We were two glasses of orange wine deep when the admission finally came. “I want to be with someone whose entire focus isn’t their career,” my friend sighed, after spending the better part of our weekend lunch bemoaning his failed relationships. “I love it when people are ambitious,” he clarified. “But there needs to be an awareness that not everything is about professional success. That there are other, more important, things we should be paying attention to. Like just being around friends and going on trips. Isn’t that what it’s all for?’
His words rang through my head all day, like a Christmas song on repeat in a supermarket in November. As someone who considers themselves fairly career-driven, I definitely fall into the category of someone who pays significantly less attention to the other things in my life.
These other things – or the “what it’s all for” stuff – can be split into two sections. The major ones: birthday parties, festivals, weddings, road trips, holidays and so on. And the minor (but arguably more special) ones: drinking bad coffee in an unkempt Airbnb on a hangover and cackling with an old friend, poring over screenshots of texts some terrible man sent to your best mate, dancing till 2am in a tiny club surrounded by the sweaty bodies of strangers. Singing for no reason. Laughing with new colleagues. Crying with old ones. And so on.
It might sound a bit “manic pixie dream girl”, and maybe I am guilty of watching that video of Drew Barrymore in the rain too many times. But I’m not the only one subscribing to this feeling, one I can only describe as a compulsion to live for the small joys in life rather than always fixating on the big, often money-driven, successes.
I’m talking about the viral “almost forgot this was the whole point” trend that my friend accidentally summarised that afternoon. Earlier this year, seemingly apropos of nothing – as is the case with all viral trends – the caption started popping up on an array of clips across TikTok and Instagram, showing people doing everything from enjoying an iced coffee in the park to having lunch outside with their family. Others feature people cuddling their pets, playing with their children, jumping off boats into the sea, making delicious meals at home, and cycling through the woods. The stuff of life, basically.
Celebrities and meme lords alike have also been partaking. Last week, Emily Ratajkowski captioned a video of herself and her friends dancing on the beach with “almost forgot what it was all about”, while the Real Housewives of Clapton account shared a post with a series of summer essentials, ranging from baguettes and espressos to disposable cameras and Vogue cigarettes, writing alongside it: “Almost forgot that was the whole point.”
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The nauseatingly jolly song “Take My Hand” by Matt Berry seems to be a prevailing soundtrack for most of the clips. Some of them, in a bid to spread the message, carry the following instructions spelling out the whole idea: “Use a video of a time you felt alive (can be a video of you or just a place that made you feel good) and write ‘almost forgot this was the whole point’.” To date, there are more than 636,000 videos on TikTok using Berry’s song to do just that.
“I shared one myself,” says Suzy Reading, chartered psychologist at the British Psychological Society and author of Self-care for Tough Times. “It was the middle of half-term and in the midst of all the posts showing the exciting things everyone else is doing, I wanted to share a reminder that simple and free things count because I found it reassuring, and I hoped other parents might appreciate a compassionate reminder.”
It’s all incredibly well-intentioned, almost to the point of being saccharine. But the more videos I saw of this ilk, the more I found myself questioning where this compulsion comes from. Why have so many of us forgotten what it was all about to start with? Are we all really so siloed and detached from real-life pleasures that we need to remind ourselves to enjoy them? And is the best way to do that by, erm, posting a video on social media?
“It speaks to how distracted we are, how pushed and pulled by modern life, and the trappings of what we are led to believe we need to be and do and have to be worthy human beings,” explains Reading. “It suggests that we need these reminders to help disentangle ourselves from the hustle culture, from relentless consumerism, and toxic comparison. People need reminders that they are enough and that it is OK to slow down. Many people feel they need permission to relax, rest and prioritise their joy.”
It speaks to how distracted we are, how pushed and pulled by modern life, and the trappings of what we are led to believe we need to be and do and have to be worthy human beings
Suzy Reading, chartered psychologist at the British Psychological Society
From a psychological perspective, Reading doesn’t find this depressing so much as sobering. The trend has forced us all to take stock and reflect on the reasons why we have forgotten “what it’s all about”. “I think it’s more to do with being caught up in comparison and then the guilt or perceived feeling of lack when it comes to our own lives, or feeling like our worth is conflated with productivity and there isn’t time to down tools,” she says.
Of course, what is less helpful are those users jumping on the bandwagon with more nefarious incentives – I’ve seen several clips from TikTokers trying to sell various products under the guise of a video as part of the trend. But for the most part, this is probably a positive step, one that serves as a refreshing antidote to so much of the inauthenticity we see online. The 12-step makeup tutorials. The staged proposals on clifftops at sunset. The toothpaste ads. You get the idea.
But generally speaking, perhaps rather than sneering – as I am always inclined to do at any TikTok trend – these are the kinds of videos we should all be consuming online. They’re certainly more uplifting and inspiring than the litany of “what I eat for a day” videos that inexplicably dominate my Explore page – for whatever reason, it’s either that, weird cats, or clips of Dua Lipa and Callum Turner snogging. The key, says Reading, is what we do after we’ve watched the videos. “If the trend is used positively and helps people soften into a place of self-compassion, then the job is done,” she says. “Especially if they then put their phones down.”
#uncomfortable #truth #viral #forgot #point #trend
