloss and glamour of influencers holds less appeal for many of us. Although we are more cynical and those lifestyles are less aspirational, our fundamental need for connection remains, and this is where Day in the Life videos step in.
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If you haven’t seen them, I cannot overemphasise how ordinary they are. The only thin link to story is that they start at the beginning of the day, and finish at the end of the day. They show people getting out of bed, preparing food, and brushing their teeth. Why am I watching a video of someone brushing their teeth? Typical shots include things like sitting on a couch reading or drinking coffee, walking to work, playing with pets, sitting at a desk typing on a computer. Often they are beautifully filmed. And of course, the getting out of bed shots are totally fake: you have to get up first to set up the camera to film yourself getting out of bed for the second time. And of course, they are still a specific type of content that is curated, because they are seconds-long shots compiled to form a short video, when a real day is many hours and generally more busy-ness and chaos than is published. Some feel less genuine and more showing off.
And yet.
There is something so relaxing about them. Day in the Life videos reflect our own lives back to ourselves, in a calm manner. They are relatable. We don’t all go to glamorous parties or take beach holidays like lifestyle influencers - certainly not frequently. But we all get up and brush our teeth - at least most mornings. Sometimes people share things like how much they spent in a day, and I appreciate the trend towards openness around money. Some show the life of an office worker, some are students, or new mums, or people living outside their home country.
It’s hard to know what authenticity truly means on the internet, because every thing a creator posts is a choice made about a moment captured. Where does the real version of me start and where does the online version of me end, and is there much of a difference anymore? But one of the things I like about TikTok is how many people I see showing up as their messy, imperfect selves, living ordinary lives. It helps validate my own ordinary existence.