OCD is hard. It’s especially hard when TikTok trends glorify it.
By Tommy Akinnawonu, General Member
Chronic perfectionism is one of the latest vices to be unknowingly co-opted by internet trends. "Hustle culture" or "burnout culture" is the idea that by working yourself to the bone, you can achieve nirvana. This presents itself in three primary ways: capitalistic, academic, and micro-influential.
NFT multimillionaires, 80-hour workweeks, workshops, webinars, and ads galore. "50% off my course! Limited time!" But originally $400 with tax... The boss grind set is nothing new, with the rise of entrepreneurship in the last decade. But this generation is uniquely different due to the rising cost of living and lower pay for labor. The 40-hour week that was only sustainable if one partner was working while another managed house affairs (plus mandatory pensions), is now barely livable. Strikes happen daily, doctors work for 30 hours straight, and teachers have to decide whether to teach other people's children or feed their own. There's no benefit to being on the "grind," working all the hours your body can handle, sacrificing life for the hustle. There's no reward in the end. You can be laid off any day and complaints are out the window. You'll get verbal praise, but no overtime pay.
I love being creative; drawing, styling, writing, designing - you name it. My parents innocently suggested I take up jewelry making as a part-time job. They gave me $200 for supplies, but I never made jewelry again until I got an itch to do so months later and bought my supplies. A year later, my mom apologized. She said not every hobby needs to be monetized, and putting pressure on me so young wasn't setting me up for success. This constant drive to monetize any small talent and innocent skill is yet another symptom of the lust for capital ingrained in us. And that constant monetization is a precursor to apathy and conformity. Why bother making what you enjoy if it doesn't get the most clicks? Before you know it, dopamine hits > art, and no one wins.
As I said earlier, my OCD is mostly academia-based. I do get many other compulsions, but school-related ones are what I’m currently most affected by. Imagine my disdain when I go on Instagram I’m greeted by “perfect grade” subliminal messaging. I get good grades; I don’t think that matters much, but I do. I don’t think anything is wrong with working on self-improvement. But in most “tutorials” on how to get better grades, there’s no emphasis on improvement; only perfection. In every comment, you’ll see the same narrative. “I’m on my second all-nighter,” or “I force myself to skip food until I finish all my studying,” or “I sleep 2 hours a day to maintain my GPA,” as a sort of brag. What?! I’ve even experienced this in day-to-day life
(Trigger warning for a brief mention of an overdose). I was in a dual credit university program with 5 university courses, all healthcare based. I loved everyone, found them easier than high school courses, and was one of the few that passed with flying colors. Out of all of our finals, I got second place in one. I studied for around 3 hours, with many breaks, and went to sleep at 10. My friend who got first place was absent the day of, so she did her final online. I messaged her asking if she was okay and came to find out she was absent because she pulled 3 all-nighters to study, and tried to stay up so long that she accidentally took too many painkillers trying to ease the headaches that came. With 72 hours awake and a probable overdose, she got 1% higher. I. Was. Flabbergasted.
I partially blame heightened post-secondary standards. The title of “Ivy League” is coveted more than gold. People fail to realize that academic trends change; what got your parents into Harvard won’t get you there too. In post-secondary and beyond, while academic proficiency is amazing, there’s a much greater emphasis on individuality, personality, and critical thinking. Academically, socially, career-wise, and for your benefit, prioritize yourself and your passions over any arbitrary A+ quota.
My friends keep telling me to get Tiktok, Snapchat, and other social media platforms. I'm hesitant (partially because my digital footprint is already bad enough). "Tommy, if you got TikTok, you'd be famous for your outfits!" they say. They aren't wrong; my fashion style has always been popular. Is being TikTok famous really something to aspire to? With all eyes on you, the priming and preening of content, parasocial relationships, harassment, doxing, and hate brigades, I couldn't handle it. It would be a nightmare for my OCD and paranoia. Additionally, fashion micro-influencing isn't sustainable in the long run. It requires constant hauls from exploited countries, keeping up with daily trends, and curating your wardrobe constantly. I adore fashion, but this would make me hate it.
All of these and more are part of an overarching fixation on perfection and having total domination of everything you do. The world can be a challenging place, and romanticizing everything around us makes us feel we have a little more control. To most, that sounds like a good idea. To me, it reminds me of a compulsion that’ll do more harm than good. Don’t destroy yourself in the name of statistics. You are more than arbitrary numbers, whether it’s the money you’ve earned, the grades you got, or the follower count you have. Make some mistakes, do something stupid. You’re human. To finish, I want to end with one of my favorite blog posts, I found it when I was editing my website. Normalize imperfection, normalize your humanity.
https://www.bikobatanari.art/posts/2022/create-something-terrible
Further reading:
https://www.betterup.com/blog/hustle-culture
https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChxSVJctd_8/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=