Image: INSTAGRAM | @ashtonhallofficial

MY MORNING STARTED, as it often does, at 6 am, with an internal groan. I tapped the alarm on my Apple Watch, which I use to wake up so as not to rouse my sleeping wife (yes, considerate of me, she’s welcome) and then contemplated getting up to go to the gym, as I had planned the night before. I’d even got my clothes out in the lounge room to facilitate a quick getaway.

Instead, I rolled over and continued to attempt to summon the will power to roll my legs off the bed, as heavy rain pitter-pattered on the leaves outside my bedroom window. The rain served as a convenient excuse to remain in bed, I thought, before my mind doubled back on itself – you could always just use an umbrella.

I continued this back and forth interior dialogue for a further 25 minutes, wondering if I should remain there, snug under the doona or venture outside, until my wife’s loud phone alarm went off (not so considerate, just saying, though she doesn’t have an Apple Watch). I got up.

Looking back on those first 25 wasted minutes, I feel some guilt, further compounded by the knowledge that US influencer and absolutely jacked specimen, Ashton Hall, wakes up at 3:52 am every morning and does not waste A. Single. Second.

In case you missed it, Hall, an online fitness coach, has a morning routine that includes push-ups at 4:04 am, dunking his face in a bowl of ice water at 5:49 am, journalling, going to the gym, going to the toilet (proof of human rather than alien DNA), a mini-facial using the insides of a banana! – takeaway: don’t waste fruit! And dunking his face in ice water again before starting work after 9 am. Hall continues to chronicle his routine, minute by minute, through five meticulous hours, in what is a disturbingly absorbing piece of content.

The video sent seismic tremors through social media this week, dropping into the already saturated pool of morning routine content like a Trump tweet from Truth Social. #MorningRoutine has racked up more than 47.4 billion views on TikTok, and at least 1.5 million posts have flooded the hashtag on Instagram.

The thing about Hall’s work of performance art in service of self-improvement is that his dedication to his routine is so po-faced and precise that it’s difficult to tell whether or not he’s taking the piss – as mentioned, he does take a piss in the video. The heavily curated footage comes within a hair’s width of self-parody, though one suspects that’s not a pastime Hall, a former college football player, has much time for – surely you can spare a minute, Ashton? Why not slot it in before the banana facial?

Still, to be fair to Hall, the content clearly resonates and rather than hate the player, let’s go for the game instead. Morning routines and the habits of successful go-getters has become catnip on TikTok and Instagram for striving hustle-culture aspirants. This is merely the digital extension of the self-help publishing industry and its bargain basement-destined avalanche of books on the habits of successful people, particularly entrepreneurs. It also sits alongside the podcast industry’s legion of wellness influencers and celebs, who specialise in disseminating motivational gems and pseudoscientific ephemera that promises to optimise the lives of mere civilians such as ourselves.

Indeed, it was perhaps Mark Wahlberg’s famous 2:30 am wake-up call and subsequent monk-like morning routine – which included time for prayer, golf and playing with the kids, all before 6 am – that kicked off the whole pre-dawn cottage content industry. While Wahlberg’s original screed was a mere list, content creators such as Hall, have taken things a step further with their performative discipline and dedication.

Now, as someone who does subscribe to the benefits of waking up early and seizing the day, I have to admit that getting shit done in the quiet predawn hours can be enlivening. The commingling of stars with the first rays of sunlight after an early morning swim in the ocean or a gawk at a blood-orange dawn sky over the city after completing a run is often soul-enriching stuff. But, I would argue, sharing this special moment with the world in the form of a humble-bragging social post or over-produced video, is a sure-fire way to deaden the souls of others and invite a particularly spiteful form of para-social scorn.

But what is perhaps most irksome about smug, hustle-driven content creators, is that they rarely glorify their bed-time routines in quite the same way. That’s where Hall deserves some plaudits, for off the back of the success of his morning routine, he’s now catalogued his evening one, too. It’s equally detailed and meticulous – the banana is back – and sees him hit the pillow at 7 pm.

Because that’s the thing about getting up early to engage in a glorious morning routine; to consistently rise between 3-4 am, requires most of us to go to bed at the same time as our kids. That’s not sexy, not very aspirational and, until Hall did it, hasn’t made for particularly compelling content. But it’s the largely unacknowledged side of the wellness-hustle culture equation.

The other problem with aspirational morning routines is that they can be self-defeating. Fail to get up at 3:37 am and you can feel guilty for the rest of the day. Rather than feeling invigorated and smug (one of life’s guilty pleasures), you feel down on yourself for failing to reach an unrealistic goal – should have gone to bed after the 7 pm news, dummy.

Thankfully, the internet was more than ready to pounce on Hall’s routine and serve it back to him, with a torrent of memes showing creators detailing their own, very human, very ordinary morning routines, straight from the Celeste Barber School of puncturing self-deprecating irony. Earnestness begat parody, as it often does, though, I suspect some of these people chasing free hits on the content mill had to hustle to get their videos out in time to ride the algorithm, which might have meant – you guessed it, getting up early.

Is there a takeout from all this – not really, this article isn’t supposed to improve or optimise you in any way, shape or form. But just know, that while you remain soundly asleep tomorrow morning, the Ashton Halls of the world are getting a head start on their day. They are smugly viewing us as a mass of slumbering drones, who are missing the best part of the day and playing catch-up for the rest of it.

Equally though, you might find it within yourself to give them a telepathic goodnight around 6:55 pm tonight, when their poor overworked heads hit the pillow, ready to do it all again tomorrow. I know I will . . . if I’m not already asleep.

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