The Case Against ‘Morning Routine’ Social Media Content

I’M FAMOUSLY NOT a morning person. When I was a kid, as my parents would come into my room to wake me up, I would crawl out from under the covers and grumble, “five more minutes.” As I got older, my request devolved into a simple flash of a high five (the less words, the better). I had a short stint with 7 a.m. workouts when my gym crush worked out at that time, but that’s my only experience voluntarily rising before the sun.

My morning routine looks like this: wake up, brush teeth, wash face, brush hair, clothes on, walk out door. I can rip a sub-10 if I’m on the clock.

It’s not normally in me to be this much of a hater. But I hate mornings so much. So naturally, I hate morning-related social media content, like the Ashton Hall video that recently went viral. Hall’s morning routine had everything: Mouth tape. Banana peel facials. Multiple ice water face dunks. Four minute long dives into rooftop pools.

Why do morning routines like this so often go viral? Because of their absurdity, of course. But that’s not the only reason. We watch these routines for the same reasons that we listen to celebs’ Spotify playlists and love tours of home gyms and peeks inside fridges: We baaaadly want to understand how those we perceive as “great” are optimizing their lives. We imagine that if we can steal one or two tips, we’ll perform more optimally too, whether at work or in the gym or in life.

We’ve done this for centuries (millennia, actually), too, and boy do we love hearing about mornings. In the world that preceded “Get Ready with Me” TikToks lived Marcus Aurelius’s morning routine journals from Ancient Rome (famously published in Mediations, which had a strong resurgence among CEO-types during the pandemic). Benjamin Franklin is a famed morning routine lover: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Modern day, Mark Wahlberg went viral for his daily schedule that starts promptly at 2:30 a.m. The Rock loves a 4 a.m. workout. You could drown yourself in Andrew Huberman morning routine clips. We even have a (beloved) column in our magazine called 6 A.M., which, you guessed it—outlines a morning with someone successful and interesting.

The thing we don’t realize, though, is that it’s all distracting us from what we truly need to do to optimize: Spend less time watching other people optimize and figure out our own processes. Because I’ll tell you this: Hall’s routine (my mini-abridged version of it) just doesn’t work for me.

I tried to meditate at 5:30 a.m.—and promptly fell back asleep. I attempted to journal, and wrote about 1,000 fewer words than are in this column. I took a cold shower, and (spoiler!) I was painstakingly cold. Hell yeah, it woke me up. You know what else does? Blowing out my ears with Kendrick Lamar (which I do daily. And actually enjoy).

Actually working through somebody else’s morning routine is messy, and that’s especially true in this era of curated, synthetic influencering-ness. Like, do we really think Hall’s routine goes this well every day? We’d like to think he’s being vulnerable with us in some unique way that’s soooooo much more personal than “exposing” a daily lunch order or outfit selection: with a morning routine, you’re seeing your favorite celeb at their (supposedly) messiest time.

Yet, not a hair on Hall’s head is out of place in his first clip. (If that doesn’t piss you off, you’re a better person than me. Also, if you’re wondering if he looks like that every morning, especially the mornings after he’s out at the Heat game and obviously not going to bed early enough to wake up at the 3:54 that his viral post claims he “routinely” does, you’re not alone. Also, if you do it once for camera, does that make it a routine?)

What I actually want to know about Hall (and many other super-successful people) is the actual thing that makes them successful in their moments of success. I want a tutorial on the problem solving hack that led them to a historical scientific breakthrough, a how-to on setting up a business to make it recession-proof, or the inspiration board for their award-winning album. You know: The content that doesn’t go viral because it’s not free. The content that’s in the books and web masterclasses that successful people sell. The content that has tangible value.

Because these morning routines? They just don’t have value. When we watch a morning routine, we’re mostly just watching people do more things. You get caught up in the content, and think you have to include all the pieces exactly in the right order to be able to crush it in life. You start majoring in morning routines, and minoring in your actual work, workouts, time with your loved ones—the things that really matter.

Not for nothing: what if I were to, say, do all of these things the night before? Because the amount that I can get done between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. would astonish even the greatest of the My-5-to-9-Before-My-9-to-5 video makers out there.

But wait, of course: Hall already has a viral nighttime routine video.

Comment section puts it best: “Bro spends all day getting ready for the next day.”