The phrase “Do it for the plot” was recently coined by the actress and influencer Serena Kerrigan in a viral TikTok video where she urged viewers to remember that "if something works out, great, and if it doesn't, it's for the plot". She explained that: "Do it for the plot is an extension of the idea of being the main character of one's life (...). I think that people just get pretty upset when things don't go their way, or they are embarrassed if they got drunk one night and I'm like "its for t…
Read moreThe phrase “Do it for the plot” was recently coined by the actress and influencer Serena Kerrigan in a viral TikTok video where she urged viewers to remember that "if something works out, great, and if it doesn't, it's for the plot". She explained that: "Do it for the plot is an extension of the idea of being the main character of one's life (...). I think that people just get pretty upset when things don't go their way, or they are embarrassed if they got drunk one night and I'm like "its for the plot (....)”. In this paper, I take Kerrigan's suggestion seriously and explore it as an idea worthy of philosophical investigation. In doing so, I examine a category of actions and conducts that has been overlooked by philosophers, as well as the reasons we might have for performing them. I argue that we have compelling reasons to sometimes “do it for the plot”, and that they are best understood as aesthetic reasons supporting actions with final aesthetic value. In the second half of the paper, I also show how doing it for the plot can enhance our well-being by making our life’s stories better stories.
