Teenage girls are obsessed with creating 'morning routine' YouTube videos about how they get ready for school
"It's 6:30am, and it's officially the least favorite part of my day!"
That's Chloe Lukasiak's voice you're hearing immediately after clicking on her YouTube video.
Along with her voiceover, the familiar sound of the iPhone's default alarm notification ring.
Lukasiak, 14, and one of the former stars of Lifetime's "Dance Moms," made a "Morning Routine" video, the newest craze among young teenagers - especially well-known YouTube celebrities like Bethany Mota, and reality television stars like Lukasiak.
The videos are everywhere.
Just do a Google or YouTube search for "morning routine" and you'll get more than you probably bargained for.
The stars of the videos are people who've developed fan-bases online, and want to show their groupies a peek into their lives. Of course, everything is pretty obviously staged and scripted, and all of the videos sound and look professionally made.
"So, it's 6am and I'm getting up! Here's where I curl my hair (the bathroom)! Here's where I do my make-up; I love Bobbi Brown bronzer. I picked out my outfit last night..."
It's like watching a MTV cribs starring teenage girls except all of the homes look relatively modest, and therefore, relatable to the majority of viewers.
Lukasiak's morning routine video was the first I saw before I started to dive deeper into the trend. Similar to the "haul videos" (where teens buy make up or hair products and then sit in front of their cameras and talk about each specific purchase), the "morning routine" craze has erupted.
Here are scenes from four different morning routine videos so you can see the similarities for yourself (the first belongs to Lukasiak):
All of these videos have between 600k and 2 million views, and many of the videos created to capture winter routines also link out to the morning routines for other seasons.
I chose to look at one in particular belonging to Keaton Milburn. Milburn has 90,000 subscribers, and mostly vlogs about beauty products and how she uses them.
Her morning routine video has nearly 900,000 views, is 9 minutes long, and is a great example if you're looking to recreate the anatomy of a successful routine video for the teenage demographic.
First, we watch Milburn wake up. It's important to note that this is likely staged. The lighting's too good!
Then, morning routine videos usually feature a dog or other family pet that's ingrained themselves into the waking up process.
There is a LOT of brand name dropping and there's almost always a pop song lightly playing in the background.
"Then I go upstairs and light a candle so it smells festive in my room." Everything is documented.
Then we watch her put on her makeup. She lists the brands and products she's using as she puts it on.
We're about 7 minutes in to the morning routine. At the end, she shows us her outfit, and brushes her teeth with Crest Whitening toothpaste.
It doesn't seem that brands are endorsing these videos, but rather, the creators are hoping that the brands they mention will notice them and give them endorsement deals. After all, this is what happened with Michelle Phan several years ago after she made a video about putting on makeup while sitting on an airplane.
The brand she had mentioned, Lancome, saw her video and made Phan its first ever YouTube celebrity brand ambassador.
Regardless, these morning routine videos are absolutely taking over.
Commenters are obsessed:
You can watch Milburn's full video below, or search for one at your own risk on YouTube.