Cannibalizing Your Life For the Plot
On "doing it for the plot" and making our lives more palatable to ourselves and others
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend over FaceTime when she ended the conversation about her adventures in Amsterdam with: I just thought, do it for the plot—a phrase I haven’t thought much of since it became popular a few years ago and wormed it’s way into our natural dialogue.
At some of it’s earliest viral moments, the phrase “do it for the plot” was often accompanied by a video of someone running off on a tropical vacation or a rapid fire of pictures depicting anything from a summer romance to a wild night out. Although often used in the context of exciting life moments, it is also used as a way of convincing yourself to say yes to something, especially something you want to do but have been too scared to in the past. Saying yes to that party, to that date, to dying your hair, etc.
But, it’s also used in the context of shaking off an embarrassing moment or a bad day, which is when people usually use the related phrase: “it’s for the plot”. While these phrases mean to live life fully, they also mean living unapologetically. When you start looking at your life as if it were a movie with yourself as the star, all those little moments, good or bad, are easier to write off as plot points that simply keep the story going.
In many ways—and I really do hate to say this—it’s almost like a rebranding of the early-2010 acronym YOLO, or even the phrase “do it for the vine”.
Even though it’s more often compared to YOLO (you only live once), I was also reminded of “do it for the vine” because of both phrases connections with online culture and their ability to get people to do things they normally wouldn’t have done. At it’s peak, Vine, the popular app released in 2013, was a platform filled with short clips of people doing or saying something so outrageous it was funny.
(I can think of so many examples that I still laugh about to this day, but I don’t want this post to turn into me spamming you all with vines. So, I’m just going to list a few of my favorites here with links for you all to check out if you want: 2 shots of vodka, I could have dropped my croissant, I smell like beef, and weed crayon).
These vines and many others were so iconic that they’re still referenced today, but unfortunately, Vine and it’s catch phrase eventually became associated with the crazy, dangerous stunts people pulled as it progressively became more and more about doing whatever it took to get views.
While “do it for the vine” was more specifically tied to the app and doing crazy stunts, “do it for the plot” is supposed to be more about getting people to push themselves out of their comfort zones. So, even though people sometimes post about their adventures, attributing it to “doing it for the plot”, it isn’t exclusively tied to views. At least, not in the same way.
However, in the article “Is ‘Do It For The Plot’ Dating As Carefree As It Seems?” from Huffington Post, Dayna McAlpine talks to Jessica Alderson, a dating expert, to explore the dangers this mantra has posed with dating.
“Dating with a ‘there are no bad dates, only good stories’ ideology can be dangerous,” Alderson warns.
“If the ‘good stories’ naturally unfold in certain situations, that’s one thing,” she says. “It’s another thing if you go out of your way to behave outrageously just for a story to show off about. You can end up in unsafe situations.”
Even though people use this phrase for all kinds of situations, it seems to be especially associated with dating. And, honestly, it makes sense. Dating can be a really nerve-wracking experience, and when things don’t work out the way you hoped it can even be heartbreaking. So, telling yourself “do it for the plot” or “it’s for the plot” can be helpful with taking the pressure off and making it fun again.
When you date “for the plot”, you take things less seriously, putting a bit of distance between yourself and the outcome of the date, which, obviously, has its ups and its downs.
If you want to learn more about “do it for the plot” dating, please feel free to read McAlpine’s article here. However, I would like to focus on doing things for a good story, and consequently treating our lives like entertainment.
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Whenever I see my family or meet someone new, I’m always inevitably asked so, what’s going on with you? or what have you been up to? To which I rarely have a reply I feel is worth even mustering the energy to say out loud, but I always do: oh, nothing much.
This response is more or less true. In the grand scheme of things, there really isn’t all that much going on, making it feel as though, at least at this moment, my life has plateaued. For a long time, with school, every day felt like I was climbing up a mountain. I was always reaching for graduation, but now, it’s like I’ve reached the top only to realize I still have to walk down a long winding road until I get to my actual destination.
But it doesn’t matter, because people don’t want to hear that you’re working on it, but nothing’s happened for you yet. They don’t want to hear that you’ve been enjoying time to yourself after years of being in a relationship. They want a story. A tender, juicy story that melts in their mouth and drips down the side of their chin as they chew into this little piece of yourself that you offered to them in the hopes they might like you, or at least find you interesting enough to keep around. Well, at least, that’s how it feels when I give a less than adequate response to their questions about my life, resulting in lackluster smiles and polite replies before they move onto a different person, hoping they might have something to curb their appetite.
