The ring light buzzed softly in the background, throwing a sterile glow over my carefully arranged bedroom. From the outside, it looked perfect. Creamy neutrals, a Monstera plant draped artfully over the corner shelf, a coffee mug staged just so on my nightstand. Aesthetic. Cozy. Effortless.
And oh, so totally fake.
I tilted my phone, pouting into the front camera, searching for the perfect angle.“Good morning, my loves,” I cooed, voice syrupy sweet, as I hit record. “Starting my day with gratitude and green juice. How are you showing up for yourself today?”
As the video uploaded to TikTok, I flopped back onto the bed. The truth was, my fridge held nothing but expired yogurt and a six-pack of energy drinks. The truth was, I hadn’t had a real moment of gratitude in months.
I watched the likes start to roll in, little hearts popping up like confetti, and felt that familiar rush. A small, bitter voice whispered, At least someone thinks you’re winning.
My name is Lila. I have 1.3 million followers, a smile that could sell vitamins to corpses, and no idea who I am without a filter.
And today, I was about to break.
The Crack in the Mirror
My phone buzzed again. Another notification. Another dopamine hit.
@LilaLivingLargeJust posted: “Morning motivation, babes! Remember, you’re THAT girl. ✨💖 #MorningGlow #BossEnergy #Blessed”
The caption sparkled beneath a perfectly filtered photo of me sitting by my fake balcony garden, fake sunlight on my face, fake peace in my eyes.
I scrolled through the flood of comments, thumbs flicking faster than my mind could keep up.
“Obsessed with your vibe 😍“Goals!!! Manifesting your life, queen 👑✨”
I knew I should feel happy. Grateful, even. But all I felt was… hollow.
The real morning had looked nothing like the one I had posted. The fake plants were dusty. The rented apartment smelled faintly of old takeout and cheap candles. And me? I had barely slept, tossing and turning until dawn, checking my follower count like it was my lifeline.
I tossed the phone onto the bed and flopped back, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. My heart was still racing, like it was chasing something I couldn’t quite catch.
There was a time I used to know who I was.
Before the likes. Before the sponsorship deals that paid for clothes I returned after photo shoots. Before the endless race to be seen, admired, envied.
Back then, I didn’t care if my teeth weren’t movie-star white or if my room wasn’t bathed in aesthetic sunlight. I cared about making art, writing dumb poems, and volunteering at the shelter. I cared about people who cared back.
I squeezed my eyes shut. When was the last time I posted something real? When was the last time I was real?
The screen buzzed again. A text from Mya, my last real friend.
“Lila, have you seen the #InMySkin challenge? You should do it. Real is trending now. Might help you grow even more.”
Real is trending now.
I laughed out loud, a sharp, ugly sound. Of course it was. Even honesty was a performance now.
Still, my fingers itched. A challenge was a challenge. And my numbers had plateaued lately. TikTok was unforgiving when you stopped feeding it.
Maybe…Maybe if I showed them a little vulnerability, they would love me even more.
Maybe I would love me a little more, too.
I picked up the phone, hands trembling just slightly, and clicked into the trending page.
#InMySkin was everywhere. No filters. No edits. No lies.
Just raw, messy, human.
I watched a few clips. A girl crying because her engagement fell apart. A guy showing his eczema-scarred arms. A teenager admitting he missed his mom who had passed away.
It was beautiful. It was terrifying, and everything I had been running from.
I sat there, breathing shallowly, the blank “record” screen staring back at me.
Could I really do this?
Could I peel back the perfect and show them the wreck underneath?
Or had I buried the real me so deep that even I couldn’t find her anymore?
I sat on the edge of my bed, the soft blue light of my ring light pooling around me. My phone balanced on a tiny tripod. My hands shook.
“Okay, Lila,” I whispered. “You can do this. Just be real.”
I hit record.
For a moment, I just sat there, staring into the camera. No pose, no filter, no perfect lighting.
“Hi,” I said, voice small. “Um, so, this is me. No makeup. No edits. No… nothing.”
My mouth went dry. My eyes flicked toward the corner of the screen, watching how my face looked without smoothing filters. Every tiny imperfection seemed to scream at me.
My chest tightened.
I cleared my throat and tried again, forcing a smile that cracked before it even fully formed.
“Hi, I’m Lila. And… and I—” My voice broke. The words caught in my throat. I glanced around my room, feeling suddenly exposed, raw in a way I hadn’t been for years.
The ring light buzzed quietly.
My fingers trembled as I reached for the phone.
Delete. The video was gone in a second, like it had never happened.
I pressed my palms into my eyes, willing myself to breathe.
What was I even doing?
For a long moment, I sat frozen. My heart raced. My mind spun. Maybe I could just pretend this challenge didn’t exist. Maybe no one would notice.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Mya.
“Challenge is blowing up. You doing it or what? 👀”
Pressure pressed down on my chest. I could almost hear the likes, the comments, the attention slipping through my fingers.
I bit her lip until I tasted blood.
Slowly, I picked up the phone again. Set it back on the tripod. Swallowed the rising fear.
This time, I didn’t practice. I didn’t fake a smile.
I just hit record.
Challenge Gone Wrong
The moment I posted the video, I threw my phone across the bed like it had burned me.
I couldn’t bear to watch. Couldn’t bear to see myself so… real.
Minutes dragged by. My pulse thudded in my ears. Maybe it would flop. Maybe no one would care.
But when I finally worked up the courage to check my phone, the screen was already lighting up. Notifications were flooding in.
Hearts. Comments. Shares.
It was working.
My stomach twisted. I should have felt proud. Vindicated. Instead, a cold dread pooled low in my gut.
The comments were coming fast.
