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Livingetc’s report examines how platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have given homes a public, visual role alongside their everyday function. The report argues that online interior imagery can shape domestic expectations, while creators Dima and Guy say their home remains a home first, not a set.
Livingetc has published a report examining how social media has made the home both a place to live and a space presented to an online audience, raising questions about how images of interiors shape expectations of domestic life. The feature, part of the magazine’s new The Meaning of Home series, draws on design commentary and interviews, including with architect and academic Javier Fernández Contreras and creative duo Dima and Guy of The Berlin Chapters.
The report describes a change in the home’s public role: interiors have long conveyed identity and aspiration, but social platforms give those images a potentially lasting audience. Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and Pinterest can make rooms function as backdrops, portfolios or galleries as well as lived-in spaces. Fernández Contreras, author of The Interiors of Social Media: Architecture, Space, and Technology in the 21st Century, argues that platforms can produce what he calls “aspirational futures” and affect how people evaluate their own homes.
The feature says the pandemic accelerated the use of domestic spaces as visible work settings. Bookshelves appeared behind video calls, kitchen islands served as broadcast workspaces, and walls behind desks became backdrops. For professional creators, the report notes, a home can also serve as a studio and portfolio, while renovation work may be presented as a sequence of online content, from demolition to a finished-room reveal.
Dima and Guy, whose interior-focused account has nearly 82,000 followers according to the feature, say they do not experience their home as a set when they are not making content. The report also describes a visual shift in some interiors toward gallery-like arrangements: artworks displayed against open walls, collectible furniture given space, and everyday items stored out of sight. It presents this as a design tendency, not evidence that all homes or residents have changed in the same way.
How Online Images Shape Home Expectations
The issue matters because interior images can influence more than decorating choices. As people encounter a steady stream of curated rooms, they may compare their own spaces with highly composed examples and absorb ideas about what a desirable home should look like. Fernández Contreras warns that social platforms can promote “normative models of domesticity” that deserve scrutiny. That is his interpretation, rather than a measured finding about how all users behave.
At the same time, the report avoids treating every carefully designed home as a performance. A room can look composed in a photograph and still serve its occupants’ daily needs. Dima and Guy’s account highlights that distinction: an audience may see a home through images, while the people living there experience it as their private, practical space. The tension is relevant to readers deciding whether online inspiration is helping them express their tastes or encouraging them to arrange their lives for an imagined audience.
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From Private Rooms to Public Backdrops
Livingetc introduces the feature as part of The Meaning of Home, a series exploring how domestic spaces intersect with culture, psychology, history, politics, storytelling and economics. Its central premise is that homes have never been entirely private in meaning: furnishings and layouts have long communicated status, identity and aspiration. The report’s focus is how digital platforms extend that communication to audiences beyond the household.
The feature links the change to two overlapping uses of interiors. The home can operate as a stage for video and social content, and as a gallery where art, furniture and objects receive deliberate visual emphasis. It also cautions against assuming that this visual role necessarily makes a home less domestic. The report says blurred boundaries among art, craft and furniture have contributed to some contemporary interiors, but does not claim that one style defines everyone’s experience.
““Aspirational futures””
— Javier Fernández Contreras, architect and academic
The Limits of the Evidence
The feature is a reported design essay, not a survey or quantified study. It does not establish how many people change their homes because of social media, how those effects differ across platforms or groups, or whether exposure leads to lasting dissatisfaction. Fernández Contreras’s concerns are attributed views, not presented as a universal outcome.
It is also unclear how far the gallery-like aesthetic described in the report extends beyond the examples discussed. The source provides no broader market data on home renovations, spending or design trends, and does not compare creator households with non-creators. The reported follower count for The Berlin Chapters is tied to the feature and is not a measure of the account’s current audience.
Questions for Everyday Design Choices
The source announces the launch of Livingetc’s The Meaning of Home series, which it says will continue through essays, interviews and personal stories. It does not provide a schedule for later installments or identify a next publication date. The series is framed around questions about how homes shape—and are shaped by—the people who live in them.
For readers, the immediate question raised by the report is practical rather than prescriptive: whether a design choice serves everyday life, online presentation, or both. The article does not argue that people should avoid sharing their homes or reject curated interiors. It asks readers to notice how exposure to idealized images may influence what they value, while keeping the distinction between a home’s public image and private use in view.
Key Questions
What is the “performed home” idea?
It describes a home that functions both as a lived-in space and as an image presented to others, particularly through social media. The feature says those roles can overlap without making every home feel like a set to its occupants.
What does the Livingetc report say social media changes?
The report argues that platforms can circulate interior images widely and shape the standards people use to judge domestic spaces. It does not quantify how many people are affected or show that all users respond in the same way.
Do Dima and Guy consider their home a set?
They say they do not feel they are walking around a set when they are not creating content, describing it as “our home first.” The feature notes that content-making can still bring practical considerations such as light and weather.
Does the report say gallery-like interiors are less homely?
No. It describes gallery-like arrangements, such as artwork on open walls and fewer objects on display, but says this does not necessarily make a home less domestic.
Is the report based on a study of social media users?
No. It is a design feature drawing on an academic’s commentary and creators’ experiences. It does not provide survey results or statistical evidence about social media’s effects on household behavior.
Source: livingetc.com
