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A Livingetc feature explores how social media has given homes a public life as backdrops, portfolios and curated galleries, changing how some people see domestic space. Architect and academic Javier Fernández Contreras warns that platforms may promote narrow ideals of domesticity, while creators Dima and Guy say their home remains a home first. The report does not establish how widespread these effects are or whether social media directly changes most people’s design choices.
Livingetc has published a report on how social media is changing the way homes are presented and judged, describing domestic spaces as both places to live and images for public consumption. The feature brings together the perspective of architect and academic Javier Fernández Contreras and creators Dima and Guy of The Berlin Chapters, while leaving open how broadly online ideals affect people’s everyday choices.
The report argues that social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and Pinterest have extended a longstanding role of interiors: communicating identity, status and aspiration. What is different, it says, is that images of homes can now reach and remain available to a large audience. Domestic spaces may function at once as residences, backdrops, portfolios and galleries.
Fernández Contreras, author of The Interiors of Social Media: Architecture, Space, and Technology in the 21st Century, says platforms can produce what he calls “aspirational futures” and influence how people assess their own surroundings. He describes the home as increasingly becoming a “container for visual representation.” The feature presents this as an interpretation of a cultural shift, not a measured finding about how all users behave.
The report also describes how the pandemic made home-based broadcasting more common: bookshelves appeared behind professionals on screen, kitchen islands served as studio space, and walls behind desks became visible backdrops. For creators, renovation can itself become serialized content, with sourcing and finished-room reveals forming part of the story. The article notes that practical conditions such as light and weather can shape content-making, too.
When a Home Also Has an Audience
The distinction between a home as a private place and a home as a public image matters because it can affect what people value in their own spaces. If rooms are routinely seen through photographs and videos, visual coherence may become a stronger measure of whether a space feels successful. That may sit uneasily alongside other domestic needs, including comfort, convenience and the ordinary signs of daily life.
Fernández Contreras warns that online images may reinforce normative models of domesticity, much as social media can help consolidate particular ideals of appearance. His concern is that repeated exposure can make some ways of living and decorating seem like the standard, even when they reflect a curated image rather than the full experience of a household.
The feature does not argue that this outcome is inevitable. The Berlin Chapters’ account offers a counterpoint: Dima and Guy say they do not consciously design their home around an online audience and do not feel they are walking through a set when they are not making content. Their experience suggests that public visibility and private use can coexist, though the report does not establish whether that is typical of creators or other households.
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From Private Rooms to Public Images
Livingetc introduces the article as part of The Meaning of Home, a series using design to examine how domestic spaces shape people’s lives and ideas. Its central premise is that homes have never been entirely separate from public identity: objects and room arrangements have long communicated taste and aspiration. Social platforms, the feature argues, have changed the potential scale and persistence of that communication.
The pandemic forms part of the report’s timeline, not as the start of the trend but as an accelerator. More people worked and appeared on camera from home, bringing formerly ordinary features—such as a bookshelf or a wall behind a desk—into view. The article also describes an overlap between domestic interiors and gallery presentation, where art, collectible furniture, lighting and empty space can be composed for visual emphasis. It says this overlap can produce rich interiors, while also inviting questions about which parts of home life are made visible.
““Aspirational futures””
— Javier Fernández Contreras, architect and academic
How Far the Online Gaze Reaches
The feature is a cultural report, not a survey or research study quantifying how many people change their homes because of social media. It does not establish the scale of the effect, whether exposure leads to particular purchasing or renovation decisions, or how those effects differ by age, platform or income. Fernández Contreras’s warning is an attributed interpretation, not proof of a uniform result.
It is also unclear how representative The Berlin Chapters’ experience is. The feature says the duo began sharing their home on Instagram the previous year and had nearly 82,000 followers at the time described, but it does not give a precise date for that figure. The source does not specify the report’s publication date, and it provides no follow-up evidence on whether the creators’ approach has changed over time.
Questions for Future Coverage
Livingetc presents the article as one installment in The Meaning of Home, a new series, but the source material does not provide a schedule for further pieces. The report’s questions may be explored through later essays, interviews or personal stories in the series; no specific next publication or research milestone is announced.
For now, the distinction readers can take from the feature is between a home’s appearance online and its use by the people who live there. Further evidence would be needed to show how often social-media ideals change domestic decisions, and whether that influence is welcomed, resisted or both.
Key Questions
What does “performed home” mean in the report?
It describes a home that is lived in but also presented to an audience through photographs and video. The report says domestic spaces can serve as residences and visual backdrops at the same time.
No. Fernández Contreras argues that platforms may shape expectations, but the article does not show that everyone changes their home for online attention. Dima and Guy say their home is “our home first” when they are not creating content.
What role did the pandemic play?
The report says the pandemic accelerated a trend by putting more people on camera from home. Bookshelves, kitchens and walls behind desks became visible parts of work and media settings.
Is there evidence showing how many people are affected?
The source provides no survey or population-level figures on how social media changes home design choices. The reported effects are presented through expert interpretation and creator accounts, rather than quantified research.
Source: livingetc.com
