What ‘Main Character’ Means On TikTok

According to Know Your Meme, a Twitter user first posted a video of her transforming into the main character, parodying cliches that come with rom-com protagonists as she walked around the neighborhood for “attention.”

However, TikTokers reinterpreted the term as realistic situations where we’ve believed all eyes were on us. Reading at a coffee shop and “checking whether the girl around my age that’s reading a Penguin Classic is looking at me” is as relatable as strutting down a street as if we’re on a runway. A TikTok user created a sound that captured the trend, “You have to start romanticizing your life. You have to start thinking of yourself as the main character because if you don’t life will continue to pass you by.”

Essentially, it’s the little moments where we feel like our lives have been greenlit by Disney. Psychology professor Michael Karson said that we’re tapping into an energy we already possess, explaining, “As much as we like being the main characters of our stories, we react with anger when we are subordinated to a minor role. Of course, we are capable of cheerfully fulfilling a minor role in any particular scene, but we balk at the message that our overall life is a minor one,” (via Psychology Today). 

That sounds about right – why be a supporting character with no real development when you can fall in love with every moment in your own life?

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