“Finally something real. Respect.” “Took you long enough, faker.” “She’s just doing it for clout lol.”
For every supportive comment, there was another one waiting to tear me down.
Within hours, the internet turned my worst moment into a blood sport. Memes popped up — screenshots of me mid-tears, captions reading “In My Lies Challenge” and “Crocodile Queen.” Influencers I barely knew stitched my video, their voices dripping with faux sympathy as they dissected my breakdown like vultures picking clean a carcass.
“See? This is what happens when your whole personality is sponsored,” one said, to a chorus of laughing emojis in the comments.
Brands that had once flooded my inbox with offers went suspiciously silent. My management team sent a brisk email: “Reputation risk assessment ongoing, please refrain from posting.”
And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, someone dug up an old, half-drunk TikTok live from a year ago where I had joked about “manifesting money” while very clearly slurring my words.
Proof, they said. Proof that I had always been a fraud.
People picked apart my “authenticity.” Pausing the video, zooming in on imperfections I hadn’t even noticed. Questioning whether I had secretly used a beauty filter. Mocking my voice, my posture, the rawness I had tried so hard to offer.
Within an hour, I wasn’t the face of bravery. I was a trending joke.
#FakeChallenge trended under my video.#LilaLies.
My throat closed. My fingers trembled so badly I dropped my phone.
I curled up on the bed, the room spinning around me. How had it all flipped so fast?
I didn’t hear my mom’s footsteps until the knock came, soft against the door.
“Lila? Sweetheart?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the tears back.
“I’m fine,” I croaked. “Just tired.”
The lie tasted like ash in my mouth.
I wasn’t fine.
I was crumbling.
And for the first time, there were no likes, no edits, no polished captions that could save me.
Only the raw, ugly truth staring me in the face:
I had no idea who I was without them.
The Breakdown
The next morning, sunlight pried at the edges of the curtains, but I stayed curled under the blanket, wishing I could melt into the mattress.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I didn’t move.
Another buzz. Then another.
I knew what was waiting for me — memes, stitches, commentaries tearing me apart like vultures on a carcass.
At some point during the night, I had stopped being a person and become content.
Not the glossy, curated kind. The kind people devoured and spat out without a second thought.
And it didn’t matter if I was raw or real now. They had already decided who I was. To them, I was a fraud pretending at honesty, and no truth could fix that.
My chest ached.
Finally, I swung my legs over the bed and grabbed the phone.
Messages from my manager, Cassie.
“Damage control time. Call me.”
“We can spin this. Cry on live, talk about mental health, people love that.”
My stomach turned. I set the phone down and stared at the blank wall in front of me.
For the first time in months — maybe years — the thought slithered in, cold and unrelenting:
I hate this.
I hated what I had become. I hated how every feeling I had was filtered through a lens, judged, rated, measured in shares and follows. I hated that I couldn’t even fall apart properly without wondering if it would make good content.
The door cracked open. My mom stepped inside, carrying a plate with toast and a mug of tea.
I hadn’t even realized I was crying until she set the plate down and wrapped me in a hug.
“You don’t have to be perfect for anyone,” my mom whispered into my hair. “You’re allowed to be just Lila.”
The dam broke.
I sobbed into my mother’s shoulder, the ugly, shaking kind of crying that leaves you raw and hollowed out.
I cried for the girl who thought followers would fill the emptiness. For the girl who let strangers’ opinions become her oxygen. For the girl who forgot who she was when no one was watching.
When the tears finally slowed, I pulled back, my throat raw.
“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I whispered.
My mom squeezed my hands, steady and sure. “Then maybe it’s time to find out.”
I nodded, the weight in my chest shifting, cracking open just enough for a sliver of light to slip through.
It wouldn’t be easy.
But maybe, for the first time, it would be real.
The First Step Offline
The next morning, I stood in front of the mirror, my reflection almost unfamiliar.
No makeup. No hair extensions. No carefully curated outfit.
Just me.
I grabbed my phone out of habit, my thumb hovering over the familiar pink TikTok icon.
My heart pounded.
For a moment, I almost caved. Almost slipped back into the comfort of filters and endless scrolling.
Instead, my thumb hovered, frozen. I pressed down on the app, watched it shake slightly.
A whisper slipped through my mind, sharp and desperate — what if they forget you? I closed my eyes, swallowing the fear, and pressed delete.
I set the phone down like it was a bomb that could still go off. The screen blinked back at me, empty where TikTok used to be.
The house felt too quiet without the constant buzz of notifications. My fingers twitched, searching for distraction, but there was none. Just my breath, slow and shaky, and the faint ticking of the kitchen clock.
It felt terrifying. It felt like freedom.
Later, I pulled on a hoodie and slipped outside. No phone. No camera crew. No “outfit of the day” shots.
Just sunlight and a brisk breeze and the crunch of gravel under my sneakers.
My hand drifted toward my pocket automatically, searching for a phone that wasn’t there. The empty space felt wrong. Unsettling. I tucked my hands into my sleeves instead and kept walking.
I wandered through the park, feeling awkward in my own skin, like a visitor in my own life.
At a bench near the pond, I sat down and just… watched.
A toddler tottered past, chasing a pigeon. Two teenagers argued over a game of chess. An old man sat under a tree, laughing at something on a newspaper comic page.
Nobody was filming it.
Nobody was performing.
They were just living.
I hugged my knees to my chest and let the quiet soak into me.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about angles, hashtags, or whether I was interesting enough to be noticed.
I was just being.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t even pretty.
But it was real.
And for now, that was enough.
Are you or someone you know feeling trapped in the endless cycle of likes and validation? Remember, life happens offline too. For more powerful stories about reclaiming your true self, visit podiumexpress.com
