Everyone has a favorite movie, TV show or favorite character. For me it’s currently The Fallout (a thousand trigger warnings), Euphoria, and Caitlyn from Arcane (available on Netflix). We dress, act, and sometimes quote from these characters because they remind us of parts of ourselves. Whether it’s the parts we love most or the parts we would most like to change, everyone can personally relate to their “favorites” in some way. This relation to our favorite content is what I think was the original iteration of what now exists today: main character syndrome.
Culturally, we (mostly Gen Z) have evolved from identifying with specific characters from specific universes and now see ourselves as THE main character, the center of our own universe. Based off the culturally accepted idea of romanticizing our lives, main character syndrome functions on the belief that we are the main character of our life, no longer needing to live vicariously through these other main characters. No longer a side character in someone else’s story. An individual is deemed worthy or interesting enough to own the main narrative. An idea that surpasses the inequities in media representation, main character energy is available to anyone because it is a self-imposed and self-sustained belief. I think it’s a very exciting and empowering concept despite the egotistic undertones. Personally, it makes me feel in control, gives me greater confidence, and it challenges me to live more boldly, like a main character would.
However, like most things, there’s a positive and negative side to this phenomenon. I chose the word “syndrome” because it sounded menacing without being overtly negative. In its original application main character syndrome gets us to breakout of our comfort zones and seek extravagant memories. Memories that are Instagram worthy, ones that would make the final cut in the movie that is our life. But with the romanticization of the memorable comes the dissatisfaction with the expected and the day-to-day.
For example, I've been reading a lot of books and it feels like a spectrum where you progressively get more and more granular details about a character as you go from a movie to a tv show to a book. You wonder when do they have time to go to school? Did they have time to eat dinner that day? In a TV show you get a little bit more detail, sometimes they'll show them getting ready for bed, sometimes they'll show them taking a shower with no dialogue because it was important enough that the audience know that they’re clean now. But books are becoming my favorite because it gets the most granular, and you get to spend more time with and watching your favorite characters. Books still omit some of the routine and sometimes all you get is a summary paragraph just to say that nothing extraordinary happened because that time period wasn’t relevant enough to the plotline, so it got taken out. This is when main character syndrome creates resentment and restlessness around the “boring” parts, the parts that get left of out a main character’s narrative.
I personally struggle a lot with this restlessness, definitely exacerbated by COVID, but my mom will tell you that I was always been easily bored and constantly moving. I'm so excited to celebrate my main character moments but during those in between moments I'm often dreaming about the next big event. I fail or I forget to just enjoy living my life. I think it's this perspective that really drives some of the generational differences between Gen Z and everybody else. Living our youngest years during lockdowns with such high levels of uncertainty, sometimes the only thing that we could consistently do was dream. Gen Z is so focused on living these immaculate, grand lives that we’re always focused on grandeur and it’s affecting how we see our future. The things we buy, or want to buy, the experiences that we seek out, the places we dream of living in, the people that we want to hang out with. The things we post on social media are so often filtered, not just literally, but through this lens of, what deserves a spot in my main character narrative?
The reason why I'm writing all of this down and why this is my first blog post is that, in the span of about a week, multiple sources started to confirm this sort of revelation in my life. Not everything in life can be a movie-star-making, or main character, moment because they take time and energy. Achievers apply principles consistently that others apply occasionally. Consistent effort in the same direction will get you where you want to go. These could make great motivational plaques but when it comes down to it, we need routine and consistency. We need the boring stuff.
I genuinely love routine. When asked in job interviews how I handle change I always throw in a little caveat about how I can adapt to change because I maintain routine in other areas of my life. It’s a precarious balance but I always get it done. But sometimes I just get SO BORED. Hopefully others can relate to this, but when I graduated college a semester early and was flung into adult life, I realized I had nobody telling me what to do and when to do it. So much freedom, so much choice, yet I am so bored I decided to blog about it. I had lots of main character moments in 2021. I came out to my parents, I tried dating (that could be its own movie), I graduated college, and I started my first full-time job. So, as I wait around for my next main character moment, I’m learning to appreciate the day-to-day. My life doesn’t have to be an endless string of heart wrenching twists and turns. To be honest, when my life was that crazy it was exhausting. 2021 was the best and worst year of my life. I would much rather be the main character in a book than in a movie, the pacing just seems a lot more tolerable.
Overall, I think what it comes down to is that you can't think about your life as a movie. If you think about life as a movie, you reduce your existence to plot points and montages. Day-to-day predictability is literally spliced and diced into a sizzle reel, so audiences don’t lose focus. There's a book that I recently read, I really loved it, called The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth. The book follows two about to graduate seniors as they enter a relationship with a set end date and a goal to only have the positive moments, to only live out the “falling in love montage”. Ultimately, the book came to the conclusion that the montage is not practical because life can’t be controlled like that, to only keep the positive and to filter out the rest. I have some montages of my own, but they would be a lot less special if I didn’t have my normal day-to-day life to compare them to. Perception is relative and it’s all in your head, just like main character syndrome. Master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda (please allow me this childhood throwback) once said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present.” Don’t go searching for your next main character moment because there is something special to be found in each day. As main characters, we don’t need a single favorite movie or TV show, because why limit yourself? Find your favorite part of each day rather than waiting around for your favorite day.
I have so many other thoughts on this topic, but that seemed like a nice stopping point. I’ll see you next time!
Authentically,
Amy Chin
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