The Internet Got Mad at a Made Bed: Shamed or Just Shown?
5/26/202640 min
A few bed-making videos went viral, my Instagram following doubled in a week, and suddenly the internet had a lot to say about pillows, quilts, beige interiors and whether showing people how to make a bed properly counts as “shaming”.
In this episode of Home and Hosting with Loui Burke, I’m unpacking the reaction to my fed-up bed-making videos, why the word “shame” gets used so quickly online, and why I think making your bed is about more than aesthetics. It is about routine, self-respect, domestic confidence and creating small moments of order in a world that often feels anything but.
I also talk about the role of humour and tough love in making home advice cut through, why this content did not come from nowhere, and how teaching people to make a space feel like home has always been at the centre of what I do.
Because no, it is not really about a perfect bed. It is about learning how to care for the space you are in now.
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLouis Burke· Host0:00
[jazzy music] Welcome back to Home & Hosting with me, Louis Burke, the podcast where we talk about making everyday life feel a little more considered, beautiful, and ideally, a little more put together. This week we need to talk about beds, because apparently I've become the Internet's unofficial bed-making parent. A few of my bed-making videos went viral over the last week. And when I say viral, I mean viral in a way that completely shifted the scale of my Instagram. In the space of about a week, my Instagram following has essentially doubled, which is wild to say out loud in this day of the Internet. And I think it's worth saying, because when something goes viral, sometimes the loudest people can make it feel like the reaction is more negative than it actually is. But the reality is, my following doubled, so clearly more people connected with it than were offended by it. People shared it, followed, sent it to their friends, their moms, their sisters, and their partners. People made their beds. People messaged me saying it made them feel better. So while, yes, there has been some commentary, I do not want to pretend that the main story is backlash, because it's just not. The main story is that a lot of people clearly wanted someone to say, "Here's how you do this properly," in a way that was funny enough for it to cut through and make them stop scrolling. For the people who have just arrived, welcome. I promise we do more than yell at pillows here. But I also think that it is important to say, if you have seen one viral video, you have arrived halfway through this conversation. Some people were delighted, some were confused,