TikTok’s Chaotic Nightstands Are Here to Make You Feel Less Bad About Yours

If your TBR pile is fighting for space on your nightstand with an alarm clock and the daily contents of your pockets, you’re not the only one.

The latest trend on TikTok is influencing users to share videos to show off their nightstand decor. While some are curated with candles and crystals, others are a bit disorganized — and it’s a breath of fresh air for anyone who simply cannot keep things clean just for aesthetics.

As Hozier’s viral audio of  “Would That I” plays in the background, the #nightstandtour hashtag is full of TikTok creators sharing their bedside table decor. Some of the videos provide a “real life” view of their nightstand filled with vitamin bottles, semi-empty water bottles, and a minor layer of trash. Others are curated with table lamps, trinket trays, and skincare items. And for one TikTok user, her mischievous cat is the only thing that remains on her nightstand.

For Annie Silkaitis, her nightstand, which garnered over one million views, is adorned with a Chamberlain Coffee mason jar, Apple’s sage green AirPods Max, and the popular Stanley Tumbler. In the comment section, some were pointing out the consumerism that lies within this trend, and others were saying that the “girls that get it, get it.”

However, the styled nightstands in this trend are less popular than the “realistic” ones.

TikTok user Liyanga de Silva worded it perfectly: “I really love this show your nightstand trend, because there really just are two types of people. The kinds of people that have beautiful aesthetically pleasing nightstands and then the rest of us who never learned any form of cable management.”

Messy nightstands are appearing on the platform amid the recent TikTok trend of showcasing “non-aesthetic” homes, where authenticity and filming realistic videos about casual, uncurated spaces is becoming popular. These videos provide a practical view of what a lived-in home actually looks like, since regular living spaces often don’t mirror a flawless magazine spread.