Is YouTube Pressuring you to be something you’re not?

“I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturiser, then an anti-ageing eye balm followed by a final moisturising protective lotion.”

Does this sound familiar? Personally I think it sounds like every blog on the market today, but no it’s an excerpt from the psychological thriller American Psycho.

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.

This is what all the blogs sound like now! But you know what I want to read? FUCK I woke up late and now I’ve forgot to wash my face! At the minute I am struggling! But what I don’t need is a bunch of YouTube guru’s telling me how I should “Just get out of bed at 5am” and do fucking YOGA before a balanced breakfast of poached egg and salmon. Like Get a grip, I’m gonna get dressed, have a bowl of Aldi (UK budget supermarket) cheapo puffs and put my hair up and go.

Show me Relatable!

Don’t have any other commitments

Most of the people who are blogging and vlogging their way to success don’t have full time jobs so they can cram as many ROUTINES into their life as possible, also the YouTubers I watch most don’t have boyfriends either. Or their boyfriends help them with editing their videos. Sorry Jamie Genevieve I love ya girl but you ain’t relatable any more, even though I will continue to follow you. It’s brilliant when you have a camera man that you pay in sex.

UN-Relatable Content

I once watched a vlog and the girl woke- on a weekday- at 8:45am- WTF! Us full time working humans don’t have time to do that, we have to be at work! Like can someone show me a morning vlog where they wake up in the morning, get dressed, wash their face and brush their teeth and put their hair up, put nooooo makeup on and head out of the door to their bus? Can anyone show me that?

No they can’t because there are no products in that to sell and YouTube has just become a massive advert! We are creating content for big companies who benefit off of us and we become the narrative they wanna push, we kill ourselves to become their target audience because it’s monetary incentivizing to do that! Give me a YouTube video that shows you makeup but doesn’t mention any brand names! Just colour and technique. Like what Pixiwoo used to do! Or Plzlilmissgrace. Or even Chloe Morello’s old stuff before she had her lips done. I miss the Jenna Marbles of the YouTube world, heck even Freelee the banana girl who at least had some real world feel to her videos.

Real World Beauty

I would like to see a YouTuber that uses the same foundation and concealer in EVERY video, and doesn’t call the millionth one they have tried this month “Their Go-To” because they have used it three times in a row. My favourite foundation is MAC face and Body! I love it because its light! I get a few shades darker to give me a bit of colour. But if I did YouTube videos I would be accused of being boring because it would be the one thing I wouldn’t mix out. Blushes and highlighters, yeah by all means, even eye shadows but what is the fucking deal with calling every foundation you own in your arsenal your favourite. Stop it.

Young and inexperienced Creators

Also a lot of YouTuber’s, the new up and coming ones, are still living with their parents, I was of last month but I was the breadwinner in the house and I did most of the housework, like show me a woman and not a girl. Show me a woman walking in after work, going straight to the kitchen and making some fucking food for her and her partner/pet, (or children) and then making pack up for her and her fella for work the next day. SHOW ME that!

Disrespectful Creators

I’ll make it myself if I cannot find it, but don’t be alarmed at what I look like because I would love to make YouTube videos for content that is actually relatable to the working woman, like Lucy Jessica Carter who makes good content and she isn’t primarily selling me shit, she just buys it for herself and then presents it to me. Her best video by far has to be her Most recent School Morning Routine with Rebecca Lam. These are the kind of YouTuber’s I like. Not Jeffery star, the fact that he can chop up a handbag that is worth more than my most expensive possession (my car) is downright disrespectful.

Advert, Advert, Advert

All the other YouTubers who are plugging products at every available opportunity do my head in (James Charles, I’m looking at you, also please stop calling me your sister), but who I care for in all this, is the teenager who thinks they can live off 6 hours sleep because they need a 4 hour skincare regime when all they need is more sleep. I care for the teenager who is gushing over Kylie Jenner and yoga models who tell you that you need to take vitamins that cost the earth, you need to do 3 hours of yoga at 4am and this £30 foundation will make you a supermodel.

Well all you really need to be in life is warm, clean and happy. The pressure to look good is exemplified on social media and especially YouTube. Because they have made their life an advert for happiness, when all they are are cosmetic companies bitches, do you think Jeffery Star would be as rich as he is now if the first video he did was “buy this and it will make you” this? No he started off with pink eyebrows that were too close together and a 5 o clock shadow under that WHITE foundation.

Minimal branding, it was technique and colour, and now he’s talking about anal beeds, stoned off his tits, and tryna sell me something I cannot afford while he sits in his mansion with his furry children.

Like come on dude, who are you for if not for yourself? #

I don’t watch his video’s and think he actually cares about if this makeup is good for someone like me, I think he thinks “Georgio Armani are paying 3p per view of this biased review so I’m gonna lick it’s asshole”. That is what I think about Jeffrey Star. If you are his army and reading this, come for me.

All this Pressure

But I fall for it, when I’m struggling to get my morning routine going, where do I turn? YouTube, but according to the creators in a week I’m supposed to have:

7 hours sleep per night, yet get up at 5am (so a 10pm bedtime)

Do yoga (30mins), meal prep for the day (30mins) and bullet journal my goals for 2019 (30mins).

Makeup routine 15 mins minimum using 26 steps.

So we’re at 6:45am now, my bus comes in 15 mins, you telling me I can get dressed, I’ve forgot my hair- obviously no time- pack my bag and get out the door in 15 mins- CALMLY?

Like these people don’t have real world Jobs. So then I’m at work and I finish at 4. My bus comes at 4:15 and I get home for 4:55 this is on a good bus day, some times I don’t get home till 5:20.

Now I leave the cooking up to my partner, they are soooo much better at it than me! I burn things and I don’t get my timings right! But what I do do is laundry, I tidy, I fekkle the house and put things away.

But YouTube wants me to:
Speed Clean my house- which if you have ever tried to do your whole house it usually takes at minimum 3 hours.We’re at 8:30

I need a shower now because speed cleaning IS A WORKOUT but during and after this YouTube wants me to:

Moisturise, body buff, exfoliate, Fake Tan, which is gonna take roughly 45mins on fast, an hour on normal, now its time for skincare that has been derived from the seaman of a very happy and peaceful orangutan who gave it voluntarily because you know- animal rights-and has 15 bottles of serums and slug juice and all kinds of shit 90’s women knew fuck all about, this is gonna take you 30mins.
We’re at 9:45

So while my partner has been cooking, I have spent 1 hour and 15 mins preening myself and my food has gone cold, what an inconsiderate bitch I am. I’ve got 15 mins before I go to sleep. HOW the FUCK do you do ALL that?
I have watched 0 TV, which I like to do because of self care, I like to relax and just calm down.

You know the highlights of my day has been work, because at the minute I have very little to do.