'We Are Not Lonely': Living Alone Becomes a New Way of Life

A young woman comes home from work on a Friday night. She heats up a frozen pizza, lights a candle, and eats on her couch while watching TV. This quiet routine was posted to TikTok with the caption 'POV you're a childfree and single girl that has no friends and lives alone.' It has been watched more than seven million times. The woman in the video is Lana Isa, a software sales manager in her 20s who lives in Toronto, Canada.

Isa is part of a small but growing group of online creators who share what it is really like to live alone. Instead of showing off fancy vacations or big parties, they post videos of solo walks, late-night fast food runs, and quiet evenings at home. Many of these creators are women. Isa takes her nearly 400,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram along for everyday moments — including once getting locked out of her apartment in the middle of the night.

For Isa, living without close friends was not something she planned. After switching schools several times, going through COVID-19 isolation in college, and moving across the country after her first heartbreak, she found herself truly alone. She had no close friends nearby and had to learn to be okay with that. 'People don't talk about having no friends a lot,' she says. 'I think it's still what people would consider embarrassing or a little taboo.'

When Isa started posting honestly about her life, people began to pay attention fast. Her TikTok following grew from about 2,000 to more than 175,000 in just eight months. Her comment section filled up with people sharing their own stories of loneliness or living alone. For Isa, it was the first time in a long while that she felt like she could truly relate to others.

Not everyone has been supportive, though. Some critics called Isa and creators like her 'loneliness influencers.' They said these women were making isolation seem cool or were giving up on having a social life. Some accused them of encouraging what one writer called an 'air of cosy defeatism' — a kind of comfortable giving-up. These critics worried that the videos might stop people from trying to build friendships.

Devon Noehring, a full-time content creator from Phoenix, Arizona, says those critics are missing the point. She describes herself as an introvert — someone who gains energy from being alone rather than from being around people. Growing up, she felt ashamed of being quiet and dealing with social anxiety. When she opened up about that online, she found a large community of people who felt exactly the same way. 'Being alone is where I feel my most free and most like myself,' she says.

Health researchers say there is an important difference between choosing to be alone and being stuck in unwanted loneliness. Professor Melody Ding studies loneliness at the University of Sydney, and she says people should not feel pressured to seem happy and social all the time. However, she also warns that too much isolation can hurt your mental and physical health. 'We're a social species,' she says. 'We survive better with companionship, with people around us.'

SJ Hoadley works as a cleaner in the United Kingdom and started making solo-living videos after finding Isa's content online. She had left a long, difficult relationship and moved somewhere she knew no one. It was hard at first, but she slowly began to enjoy her independence. 'I think sometimes my lack of friends tends to bother the people around me more than it bothers me,' she says. Her following has grown by tens of thousands in a single day at times.

Experts say this trend is about more than just being alone — it is a pushback against the fake-perfect world that social media often shows. Dr. Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, who studies online communities at the University of Connecticut, says audiences are tired of seeing only the highlight reels of other people's lives. She thinks solo-living content gives viewers something real and relatable. 'We're kind of trending towards these influencers that are more authentic, living their true life,' she says.

All three women say their goal was never to stay friendless forever. Hoadley is now excited about one day finding a small group of close friends. Noehring hopes to meet her online followers in real life someday. And Isa says the support from her audience gave her the push she needed to start thinking about making friends again. As Hoadley sums it up: 'Find your path. It doesn't have to be this one-size-fits-all that we keep getting pushed on social media.'