​​Unravelling the ‘What About Me’ Effect and the Rise of Me-Core

Make it stand out

In 2023 a cultural shift has taken place, evidenced by everything from disruptive behaviour on aeroplanes and people throwing things at concerts, to netizens romanticising the most mundane parts of their lives. In a world grappling with widespread issues like ongoing conflicts and political upheavals as well as more technical debates over the impact of AI and otherwise, people are compartmentalising the complexities and chaos of the world by going inward and making themselves the main characters in their own stories. If you’re wondering what this looks like in action, it resembles Scott Disick and his egotistical personality on old series of Keeping Up With The Kardashians or Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw who sets out to be the centre of attention at all times.

While 2023 was the year main character energy levelled up and set the tone for the way people process and experience life, the trend dates a little further back, beginning in the dreariness of quarantine lockdowns when bored teenagers flocked to TikTok to craft ironic videos that cast themselves as the "main characters" in everyday situations.

One of the first TikTokers to push this narrative was @lexaprolesbian, who in May 2020 shared a video of herself strolling through her neighbourhood with the caption: "To remind everyone in my neighbourhood that I’m the main character in this neighbourhood." Main character energy aimed to inspire people to cultivate a positive outlook on their lives and step back from things that were outside of their control. It encouraged people to focus on themselves and appreciate the beauty of the present moment and prevent life from slipping away unnoticed. We could all undoubtedly be served by stopping to smell the roses regularly, issues arise when other people in your life are put on the back burner and relegated to the status of background characters. By fostering a self-centred digital environment where personal stories take precedence, online spaces are becoming hyper-personalised, overshadowing collective experiences in favour of content that's all about me.
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“By fostering a self-centred digital environment where personal stories take precedence, online spaces are becoming hyper-personalised, overshadowing collective experiences in favour of content that's all about me.”

When people share their personal experiences and recommendations online, the comment floods with self obsession, expressing sentiments like, "What if I can't eat/buy/wear/use/just don't like that particular thing?". A stroll through such comment sections often reveals a recurring type of response – one that's unnerving, surprising, and captures the 2023 online mood in all its glory. TikTok creator Sarah Lockwood, known as @sarahthebookfairy, coined this trend as the "What About Me effect." According to Lockwood, this occurs when people encounter content that doesn't directly apply to them, and instead of acknowledging that they may not be the target audience for such content, they question why the content isn’t applicable. 

Lockwood provides an example of the What About Me Effect in action, referencing a viral bean soup recipe posted on TikTok where most of the comments centred on alternatives to the recipe without beans rather than recognising that a recipe doesn’t need to and simply can’t cater to everyone’s food preferences. TikTok quickly picked up on the concept, even memeing the What About Me Effect in a matter of days following Lockwood’s coining of the term.

Delving a bit too deeply into our 'main character energy' may be the driving force behind this latest iteration of internet trends. Anna Waletzko, cultural analyst and writer, tells me that trends like main character energy, the “What about me effect” and self-centred online narratives are a result of the pervasive nature of  living so much of our lives online, something that's pretty hard to escape in 2023. And this is what's led to people demanding nuanced content that speaks to their specific needs, tastes and preferences. “A lot of the time, strangers on the internet have supposedly perfect and aspirational lives. It causes us to feel as though we need to keep up, and to do that, I think we do two things. First off, we both compare ourselves to them. Second, we centre our own experiences and points of view,” she explains. “It’s this mentality of: if they can be special, so can I. If this stranger can matter, so can I. We’re in an era where we see ourselves as hyper individualised, despite our tastes being increasingly homogenised.”

And that's where MeCore comes in. The Digi Fairy defines mecore as a term commonly associated with mood boards on platforms like Pinterest and We Heart It, where users gather images that represent their identity. The hashtag #MeCore has now gained significant traction on TikTok amassing over 649 million views of related videos at the time of writing. In a society dominated by hyperindividualism and individualistic culture, #MeCore offers a platform for self-expression and a side of harmless recognition where people contemplate their unique aesthetics but videos end up looking the same. In a social media era where everyones trying to stand out and do something a little different, MeCore creates a more positive outlook by its uniformity in video content that allows people to find community, connection and relatability over common ground and shared experiences.

The uncanny nature of social media algorithms and For You page dramas has made us believe that all content we consume should directly relate to our own lived experiences. As users, we navigate digital terrains from our own standpoint and algorithms cater to keeping us constantly entertained and engaged, but essentially main character energy, the ‘What About Me Effect’ and #MeCore are all stemming from the same space. Our increasingly personalised digital selves become the framework through which we interpret reality, and centring ourselves in every narrative is a natural progression when our data allows the algorithm to tailor everything from advertisements to funny tweets to match up to our own personal tastes. In the paradox of hyper-individualisation on the internet where everyone tries to stand out compared with trends like MeCore where everyone ends up looking the same, we’re heading towards a future where uniqueness is so mainstream everyone’s doing it. 

Words: J’Nae Phillips