Do you see a lot of this “main character” stuff in your country

26 comments

1. I have never seen the social media type of main character stuff, but some people do of course send that energy by driving like an asshole or throwing trash on the ground and stuff like that.

2. People acting loud and obnoxious like no one else matters? Yes.

   Filming while doing this? Never.

3. In Poland, nope. Ive seen some kids doing TikTok dances and take selfies but the obnoxious main character crap, no way.

4. TikTok culture sure exists but not the Main character stuff. Or at least I haven’t seen it

5. I’ve seen it done a lot by older alpha/young z gen groups, minorities or not, they’re not loud and obnoxious while doing it, they’re not disturbing people majorly and try to find relatively peaceful spots where it’s just them and their friends groups, so this is a positive.

   However, I find awkward when they go around all dressed up and fancy, a second they act normally, and the other they’re striking the perfect pose for their social media, with the foot raised up and such, yet a second later they’re acting normally again.

6. I imagine that most people in every country don’t see it. We get a skewed impression of how common something is by seeing lots of it online.

   There are a lot of people in the world. A tiny percentage gets a video of them acting like that.

7. No. Here in Ireland you might ocassionally see teenagers doing selfies and shit at the park, or filming themselves doing something stupid, but not the obnoxious “get out of my shot” stuff, just the usual stuff kids do.

   My daughter mentioned that a couple of teenagers were at the local bike track shouting at all the other kids to leave because they were trying to do a video. A parent arrived and set them straight pretty quickly.

   Saw lots of it in Disneyworld Florida. People spending minutes trying to set up great shots of themselves, or walking around holding their phone clealry filming and talking to camera.

   But then you would expect a big tourist attraction would be a magnet for that type of thing.

8. Never seen it in Norway. And I have never seen someone filming and talking to a camera in public either.

9. In Berlin nobody cares about anyone else, Germans usually contain themselves a lot, immigrants partially adjust to it.

10. We are uniquely good at understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around us.

11. I’ve seen a few in Rotterdam, but they stay out of the way for the most part in my experience at least.

12. In the Netherlands, only when I pass by tourist hotspots.

13. Not in my region (it isn’t even Madrid/Mediteranean coast/South coast). Maybe a couple times only. I see people doing stuff like recording themselves at the gym, but not obnoxiously.

14. Mmm, I would not normally answer a question like this not being in Europe, but:

    I am an ESL teacher in the US (NYC) and most of my students are newly arrived from abroad. Given the current situation, a very large percentage of my students are from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Georgia (also central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). They almost all have this “main character syndrome” that you describe. Maybe it’s a function of social class (who has the means to get to North America from that part of the world), but I’m surprised to read from Germans and Poles (people from countries where some/all of these groups are also fairly present) that this is unheard of there – I’m constantly battling teenagers over TikTok videos and Instagram photo shoots even in the middle of class (and shouting across the room during lessons, and basically just doing whatever they want no matter what). American teenagers are not immune to this behavior either, but never have I encountered this kind of behavior with immigrant students until the last year or so (outside of a special needs setting).

15. You don’t get around Berlin much then, no? I moved away from Berlin earlier this year, but some subway stations always had at least like 4 fellas/teams filming reels at any given time. Check out Museumsinsel on a nice day for example. Same for some parks.

    But to be honest, I would it more the way you perceived it till now lol.

16. People seem to believe that TikTok created obnoxious and self centered people, as if this wasn’t a thing before lol

    The only difference now is that they’re actually filming themselves, and thanks to the internet, we know they exist

17. I would say no for filming their obnoxious life but they are loud. Other people would often give criminal side eyes when people filming something or another people doing National Geographic voice line as they are rare species about to mate.

18. I live in a tourist town within easy distance of London, so yes.

    There’s a pink café outside my house and once every couple of weeks I see someone trying to be an influencer. The best was a girl who brought a pop-up changing room so she could do multiple outfits!

    A few times I’ve had someone start filming me to ask questions. There’s this one guy who will film your reaction as he screams something to surprise you, which is the worst.

    Sometimes people do Tiktok dances on the main street, but I’ve never seen them be rude to anyone passing. It’s a bit cringe but as long as they don’t bother me, I don’t care.

    So it’s not every single day here, but it’s definitely a thing.

19. I feel like the Anglo sphere suffers from this a lot more than us….

20. I had luckily never seen this in Helsinki until last spring. I was visiting a park famous for its flowers, and especially the orange and yellow ones were in bloom in large bushes (yep, biology or horticulture is not my strong point). Sun was shining, there were **plenty** of people: families, friends. Lots of strollers and dogs on the leash.

    All of a sudden I see this girl putting on some hideous lounge music and her friend rises from a yellow flower bush, and starts posing and making embarrassing dance moves. She was in full makeup and matching yellow bikini top. Her friend is filming with a phone. Everyone is staring, but they don’t care. Then the girl in the bush is going for oriental vibe with her hands.

    I am still proud that I didn’t burst into laughing. Or maybe I should have?

    Apparently Versailles is full of these, people posing in every room in front of the windows, never mind hordes of visitors walk by.

21. Haven’t seen it in Ireland, tbh if someone was at that shite here they’d be told to cop on.

22. I work in a hotel in Ireland and before covid it was common for influencers to come into our bar. Most were easy enough to deal with but I hated the fact that we had to pamper them how everything had to be 200% better. It was so fake?

    What rally annoyed me was that we charge nothing to them. They got everything for free, including the room?

    Thankfully, management saw the light and we don’t really cater for them anymore

23. I haven’t seen anyone film themselves unless they’re actual journalists for the local news.

    But there’s some people who do weird main-character type stuff like be obnoxious and flashy and self-centered. But it’s mainly middle aged people so I think it has more to do with midlife crisis :p

24. I see people filming and taking pictures of themselves and be very obnoxious, but it’s not as bad as some cases I’ve seen online.

25. > Do you see a lot of this “main character” stuff in your country

    > As someone who lives in Berlin, I have never see this. Never saw anyone filming obnoxiously at the gym, or doing a Tiktok in the Ubahn, or any of this shit I see online.

    That’s because in Berlin, if you’re acting out of what’s considered German, they secretly film you

26. Not really. In Ireland we have something called “Airde Féin” or “Notions” and if your peers think you have notions about yourself (that main character syndrome falls under notions) you’ll be treated like a white crow amongst the dark murder. People won’t want to be near you, now there’s probably some who do it but our culture kinda keeps it from happening. Ní mhaith éirí in airde a’baint leat.