Vagina tunnels and sneaker closets: the escapist appeal of celebrity house tours

In new column Internet wormhole, Guardian Australia writers take you to their favourite corner of the web. First up: an inviting - and voyeuristic - YouTube series

Looking back to early pandemic times, it was probably Architectural Digest's video tour of Dakota Johnson's Hollywood home that nudged me down the YouTube hole of celebrity house tours.

Like many millennials my Instagram feed is at any given moment peppered with aspirational content from sites like The Design Files and a stream of homogenous pastel-hued influencers. But sitting housebound with my partner and cat in our rented, single bedroom flat, the Fifty Shades of Grey star's whimsical tour of her tastefully decorated mid century Hollywood home and kitchen stocked with unreasonable quantities of limes (I love limes, they're great and I like to present them like this in my house," she explained) offered a welcome hit of late night escapism from the more foreboding stuff unfolding across the internet in March 2020.