Are Aesthetics Harmful?
A deep dive into aesthetics and the role they play in youth/online culture and consumerism
Everywhere we look across social media, aesthetics are being pushed by influencers, brands, and sometimes even our friends. Some of the most popular aesthetics being cottagecore, Y2K, that girl, downtown girl, dark academia, and even aesthetics based on certain decades (which can be seen with Y2K, but someone might also choose to exclusively wear clothes that embody the 70s). They encapsulate a person’s style, specifically in clothes and decor, but may even influence their taste in movies, music, lifestyle, etc. Of course, it’s completely normal to be drawn to things that feel like us. They resonate moods and feelings that align with how we imagine ourselves to be, and oftentimes, allow us to explore new forms of self-expression. But sometimes we get a little carried away.
I think we’ve all done this at some point. We see pictures and videos of someone promoting a certain aesthetic on Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok that just speaks to us. We feel the budding excitement grow in our chest as we imagine living a life as beautiful, romantic, and exciting as one on our phones. And so, we immediately set out to find how we can live this kind of life, scouring online stores for makeup, clothes, and accessories that will allow us to embody this aesthetic, absolutely certain that if we look this way on the outside, then, surely, the rest of our lives will follow suit.
Honestly, I think I’ve fallen victim to every aesthetic at least once. I’ve attempted to carefully curate my clothes, accessories, and makeup toward them simply because they felt like me at the time. But I’ve also felt restricted by them. When I’ve found things I liked that didn’t fit into my prescribed “aesthetic”, I’ve wondered if they were worth getting. For others, it’s caused them to feel confused as to their sense of self because they either don’t fit into these predetermined categories, or feel they align with aspects of many different ones. In this sense, aesthetics, while often used as ways of describing a person’s sense of style, may actually be harmful to the development of the self.
But what are aesthetics?
Based on my earlier description, aesthetics would seem to have to do with a person’s style/taste, and while that’s part of it, there’s more to it. When researched, multiple definitions come up, but all of them have one element in common: beauty.
Historically, aesthetics were connected to art. During the mid to late 1800s, The Aesthetic Movement rose in prominence, and while categorized as an artistic movement, it could also be considered a societal one. The Art Story Foundation, a website dedicated to educating the public about art, explains
“…the provocative and sensuous Aesthetic movement threatened to dismantle Britain's fussy, overbearing, and conservative Victorian traditions. More than a fine art movement, Aestheticism penetrated all areas of life - from music and literature to interior design and fashion. At its heart was the desire to create "art for art's sake" and to exalt taste, the pursuit of beauty, and self-expression over moral expectations and restrictive conformity.”
Prior to this time period, most paintings, sculptures, and other works of art were used to convey societal, political, religious and moral values rather than as a form of self-expression. Known for their expression “art for art’s sake”, Aesthetes—as supporters of the Aesthetic Movement were called—desired to separate art from these expectations and simply appreciate it for what it was.
Although they fought for the freedom of self-expression, supporters of this movement were also obsessed with beauty. They believed that life should imitate art, asserting that all spaces of our lives should be beautiful. Even though, they can be seen to favor surface level appeals over more thoughtful ones, The Art Story Foundation explains
“Rebelling against Victorian materiality and modern industrialism (particularly what they criticized as the impoverished and repetitive designs of consumer products created cheaply by "soulless" machines), Aesthetic artists placed a premium on quality craftsmanship in the creation of all art. Some even revived pre-industrial techniques in the process.”
At it’s heart, this movement was a rebellion against the materialistic values that were the result of the Industrial Revolution. It was an attempt to move away from the mechanic mass production of goods and return to a more lively, humanistic way of living.
In many ways, aestheticism is the same now as it was back then. It champions self-expression, living for the simple pleasures in life, and is still obsessed with beauty. Each and every online aesthetic idolizes beauty in some way, pushing their own form of the idealized self. Videos and collages are scattered with images of the perfect outfit, the perfect makeup, and the perfect hair. And even when the girl in the image looks a little messy with smudged eyeliner or lipstick stains on her coffee cup, she still looks absolutely beautiful while doing it. This places value solely on beauty and creates this pressure that everything, even our messes, must be beautiful.
