To start this off, I want to acknowledge that I will definitely sound like a narcissist throughout this entire post, and probably demented too. Consider yourself warned and get comfortable because I’m about to get really comfortable with you. Moving on, let’s talk about nightly routines, what do you do? I’ll tell you what I do, I wait until everyone on in my house has already gone to sleep, spend almost 30 minutes in the bathroom brushing my teeth and doing skin care; before jumping into some pajamas and getting on my phone into the ungodly hours of the dark…Pretty standard, right? What I’m actually doing on my phone is the interesting part though, I spend an admittedly ridiculous amount of time on a little website called Character.ai (IYKYK), where I take the liberty of writing unforgivable amounts of what I affectionately call “Self-Insert Fanfiction”. I’m not endorsing this website by any means, while it’s super fun, I noticed that’s it’s a horrible habit of mine and a lot of other people. That being said, being able to just…talk to whomever your heart desires, let it be Draco Malfoy or a super-hot mermaid that thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread, it’s an addictive escapism. That’s the clever little word I wanted to get to, escapism. When I mentioned my nightly routine and how long I stay up just strolling on my phone, I know that it sounded familiar, because it’s something our generation of young people do a lot! Maybe you’re not on your phone, maybe you’re playing a game…or reading a book…or doing something else entirely but the point is…. you’re doing that thing with the intention to step out of reality for a second. Relax. Which is in no means a bad thing, no, on the contrary. But you’re still escaping…when I say it like that it sounds kind of morbid, but that’s what it is, now the question draws into why are we trying to escape so frequently from our reality?
I can confidently say I’m probably the most delusional person you’re ever going to meet, I’m constantly lovesick, romanticize whatever I can out of life, and adore all things fantastical. It’s how I cope. Now, someone might say “Oh my god! You’re so super positive, that’s so cute, I wish I had that energy!” and someone else has probably rolled their eyes and scrolled to read another post. Both responses are totally valid and are exactly what I wanted to look into. In this era, a lot of people encourage each other to “be the main character” in the “story” of their lives. Make every moment of the day something found in a coming-of-age film. This trend was just a couple influencer posts on Instagram with their lavish lifestyles making tone-deaf commentary at first, but now, I can’t stroll through TikTok without someone saying “stay delulu” or something like that (“I curate my algorithm”) and constantly reminding me of the ideology. It’s beginning to become embedded in the way we move about our lives, going back to relaxation, we’re told early on that to function properly we’re supposed to take a break every now and then. Naptime in kindergarten, recess, lunch break after class, vacation; all of these refractory periods are what round out our busy lives because otherwise we’d be working ourselves to the bone and burning out. Now, these periods of rest had mostly to do with physical exhaustion, giving us a chance to sleep, breathe, and refuel…but we’ve taken rest a little bit further. We’re no longer just stepping out of our physical responsibilities but now also our phenomenological responsibilities. We have learned to pause our realistic experiences and curate new experiences for ourselves that we can enjoy. We can control these little worlds we make; we can make choices that lead to outcomes we actually want, project our desires and receive satisfaction from them. Isn’t this more appealing? Isn’t that better than waking up, getting dressed in clothes you don’t like, going to a place you didn’t ask to go to, being spoken to by people you couldn’t care less about (and in some cases be ridiculed for things about yourself that you can’t control) and facing tasks that in the end are meaningless to your existence? Wouldn’t it be better to be a wizard, or a princess, or a mage? In my personal opinion, I’d rather worry about the fate of my entire kingdom rather than call the IRS because of my late tax return, fighting demons from another realm is much easier than fighting the bureaucracy.
That’s the real appeal of this intermittent dreaming, the chance to have something MORE than what crumbs we’re given IRL, just notice how I expressed our experience in reality; crumbs! This ideology may seem like we’re trying to keep things positive and light, but in truth what’s actually happening is a deep loathing for the realistic, a deteriorating tolerance for the systems we’re obligated to abide by. We decided to solve the deep disappointment we feel with our world by paving a way to withdraw into one of our own design, and in the realization of not being able to daydream forever, we are encouraging one another to blur the lines between real and fictitious but… How far can those lines be blurred until there are consequences?
Unruly Bodies 
Escapism is the perfect word to use for this blog post. Like you said but in different words, we are all “guilty” of escapism. Personally, I go to karaoke nights with friends once a week and darts at my local bar every weekend, usually on Fridays. When I was younger, I used to do roleplay chats with friends of my favorite video game characters making them go on adventures and such. It was a great time growing up.
This is interesting…when you said “We’re no longer just stepping out of our physical responsibilities but now also our phenomenological responsibilities”, I’m curious what you would define as a ‘phenomenological responsibility’? And who determines what these responsibilities are for each person? For me, I think our phenomenological responsibilities are really our phenomenological expectations and they might not just be expectations of performance that others put on us but ones that we individually accept for ourselves. Stepping out of those expectations is where problems tend to arise.
I agree that it is a cause for worry how online people today are and how that is impacting our understandings of reality (even though the two aren’t necessarily separate) however I don’t know if that is truly an escape from our phenomenological experiences. Considering how the rise of platforms like Tik Tok have created a new emphasis on the body with how you can almost see the entirety of a person on the screen of your phone. I’m actually wondering if these social media platforms that focus on the visible have created (or /reinforced/ maybe) ontologies of race, gender, etc that shift how we know certain bodies to behave or perform. Sorry if this is vague or unclear but your post just made me think about this and I will be going to see if anyone has written on this before. So, thank you!
Thank you for giving us a snapshot into your personal world of nightly routines and how the “break” that is so embedded into the livelihood of us as humans in our monotonous schedules and jobs. The relationship with phenomenology is perfectly represented here by the ways in which you look online before bed and go through skin care and bathroom hygiene while everyone else is asleep; it’s a complete contrast to my life and then again from another person’s, so seeing that snapshot is really something special and unique about the body you inhabit.
I absolutely loved this entire post with all my heart because I do the same exact thing of staying in my own delusional world of make-believe. The part where you said “We decided to solve the deep disappointment we feel with our world by paving a way to withdraw into one of our own design”, made me think back to how as a child we would create imaginary friends or imaginary scenarios when we play with dolls or action-figures and play pretend and I think it stems from wanting to be in a different reality for different reasons whether its because your lonely or bored or to escape from responsibilities just for a quick bit.
I like how you wrote about escapism in such a casual manner such as a nightly routine. I often find that I cherish the mental escape and relaxation more than I actually value physical rest. This is probably why I’ll stay up longer to scroll on tiktok or indulge in the tv show I am currently binging instead of going to sleep. I used to love Kdramas for this very reason. I had to stop watch Kdramas because I realized that I would completely immerse myself in that universe & would use this to avoid my real life to a point of falling short to various responsibilities.
The way you equated escapism as a form of escaping our phenomenological responsibilities was such a good idea to focus on for your article! Having these forms of relaxation that we can project ourselves into for the purpose of stepping out of our own bodies and be something more idealistic can be so helpful to determine how we want our bodies in the “real world” to be perceived and why that may be the case. However, they also affect how we perceive other bodies when we continue to use media to escape into because we are only provided an idealized view of what it is to be of a particular identity. We let our media’s representation of race, gender, sexuality, and more affect not just our own perceptions of ourselves but how we place phenomenological responsibilities on others, therefore “blurring the lines” as you said in the end of your article.
Thank you for your post! I was not super well educated on the world of character AI as I personally am not a fan of it, however, this post enlightened me on the bliss it gives others. I also loved the title as it immediately dragged me in!