Simulating An Adult Life

Perceptions of a working life, online and off.

Growing up, my sister and I used to play a game called ‘Mechanics’, in this game one of us would drop the car off to the garage and the other would sit behind a desk and write a receipt out on carbon notepad. When it was my turn to be the car owner, I would sit in the driver’s seat (the car wasn’t on) and proudly look over to the passenger seat where I had placed my handbag. Many years later, when it was time for me to get my own car, I remember one of the things I was most looking forward to was my solo driving time, where I would be able to play my music and put whatever it is I wanted on the front seat next to me. Now, even 17 years after getting my licence, this is still one of the experiences I value most, and one of the things I regularly do that makes me feel the most adult. As a kid, I imagined this experience, the driving, the ‘work bag’, the autonomy to get myself to where I needed to go. It used to be all pretend, simply play acting, but now, this practice is very much real. Even if sometimes I feel like I’m not sure what I’m doing and am acting out the motions I imagine an adult would feel.

Are you familiar with Shea McGee?

Shea is the creator of Studio McGee, a décor brand (McGee & Co.) and house decorating/refurbishment studio. Her and her husband, Syd, are the stars of Netflix’s Dream Home Makeover – it’s worth a watch. I’m pretty sure they live in Utah. Shea recently made her Instagram public and often is sharing recipes, outfit details and workout schedules. I imagine she is an inspiration and motivation to many women – things seem to sell out a lot and she does that thing a lot of people do where they don’t link products until people ask and then they’re like ‘all of you have been asking!’.

Shea’s team seem to be upping the socials across all platforms, recently sharing a much-demanded look at Shea’s morning routine or morning rituals for success. The video is self-aware; Shea pretends to go for a walk by walking out the door and back in, she hops back into bed joking she’s just woken up with a pantomime arm wave and yawn, and at the 16-minute mark as she accepts a Diet Coke (the rabbit hole relating to soda and Utah online is real) from someone off camera, she makes eye contact with the viewer and says ‘you know we’re filming later in the day right…’

The video is a re-enactment of a morning routine. A simulation of her morning routine, from that morning and every morning gone by. I’m not sure whether this veers into the territory of Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum – a fake version of something real – or if everyone’s morning routine would fit into this category because if you do the same thing over and over, it becomes a simulation of itself naturally. The viewers are aware and even grateful for the transparency as shown through comments like, ‘I love how you kept it so real, the walk back into the house from the “walk “ was so comedic Loved this relaxed way of shooting too . Thank you ’ and ‘Love love love this! This was so well done. Could have felt fake and influencery but you did it so well and so naturally and I found it very inspiring’. As we know, the perception of authenticity is just as important as authenticity itself.

Content creation often requires us to fake things and for the audience to suspend their disbelief; to move the plates just so, take the photo again until we are happy with it, get out of bed, set up the camera and climb back in, to capture us waking up even though we are already up, to stage situations. People online are both mimicking the actions of life, for us to mimic in our offline lives. The comments in response to Shea’s video highlight the fact that people will be influenced to adopt Shea’s habits as their own, because they get up in the morning and can implement the same things into their version of whatever this is.

For example, one viewer is now convinced that they too can be a morning person:

My husband is always telling me to wake up early but I think I just needed to hear it from Shea McGee. Super motivating video and I can’t wait for the next!!

Another has lots of things they would like to change:

Shea thank you so much for sharing this! I not only loved seeing your morning routine, but this video had tons of gems- from realizing I should add a weighted vest to my daily walks, to the make up must haves (and sheets!) and not to mention your home styling (your kitchen is now my inspo for my kitchen which we plan to fully remodel in a Brooklyn/NYC brownstone! ahhhhh). ALL OF YOUR EFFORT AND TIME is truly appreciated!!

It is almost as if we can cosplay being Shea McGee, simulating different elements of her life into ours as if by introducing these things, we can create the idealised version of whatever it is we need to.

Sometimes when I picture playing an adult, I picture small kids playing house. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but these days you can buy toy version of Dyson products like the Supersonic hair dryer and cordless vacuums, toys that look like coffee machines and your local supermarket probably has miniature versions of their shopping bags and other pieces of tat.

zrasara’s vlog ‘corporate girl diaries – analyst in London – nespresso pods – working in office – weekend routines’ speaks to snippets of adult life, and what you imagine adult life to be. Interestingly the title corporate girl diaries (a popular categorisation on YouTube) speaks to both the seriousness and the whimsy of the situation – the experience and the acting that goes along with it. Naturally, the phrase corporate alludes to a career and level of behaviour associated with having a job, generally in an office. Referring to oneself as a ‘girl’ however, highlights that this may be a graduate position or someone who sees themselves through this lens. Ditto the word diary. Even though the phrase vlog refers to video log, the idea that we record and share our emotions can be one associated with young girls and fluffy diaries with pointless padlocks.

I also appreciate the SEO at play when naming such videos and respect that using pre-existing categories is more important, but this does remind me of Jon Ronson’s podcast ‘The Butterfly Effect’ in which he explores technologies impact on the porn industry and how that has made porn searches very binary, and category driven.

But back to the video.

It is a chronicle of a day in the life, we see attractive meals via a bird’s eye view, the side of a keyboard and hear a voice (our protagonist does not show her face), coffee orders are shared as is the milk preference. The Nespresso pods are unboxed – coffee is a corporate, adult drink, the desire to make it aesthetically pleasing, not as much.

The YouTuber is documenting her life, mostly in real time but we know it’s not a live stream and we are receiving days or even weeks later from this series of events taking place – but no doubt that she has performed these actions multiple times since then, maybe using a different Nespresso pod, or changing the routine when she is in the office as opposed to working from home but the essence is the same. By going through this routine, the gap between the perception and execution of being a corporate girl, closes.