This is something I’ve struggled with a lot, especially as a writer. I often scoured my memory for a juicy story buried deep in my subconscious when tasked with writing about my life in college. And it’s not as if I don’t have anything to say, it’s that none of my experiences have ever really felt as though they were significant enough to write about. And then, when I did write about them, I felt the pressure to mould them into something more palatable for my professors and classmates. I wanted so badly for them to like what I had written, to not only be agreeable but praiseworthy, that I’d exploit my own struggles for a good grade and a pat on the back.
Sometimes I still catch myself doing this.
As writers, we’re told to “write what you know”. But what if you haven’t lived enough to know much of anything?
It’s often tempting to pursue “writeable” experiences. To “do it for the plot” if it means I’ll have something worth writing about, or at least something to tell the next person that asks. But it also feels like I’m exploiting myself just to be more consumable to others. Of course, it’s normal to want to be liked. Being accepted by others is a very basic human need, and sharing stories is something we’ve done to connect with each other for centuries, but then, where do we draw the line? When does it go from sharing our experiences to exploiting ourselves for the entertainment of others?
“Do it for the plot” seems like the easy scapegoat. It’s easy to blame this kind of behavior on a popular phrase as if we’re all under spell, forced to do whatever it takes to make the plot more interesting. But the fact is, it’s just a phrase. It’s just something to say to remind ourselves to live more freely.
Actually, “do it for the plot” was coined by confidence coach, Serena Kerrigan (pictured at the beginning of this post), who, as a teenager, was deeply insecure and self-conscious, but now uses her experiences to help others. In the article from Elle “Serena Kerrigan does it for the plot—and then some” by Audra Heinrichs, Kerrigan says
“I guess, when I tell people to ‘Do it for the plot,’ I don’t mean, ‘Jump off a bridge and hope for the best.’ I’m saying that everything is a part of your story and the worst thing that can happen is dying without trying at all.”
As someone who often lets my fear decide things for me, I find myself missing out on opportunities to do things that interest me, and I hate it. I want to live more freely and always try to remind myself that it’s better to try than miss out and always wonder what could’ve been. For me, using a phrase like “do it for the plot” can be helpful in reminding myself that even if things don’t work out, it’s just one moment in the greater scheme of things.
However, I also want to note that being able to try and fail is a privilege. Depending on a person’s circumstances, failure of any kind might simply be out of the question. Not everyone has the luxury to fail, and sometimes those that do treat it like a “get out of jail free card”, having no regard for how lucky they are to have this privilege in the first place. They make mistake after mistake without ever growing from it, using “do it for the plot” to justify their reckless, toxic behavior, and convince themselves that even dangerous experiences are worth having if it means they’ll have a story to tell.
Words are powerful. They can change our perception of the world or even convince us to follow someone to the ends of the earth. I don’t want to diminish the effect they can have on a person, but blaming everything on a phrase ignores the deeply rooted problem within us. Something I can only imagine comes from generations of disconnection. Of distancing ourselves from who we are in favor of who we’re told we should be.
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I recently read the book Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, which is a memoir of Alderton’s life. In it she discusses everything from boyfriends to jobs to losing friends to adulthood, but overall, it’s a book about growing up and becoming more comfortable with yourself. Although I love this entire book, I can’t seem to stop thinking about the part when Alderton’s therapist tells her
“…that this was a room where I didn’t have to labor over every word and gesture and anecdote to accommodate her in the hope she would like me. This woman with no sense of self, no self-regard, no self-esteem—a shapeshifting, people-pleasing presence; a tangled knot of anxiety— was given permission to just be.”
We learn best from doing. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to experience life to not only learn about the world, but also ourselves. But, it’s hard to do that when we rely too much on the perceptions of others to tell us who we are. Going out of our way to collect stories to offer up in exchange for some semblance of value in another’s eyes only ever works for a second before we go back to feeling lost and unsure about ourselves.
Lately, I’ve been trying to be more okay with the fact that who I am, and what I write, isn’t going to be liked by everyone. It’s an uncomfortable feeling that makes me squirm inside, itching to apologize to everyone I’ve ever known for not being consistently perfect and interesting. But, the longer I sit in my discomfort, the easier it becomes to just be.
Comments, Thoughts, Feelings
Did you have Vine back in 2013-2017? If so, pleeaasseee share your favs.
Did you ever wear YOLO merch? I think I might’ve had one of those rubber bracelets.
If you’re a writer, how do you decide which stories you share and which ones you don’t?
Have you read the book Everything I Know About Love? What were your thoughts?
Insightful thinking.
I think you might find the podcast on Hidden Brain called " How others see you" with Erica Boothby interesting. Her research on peoples perceptions of what others think of them is enlightening .