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Somewhere on a train right now, someone is staring out the window like they’re in the final act of a coming-of-age film. The sun hits just right, the breath fogs the glass, and the phone camera is angled discreetly, timed with a soft indie track playing through cheap earbuds. A few seats away, another person is recording their iced coffee like it’s a pivotal prop in a life-changing scene. None of it is surprising anymore. In fact, the internet has already named it: Main Character Syndrome the feeling that you’re the star of the movie and everyone else is drifting in to decorate your storyline.

It started as a joke. A meme. Something people said when someone was acting overly dramatic or self-absorbed. But like most things online, it mutated. The joke became a trend, and the trend quietly slid into an identity. And suddenly, people weren’t laughing at it they were embracing it, narrating their lives in cinematic fragments, as if the world around them existed to be filmed.

But this whole phenomenon didn’t grow in a vacuum. It grew in a culture that has spent years teaching people to look at themselves, polish themselves, package themselves, and present themselves sometimes more than they actually live.

A Culture That Trains Us to See Ourselves as the Lead

If you zoom out for a moment, it almost feels obvious. Everywhere you look, the world keeps handing people the spotlight. Your feed is tailored to you. Your ads follow your desires. Your apps remember what you prefer, what you fear, what you want. Even the language we use now “my truth,” “my self-care,” “my journey” centers the self as the axis around which everything spins.

So when someone films themselves walking down a street to an emotional soundtrack, it’s not necessarily vanity. It’s an instinct born from living in a digital environment that keeps whispering, “You’re the main character. Act like it.”

And people did.

The Pandemic: When Everyone Needed a Story

During the lockdown years, TikTok became the escape hatch for millions. Days blurred together. The world’s emotional landscape collapsed into uncertainty. But the app offered something unusual a sense of narrative. A sense of chapters. A sense of movement.

Young people stuck inside started filming themselves doing ordinary things: making oatmeal, biking alone, sitting on rooftops, brushing their hair to the soft hum of a trending audio clip.

These weren’t attempts to brag. They were attempts to feel alive. To find meaning when everything felt flat.

Suddenly, calling yourself the “main character” didn’t sound ridiculous. It sounded like survival.

The Thin Line Between Romanticizing and Distorting

Of course, the internet doesn’t let anything stay pure. The moment the trend became popular, the criticisms followed. Comment sections filled with snark:

“Pls, this girl thinks she’s in a Netflix series.”
“Imagine being this obsessed with yourself.”
“You’re not the main character, babe. Your background.”

Harsh, but telling. It revealed a cultural irritation people felt that the trend encouraged self-importance. That it pushed vanity disguised as empowerment. That it asked people to center themselves so hard, they’d forget the world doesn’t orbit around their playlists and heartbreak arcs.

And yet… that’s only one side of the story.

For Some People, Being the Main Character Is Healing

There’s a quieter group who embraced the trend for a completely different reason. These were people who never felt seen. Kids who grew up shrinking themselves. Adults who survived controlling families, emotionally draining relationships, or years of insecurity. For them, this wasn’t a performance it was a way to reclaim space in their own life.

It was less “I’m better than everyone” and more “I matter too.”

A college student recovering from burnout might film her “soft girl healing morning.” A girl finally escaping a toxic partner might call this her “new season.” Someone grieving might film sunsets because it feels like closure. And honestly, who could blame them? Humans tell stories to survive. And sometimes the easiest way to heal is to imagine your life has chapters worth finishing.

So while part of the trend is undeniably narcissistic, another part speaks to a generation trying desperately to feel in control of their own narrative.

Case Study: The TikTok Cinematic Universe of Ordinary Life

TikTok has essentially become the world’s biggest film studio for everyday people. A single audio clip can launch an entire aesthetic wave—thousands of micro-narratives stitched together by strangers who never meet.

Take the “romanticize your life” trend that flooded the platform. Videos showed simple moments:

  • a girl reading at a park bench
  • a guy riding his bicycle through Manila traffic at golden hour
  • someone washing strawberries and making them look like an emotional ritual

These clips weren’t exceptional. They were compelling precisely because they weren’t.

There was also the viral line, “Girls don’t want a boyfriend, girls want a storyline,” which turned into a comedic exaggeration of heartbreaks and life crises. People reenacted arguments as if a camera crew were watching. They played out love scenes alone in their bedrooms. It was satire, but also a kind of emotional rehearsal space people preparing themselves for the lives they wished they were brave enough to walk into.

Then came the more polished movements “That Girl,” “Clean Girl Aesthetic,” “Pinterest Morning Routine” all trying to create the perfect protagonist. These weren’t just videos; they became templates for how young women believed the “ideal main character” should live: tidy, toned, organized, aesthetically pleasing, fit, emotionally balanced. Of course, real life doesn’t look like that for long. But it shows how the syndrome also helps shape impossible expectations.

Behind the views and likes is something measurable: analysts noticed that lifestyle-cinematic content consistently holds one of the highest engagement rates among TikTok’s Gen Z audience. There is something about a life framed like a movie that people can’t stop watching—and can’t stop imitating.

Is Main Character Syndrome a Problem? Or a Warning?

It’s easy to mock the trend. It’s much harder to see why it exists.

People feel lonelier than ever. Social circles are smaller. Digital spaces replace real ones. And when everyone is forced to present themselves online in polished, digestible fragments, it’s only natural to slip into a character.

So maybe Main Character Syndrome isn’t the cultural downfall people claim. Maybe it’s a sign of a deeper problem: a society that gives people attention but not connection, visibility but not intimacy, creative outlets but not community. When you don’t feel like anyone else is paying attention, you start performing for yourself.

The problem isn’t that people want to be the main character.

It’s that they don’t know how else to feel real.

What Happens Next?

Interestingly, there’s already a shift happening. While the early stages of the trend were all about being polished and cinematic, younger creators are now leaning into the opposite: messy, chaotic, unedited moments. They’re rejecting the glossy protagonist ideal for something less flattering but much more honest.

This new wave says:

  • You can be the main character even if your room isn’t spotless.
  • Even if your life isn’t aesthetic.
  • Even if your story is uncomfortable or complicated.

And strangely enough, this version feels far healthier. It gives room for people to exist without pretending life is a film. It reframes Main Character Syndrome from a performance into a perspective: you matter even when no one is watching.

Maybe that’s all people were trying to say from the beginning.

References

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