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Livingetc’s new “The Meaning of Home” series examines how social media has made domestic spaces both places to live and images for public audiences. The report argues that online interiors can shape expectations of what a home should look like, while the Berlin-based creators The Berlin Chapters say their home remains a home first, not a set.
Livingetc has introduced “The Meaning of Home,” a series exploring how culture and design shape domestic life, with an opening report on how social media turns the home into both a place to live and an image for others. The report asks whether the pursuit of an Instagram-worthy interior changes how people use their spaces, while making clear that online visibility does not necessarily mean residents experience their homes as sets.
The report describes a shift in the audience for domestic space. Homes have long communicated identity, status and aspiration, it says, but social platforms give those representations a potentially large and lasting public. Rooms can serve as residences, backdrops and portfolios, with furniture, art and objects arranged for images as well as daily use. The article treats the “performed home” as a question about expectations, not simply a trend toward a particular decorating style.
Architect and academic Javier Fernández Contreras, author of The Interiors of Social Media: Architecture, Space, and Technology in the 21st Century, says platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and Pinterest circulate more than interior photographs. In his account, they help produce “aspirational futures” that can influence how people judge their own homes, recasting domestic space as a “container for visual representation.” These are his interpretations of social media’s cultural effect, not findings from a study quantified in the report.
The report also draws on Dima and Guy, the creative duo behind The Berlin Chapters, whose interior-focused posts have attracted an online audience. They say the scale of that audience is difficult to grasp and that they do not consciously design their home around it. For them, practical content-making concerns include light and weather. Their account offers a counterpoint to the idea that every visible home is continuously staged for its viewers.
When Home Becomes Public
The issue matters because social media can bring a new audience into the way people think about private space, even when residents are not professional creators. The report says that scrolling through other people’s rooms and saving ideas on Pinterest can increase both visual reference points and awareness of how one’s own home compares. That may expand design inspiration, but it may also reinforce narrow expectations of domesticity.
Fernández Contreras compares the spread of domestic ideals with the way social media can consolidate bodily ideals. His warning is that standards presented online as desirable or normal deserve scrutiny. The report does not establish how many people feel pressured to renovate, spend more, or change their homes to match images. It does, however, frame a real design tension: a space may be arranged to communicate visually while also needing to support ordinary routines, comfort and personal preferences.
That tension is not necessarily a choice between attractive interiors and lived-in homes. The report notes that the growing overlap between art, craft and furniture can produce thoughtful spaces. Its question is what happens when visual presentation becomes a major measure of a home’s value, and whether residents retain control over how their rooms are used and represented.
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From Private Rooms to Online Sets
According to the report, domestic space has always carried meaning beyond shelter: people use rooms and objects to express identity and aspiration. Social platforms change the scale and persistence of that expression by enabling interior images to circulate beyond a household’s immediate circle. The home becomes both inhabited space and public representation.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this visibility, the article says, as people broadcast from home more often. Bookshelves appeared behind professionals on camera, kitchen islands served as television studios, and walls behind desks became backdrops. For creators, the relationship can be more direct: renovation may be published in episodes, from demolition and sourcing through to a finished-room reveal.
The report also describes interiors that borrow from gallery display: art on uninterrupted walls, collectible furniture given space, theatrical lighting and fewer objects in view. It presents these choices as part of a broader overlap between the home and public visual culture, not as proof that domestic life has disappeared.
“Social media can promote normative models of domesticity that need to be questioned.”
— Javier Fernández Contreras, architect and academic
The Cost of Curating a Home
The report raises the question of what people may sacrifice to create an online-ready home, but it does not provide evidence measuring financial costs, time demands, mental-health effects or how common those sacrifices are. It also does not establish that social-media exposure directly causes people to renovate or arrange their rooms for views. Those points remain questions raised by the article, rather than confirmed outcomes.
The supplied report does not give a publication date for the series item or identify a formal study behind its broader claims. The Berlin Chapters’ account is an individual example, not a survey of creators or households. It is also unclear how much the platform images discussed reflect everyday life versus selected, edited moments.
Questions the Series Will Explore
Livingetc describes “The Meaning of Home” as a series using essays, interviews and personal stories grounded in design to examine the forces shaping how people live and feel at home. The supplied material does not specify a schedule or name the next installment, so no date for a follow-up can be confirmed.
Further reporting would need to establish how residents balance visual presentation with daily use, whether online ideals influence spending and renovation decisions, and how experiences differ between creators and people who do not publish their homes. For now, the report’s central distinction is that a home can be visible online without ceasing to be, for its residents, a home first.
Key Questions
What is Livingetc’s “The Meaning of Home” series?
Livingetc describes it as a new series of essays, interviews and personal stories about the ideas and forces shaping domestic life, with design as a grounding point.
What does the report mean by a “performed home”?
It refers to a home that is also composed, shown or circulated as an image for an audience, as well as being a place where people live. The report presents this as a cultural tension, not a claim that every home is staged.
Do The Berlin Chapters say they live in a set?
No. Dima and Guy say that when they are not making content, their home does not feel like a set to them: “It’s our home first.”
No. It discusses how social platforms may influence expectations and comparisons, but provides no measurement of resulting spending, renovation activity or how often people make changes for online presentation.
Source: livingetc.com
