Main Character Energy
The power of stories, including the one we tell ourselves.
Some time last month, I returned from a trip to Sydney and drove down the driveway to my family home. The lights were on but the door was shut. I parked, turned off the ignition, and stepped out of the car to see my mother, father, sister and her boyfriend standing on the porch. The dog sat in between them with a look my father hadn’t seen before. I tackled the dog to the ground and lay on my back as she licked my face. Everyone laughed and I was home. There are certain moments in life that feel like scenes in a story far bigger than our own. I have recently experienced two, and that was one of them. The second hasn’t ended yet. When I returned home earlier this year, my best friend from high school moved back to South Australia. She had finished studying medicine in Perth and was put on a three month placement at the Victor Harbor hospital. Two friends who haven’t seen each other for more than three years have found themselves - and each other - in this small town again. We have walked and gone to dinner and gone on road trips and grown closer. Our coincidental reunion has felt less like reality and more like the opening scene in a novel.
We’ve long known that life - or the truth - is often stranger than fiction, but over the past year we seem to have embraced this trope more than ever. ‘Main Character Energy’ and ‘Main Character Syndrome’ are now terms used to describe a situation in which a person makes themselves the crux of a narrative or the centre of attention. In other words, they act like their life is a film in which they play the lead role. This ‘main character’ archetype has proliferated on the internet over the past year, and become part of our online and offline vernacular. As Kyle Chayka noted in The New Yorker recently, “the term can be used appreciatively, acknowledging a form of self-care—putting yourself first—or as an accusation, a calling out of narcissism: a person dressing too extravagantly for a casual event, for example, is trying to be the main character.”
This ‘main character’ archetype emerged on TikTok in May 2020, when the user ‘ramsey’ - also known as @lexaprolesbian - posted one of the first ‘main character’ memes. In the video, she walks through her neighbourhood “to remind everyone in my neighbourhood that I’m the main character in this neighbourhood.” She wants you to look at her shoes, then her socks. She picks a flower and lays in the middle of the road. “Give me attention, maybe, or don’t, or please do,” she sings. Two weeks after this post went viral, Ashley Ward, a 26-year-old associate director posted a video of herself laying on a beach. A melodic tune played in the background and Ward’s monologue began: “You have to start romanticising your life. You have to start thinking of yourself as the main character, ‘cause if you don’t life will continue to pass you by and all the little things that make it so beautiful will continue to go unnoticed.” Since then, these videos have been viewed more than three million times and the #maincharacter hashtag has been used more than 5.5 billion.
While TikTok has been credited as the platform giving rise to Main Character Syndrome, social media and reality television have been preparing us for this moment since the early ‘90s. The architecture of the internet is based entirely around the self. Everything we consume is directed by our own viewpoint. We search for the news we desire and eventually an algorithm feeds it back to us. After enough time, why wouldn’t you think your lens is the one that matters? And while it could be argued that the pandemic has made us less self-centred and more aware of the seven billion other people we share the world with, many argue the current climate has created the perfect storm for Main Character Syndrome to flourish.
Joan Didion famously wrote that ‘we tell ourselves stories in order to live’. Didion was writing about denial, of course, but today she could have been writing about Main Character Syndrome. In the pandemic, it has become both a means of survival and a social reflex. We were shown how insignificant our lives were and we were also shown the fragility of life itself. So we began to enjoy the small things and, in turn, made our internal worlds bigger. Diving into the ocean felt like ecstasy. A smile from a stranger felt more like a ‘meet cute’ in a romantic comedy. We’ve been so understimulated, a dog and a few family members greeting us on the porch now screams ‘Wes Anderson scene’ more than ‘Regular Sunday’. So where is the line between appreciating your life and believing that you are at the centre of it? Where does relishing a moment bleed into narcissism? What’s the difference between feeling alive and believing all life revolves around you?
Theory of mind is a psychological term used to describe our ability to read and understand the desires and intentions of others through their actions. As developmental psychologist Uta Frith has said, “it’s really intended to refer to the ability that we all have - we human beings - to understand other human beings. Not in terms of how they behave… but in terms of what they feel. It’s as if we [have] an invisible GPS in our brain which navigates us around the social world, what other people do, without us even thinking about it.” Theory of mind has been studied by psychologists since the early 1980s, but in the early 2000s Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, made the connection between theory of mind and fictional stories and narratives. In several studies, Mar discovered that when artists create narratives, they also create this invisible kind of map that details people’s intentions. These intentions are intimately and unconsciously understood by the reader, viewer, or listener. So, when we watch films and read books and listen to music, we’re not just following the situations the main character finds themselves in, but connecting with something bigger. We’re connecting with their fears and passions and losses and regrets. We don’t just see the story through, but feel it all along the way. Through this, we learn to navigate our own lives better.
This is why we’re often drawn to stories where the main character lives like us, or is going through a tragedy similar to our own. This is, perhaps, why I watched Celeste and Jesse Forever approximately 17 times when I was going through a breakup earlier this year. We’re all subconsciously sitting here, invisible pen and paper in hand, learning how to do life better. As Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, wrote, fiction “is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky... Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, some novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.” In two studies published in the early 2000s, Oatley and Mar - along with their colleagues - revealed that people who regularly read fiction are better able to understand and empathise with others. When we expose ourselves to a wide range of narratives, we don’t just meet more characters. We walk in more shoes.
Stories have an incredible capacity to alter the way we see the world. They illuminate truths in our everyday realities and occasionally instruct us as we take our next step forward. In terms of playing the main character in our own lives, I don’t know where gratitude ends and an inflated ego begins. I don’t know where appreciation for a moment turns into believing the world revolves around you. That line is as grey as it is obscure. Perhaps it has something to do with our internal and external worlds. Appreciating is one thing, relentless projection on social media is another. Or maybe not. Regardless, improving our theory of mind by paying attention to other main characters - the ones in films, novels, and albums - does serve as a small antidote to Main Character Energy. By looking beyond ourselves, we increase our capacity for empathy and strengthen the invisible GPS that helps us read how others are feeling. It may not quash Main Character Energy entirely but, at the very least, the character we play does life better.
Related (and unrelated) recommendations:
I’ve recently rewatched I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel and Atlanta by Donald Glover. Two TV series that, if you haven’t seen them, will alter the way you see the world. I highly recommend reading this extraordinary conversation between Coel and Glover for GQ, published last year.
If you haven’t read enough about main character energy, this New Yorker article is excellent.
This recent profile on Rose Byrne for The Cut is pretty good. It prompted me to finally watch Mrs. America.
This article, ‘What deadlines do for lifetimes’, in The New Yorker.
If you are also obsessed with your dog, this old article about treating dogs like humans is excellent.
I’ve recently read and loved Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, Real Estate by Deborah Levy and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
Tyler, the Creator’s new album, ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’ has been on high rotation this week.
This playlist, ‘Golden hour, and an odd future’, has brought me joy over the past week. A mix of soul, nineties R&B, and tunes from the Odd Future collective (including Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean etc).
Finally, this song that a friend sent to me recently. Thank you Tom Laverty.
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