Is main character syndrome killing us softly?

From walking like you're in a music video to pretending your heartbreak has Oscar-worthy potential, main character energy is everywhere. But when your aesthetic life clashes with actual responsibilities, can romanticising your existence turn toxic?

You’re staring out the train window. It’s raining. You’ve got a perfectly curated playlist blasting through your earphones. You imagine someone—anyone—watching this like a film. That, right there, is main character syndrome: Gen Z’s favourite coping mechanism and personal branding strategy rolled into one. On social media, everyone’s the protagonist; dressing like they're in a Sofia Coppola scene, captioning their life with Lana Del Rey lyrics, and turning even grocery store runs into cinematic moments. But beneath the soft-filtered fantasy lies a quiet exhaustion. After all, when every moment needs to be meaningful, aesthetic, and emotionally resonant is there any room left to just be? Because chasing main character energy 24/7 might look dreamy—but here's why it could be draining you out.

Romanticising reality or escaping It?

Romanticising your life is supposed to be healing. In fact, TikTok therapists often recommend it—as a tool for mindfulness and finding beauty in the mundane. There’s something empowering about reclaiming the narrative, especially when you’ve grown up watching flawed but fascinating female leads like Fleabag, Lady Bird, or Rue from Euphoria. But when everything is a performance—a stylised post, a filmed breakdown, a perfectly lit breakfast—the line between self-expression and self-delusion starts to blur.

Main character syndrome, at its core, is about constructing a personal myth—one where you are the centre of the story and everything else is a backdrop. That can be uplifting, but it can also be incredibly isolating. Because you have to ask yourself, if you’re always performing, who are you when no one’s watching?

To add to that the pressure to constantly document your life, not just live it, and it becomes exhausting. Are you sad or just performing sadness with Lana Del Rey playing in the background? Are you genuinely growing or just capturing a glow-up arc for your followers? Even vulnerability starts to feel like content.

It doesn’t help that social media algorithms reward aestheticised chaos. The more “real” you are (as in, crying with good lighting or posting unhinged Notes app rants), the more engagement you get. Performative authenticity becomes a brand. And when authenticity itself is a marketing tool, it’s easy to lose sight of who you actually are off-screen.

The trap of performing growth

There’s a difference between styling your life and staging it. There’s beauty in finding small moments of meaning—a good coffee, a walk with music, a cry on a Tuesday night. But when we feel pressured to make every moment shareable, we miss out on actually living it. You don’t have to turn your heartbreak into an aesthetic for it to be valid. You don’t have to look beautiful when you’re sad.

So how do we get out?

Start by asking: who are you when there’s no camera? What brings you peace that doesn’t need posting? Reclaim the cinematic moments—not for your followers, but for yourself. Romanticising life doesn’t need a soundtrack or a ring light. It just needs presence.

The truth is, we’re all side characters in someone else’s story, villains in others, and background noise to most. Being the main character isn’t about being watched—it’s about showing up for yourself, off-screen, unfiltered, and unapologetically real.

Lead image: yeh jawaani hai deewani, imdb

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