In need of a little more self-love? Need a new channel to binge watch feel-good videos that are meticulously filmed? Check out Olivia Charis’ channel.
Getting lost in the incessant pattern of self-comparison while scrolling through any online platform is alarmingly easy.
With an eye for detail and flair for creativity, Charis reclaims social media and transforms it into a medium to foster self-love.
A first-year in Morse college, Charis created her channel just a few months ago. Her content focuses on college life, fashion and style, and daily vlogs. Most importantly, Charis describes her videos as “diaries”—documentations of her life at specific times. She sees her channel as a space where she can reflect upon different days and remember specific moments that made her feel happy.
Primarily, Charis views her channel as an opportunity for her to romanticize her daily life. With a smile, she jokingly retorts that her channel is not filled with “glow up videos” or “traveling to Cancun” vlogs. Instead, she focuses on filming different aspects of her everyday routine. In one of her most recent videos, she created a compilation of clips she filmed throughout an entire week. Charis recounts, “There were so many things that could have really put me in a bad mood that week.” However, she explains that filming allowed her to keep a positive mindset: “I was trying to find little things in my day that were beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. And the fact that I had to take time to do that made me more consciously appreciate my day as I went along.”
Charis’s pursuit to cherish her everyday life also stems from a place of self-comparison. Feelings of inadequacy enabled her to compare her daily activities to those of her friends from other colleges. “I want to work on actively not comparing myself to people on Instagram. I employ that same kind of mindset towards my videos, where I’m like, this is about what I’m doing. It has nothing to do with anybody else.” Whether she’s doing laundry, organizing her room, or working in the library, Charis turns her everyday tasks into beautiful snapshots on a screen.
When asked to define what self-love means to her, Charis illustrated the concept as “breaking down your boundaries and allowing yourself to be open to self-improvement.” When she was first making videos, she was uncertain about her ability to succeed in this creative field. Charis soon realized that filming is a means of self-improvement. These videos and their content have allowed her to put herself out of her comfort zone. Speaking in front of a camera forced her to be more articulate, instilling her with more confidence. Beginning as an outlet for creativity, Charis’s channel has strengthened her self-assuredness and has helped her find her voice.
Charis emphasizes the importance of self-care, specifically in regards to finding the balance between taking care of one’s mental health and getting work done. In one of her videos about productivity, she highlights the importance of “being responsible for [her] work and doing the things [she] needs to do, but also being responsible for [her] mental health and weighing both of those things equally.” Charis is, however, honest about her own struggle to meet this balance at times. She mentions that she stayed up until 5:00 AM the other night trying to finish editing a video. “Trying to figure out that balance is a little bit challenging, especially for me because I’m a perfectionist,” she clarifies. Her transparency is refreshing, considering many individuals mask their struggles online with a facade of complete composure.
In regards to her own process of content creation, Charis emphasizes the importance of practicing her interests for her own sake. “At the end of the day, if you’re just enjoying whatever it is that you’re doing, if it’s just for you, it doesn’t matter who’s watching it,” she asserts. Of course, Charis hopes that her content inspires and comforts her viewers, but ultimately she films and edits her videos because she genuinely enjoys this hobby. She characterizes passions such as her own as being “unselfishly for you.”
One of Charis’s main goals is to create a space for “people who are wanting a place to relax and destress.” Relaxing background music, aesthetically pleasing clips, and soothing words of wisdom contribute to the calming atmosphere in Charis’s videos. These videos act as a source of comfort as well as a medium for viewers to “fall in love with their everyday lives.”
With her videos and diaries, Charis hopes to cultivate an audience interested in working with her to create the best version of themselves.
Gianna Campillo ’25
