By Yusra Afolabi
It was 2:15 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I was staring at my phone screen. There was a girl I’d followed for months, and she was posting a vlog of her lunch at a fancy restaurant in Wuse. The table was covered in waffles, cocktails, and a designer purse that probably cost more than my teacher’s old Toyota.
The caption read, “Soft life only. If it’s stressing me, I don’t want it.”
I looked around my room. It wasn’t bad either. I had everything I needed. But I felt small—like I was losing a race against my peers who seemed to live in fancy restaurants and take frequent vacations.
That’s the thing about being a teenager in Nigeria in 2026. Peer pressure doesn’t just happen at the back of the classroom anymore; it follows you into your bed.
Many teenagers are low-key depressed because they can’t afford the luxury water bottles their friends carry in expensive school bags. They’re caught between saving their entire pocket money for trendy items while their stomachs do the hard labour in real life.
But we need to realise that without the ring light and perfect angles, many influencers look tired. Their little perfect lives often end the moment the camera stops rolling.
Meanwhile, we’re so scared of looking local or broke that we forget we’re literally just students. We’re supposed to be struggling with chemistry, not worrying about whether our aesthetic matches a Pinterest board.
I’ve decided to log out of the fantasy. Real “soft life” isn’t about eating spaghetti from a gold plate in expensive restaurants. It’s about having a mind that isn’t constantly comparing itself to a mirage.
The next time you see an influencer living your “dream life”, remember you’re seeing what they want you to see—not the bloopers.
Yusra is a student of I-Scholars International Academy, Abuja.