The Camera: Is the ordinary really ordinary? by Hebe Han

What is the most powerful part of social influencers? Not makeup tutorials, not skincare routines, nor those food vlog videos, showing portions so tiny and delicate as laboratory samples. Their real ability is to convince people that being ordinary is a flaw and even a failure.
Imagine this: Now it is 11:45 p.m, and you are lying in bed, telling yourself to just scroll on TikTok for five minutes to relax. Three hours later, you have been completely defeated by a seventeen year old girl. In her vlog, she wakes up at five in the morning, drinks chlorophyll water, writes a diary under the beige light, goes to Pilates, eats avocado toast that looks AI generated, and labels her entire lifestyle as a “healing girl era”. Meanwhile, you sit on the bed wearing a hoodie that hasn’t been washed for three days, clutching a box of cookies, looking like a homeless person.
Then suddenly, you start to feel that your entire life is a failure, falling into the endless regret in this endless night. Perhaps, this is the most powerful part of social influencers.
In the past, we used to compare ourselves with celebrities, but that never felt completely absurd and outrageous. After all, celebrities lived in Hollywood mansions, wore precious diamond jewelries, and dressed in fancy gowns that are probably more expensive than our salary. That distance actually kept us grounded. Now, a person of your age can tell you in front of the camera, “actually, you can have such a life too.” She smiles as if she has just been kissed by the sunlight, her room looks as clean as an IKEA model room, and even the tone of her speech has been rehearsed in advance. Then you look down at the instant noodles on your desk and the clothes that haven’t been folded for a week. Suddenly, you feel that your life is like a summer afternoon rain, damp and filled with the lingering smell of dirt.
According to the Pew Research Center, 48% of teenagers believe that social media has a negative impact on people of their age group, but this number was only 32% in 2022. Even more terrifying is that 45% of teens think they spend “too much time” on social media. Everyone was scrolling while feeling anxious and kept scrolling…… In addition, according to the American Psychological Association, reducing social media usage by 50% in just a few weeks can significantly improve teenager’s satisfaction with their appearance and body. That is to say, many people’s insecurity did not appear out of nowhere; it is more like being gradually fed up by the “social trends”.
Sadly, this anxiety is not even as intense as an exam. Instead, it is more like chronic poisoning. You won’t suddenly break down, but you will start to feel: your face is not delicate enough. My life is not productive enough. My room is not comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Even drinking bubble tea has a sense of guilt like “should I order Americano instead?”
Imagine this. You took a selfie. It’s actually quite normal and good. The lighting is perfect and you haven’t picked the wrong top. But you still spent thirty minutes editing it, putting it through an industrial production life of smoothing, brightening and reshaping. In the end, you never upload it at all. Not because the photo is ugly, but because you think: “ Will others think I’m pretty enough?” This is no longer about confidence. This is a digital survival instinct.
The most ironic aspect of the current influencer culture is that it always pretends to be “encouraging you to love yourself.” But in fact, what it relies on is constantly reminding you: you are not good enough. Because if everyone is truly satisfied with themselves, then who will buy that bottle of essence that gives you flawless skin anyways? Even more absurdly, nowadays relaxing has become a competition. In the past, when people were tired, they simply lay down and rested. Now, when people are exhausted, they first set up their phones and film a GRWM( get ready with me). Taking a bath, candles, face masks, soft jazz in the background… It seems that if you don’t edit your breakdown into a montage, your metal state is not considered advanced.
But is this still life? Since when did it seem that we have been performing to be alive? So we begin to fear “ordinariness”. An ordinary face, ordinary grades, and ordinary life. However, most people in the world are just ordinary people. Not everyone needs to go jogging at five in the morning, read a hundred pages of books every day, drink green avocado smoothies, manage three different careers, while maintaining a stable mood. Since when did we need to constantly “update” ourselves?
Perhaps, the most successful aspect of social influencers is that they make the entire generation feel that rest is laziness, ordinary is failure, and “not living life like a movie” is a problem that needs to be fixed. So the next time when you start to doubt yourself late at night because of someone who lives in Beverly hills and makes money by shooting Vlogs, remember one thing: you have not failed. You just haven’t lived your life as advertising something.