However, it’s also a romanticization of life. When we see these images/videos, we imagine that we are the ones running through meadows, our hair rippling in the wind as our dress flutters against our knees. Or the warm glow of the morning sun trickling in through the window, dancing against the gold mirror sitting on the windowsill.
It’s interesting how all of this content contains images of life. They give attention to the more aesthetically pleasing aspects, but they’re all about living in some way. Running through meadows, having picnics, getting coffee with friends, going to bookstores and music shops, and even waking up with makeup smeared across our face from the night before. This content, while idealizing physical beauty, is also focused on life. We don’t see these pictures and simply think: I wish I looked like that. Or, well, we do, but we also think: Maybe if I looked like that, my life would look the same. It’s about the lifestyle as much as it is the physical beauty of it all and, unfortunately, companies know that.
An NBC News article titled “On TikTok there’s always a new ‘girl’ aesthetic”, writer Kaetlyn Liddy quotes fashion assistant Becky O’Conner who says
“‘Young people, predominantly young girls, are yearning for identity and yearning for community. We’re pushed more and more towards buying things and making buying things our identity.’”
Part of myself wonders whether aesthetics would be as much of an issue if it weren’t for the consumerization of it all. Nowadays, aesthetics are more just categories of things we like, they’re still perpetuating beauty standards, but a lot of the problem stems from companies. Everyone wants to blame social media. They want to say platforms like TikTok are the ones to blame, and this is partly true. Social media has made the constant exposure to content that shoves societal beauty standards down our throats a part of our daily lives. It’s made it easier for us to compare ourselves to others, but it’s also made it easier for companies to prey on our insecurities. Our desire to fit in and develop identities of our own are capitalized on by brands. They sell us lip glosses that will make us feel like we’re living our “best 90s girl life” or that “2000s It Girl life”, knowing we’ll buy it in hopes of finding some semblance of identity encased in the plastic tubing. Marketing at it’s finest. Cruel, money-hungry marketing. But we are ignoring a large part of the problem when we blame social media alone.
(Also see the collection of pictures used in a teaser to advertise for the Gelée lipgloss, Jeté)
Gen Z was born into the world of technology. We were brought up on it, fed with a constant stream of consumer-centric content that only became stronger as the years passed. But it’s always been there. Though, it wasn’t as intense years ago as it is now. I’m not trying to say the world was “better” before the internet and social media completely took over, because it wasn’t. The time before the internet seems simpler, and in some ways it was and wasn’t. On the other hand, the internet age sometimes feels dehumanizing, but it also has the benefit of providing people with more information about the world around them. Like anything, there’s good and bad to both sides. But, what if modern aesthetics are a reaction to the dehumanization of the internet age?
After researching The Aesthetic Movement, I realized we have more similarities with that time in history than I would have thought. Modern aesthetics, however, are less of a rebellion—like they were for the Aesthetes in the 1800s—and more of a yearning. With social media, the internet, and now AI, we’re not given much of an opportunity to exist outside of technology. So much of our world has become digitized that we’re now romanticizing just living.
Companies aren’t just trying to sell things they think we need or things that will make our lives easier, they’re trying to sell us experiences, an identity. We want so badly to feel as though we a have a place in this world. So they sell us bursts of joy caked in physical acceptance. But, when we attempt to live aesthetically pleasing lives, we’re boiling ourselves down to our physical selves. Humans are so much more complex. Our job isn’t to make sense of it all. Just to experience it. The good, the bad, the contradicting.
Comments, Thoughts, Feelings
Had you heard of The Aesthetic Movement before now? I learned about it in a class once, but I didn’t know the entire history.
What’s your favorite art era/style? One of my favorites is Impressionism.
Have you ever been obsessed with an aesthetic? Like I said, I think I’ve gotten into almost all of them at one point, but I always go back to 90s styles.
Do you use fashion, makeup, etc. as a way of expressing yourself? I definitely do, and even though it’s a struggle with knowing that I’m constantly being influenced by social media and whatnot, I still try to wear things for myself.
How do you feel about aesthetics?