Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of aesthetic routines on Tik-Tok, people living aesthetic lives and, basically, having - or pretending to have - a perfect life. But first, let’s clarify what aesthetic mean:
“concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty”
The Oxford Dictionary
Do you get it? Well, if I didn’t have the social context and the meaning generalized by the internet of what aesthetic means, I wouldn’t get it either. So let me try. Aesthetics is, like the word says, related to the esthetic of something (it can be a picture, an object, a look or even the weather). Our personal preferences have a deep impact in what we think is or isn’t aesthetically pleasant - we can like girly and pink; deep and dark; hippie and colorful; and many other combinations of random words that somehow are classified as an aesthetic.
*Girly Girl Aesthetic*
In what I’ve been understanding, in the context of social media, aesthetic and vibe go hand in hand, and people tend to characterize other people by the image they pass. I guess we feel safe when we match the column labeled “people” to their respective “aesthetic” box. In fact, don’t we all check each others Instagram feeds before following someone, like we are trying to decipher that person, trying to know them by what they post, discover their deepest secrets and desires by the colors and filters they tend to prefer in their pictures? By doing that, we are trying to sense their vibe, see if we would get along, if we find them interesting and pleasant, if we like their aesthetics.
“Oh, but I don’t do that, at least consciously”. - Ok, babe, maybe you don’t care, but this is an increasingly common reality. Take a few minutes to scroll on Tik-Tok. How many daily aesthetically perfect routines will you see? There are thousands and thousands of content creators doing mini vlogs of their daily life and trying to pass an image of the most perfect, most pleasant and beautiful life. They’re trying to live “an aesthetic life” - which can be a book-nerd, a fairy-girl, a gothic-chic, a gym-rat, a gamer, or even the corporate girl.
*Hippie Girl Aesthetic*
This need to put ourselves or characterize others in terms of aesthetic is that we feel compelled to be part of that little box, to meet the standards we imagine exist, to act like the content creators we admire and match the vibe we want, to buy all the things that are trendy in the category we desire to be. And when we don’t, we feel frustrated.
That’s the problem when we try to associate ourselves with an aesthetic. We will never be the people we follow, live the Pinterest images we collect or have the lives we see on Tik-Tok. And why? Because we are not just an aesthetic. We are people, we have different interests, we like a multitude of things, we have our own reality, and, most of all, we feel. For instance, if I was to match my name box to the aesthetic box, I would take ages: I’m girly, nerdy, geeky, a bookworm, borderline hippie/fairy, country lover who loves to get dirty, sophisticated and nice. Some of these things are even contradicted, so, what should I do? Pick one? Ignore the parts of me that don’t fit the most pleasant aesthetic?
*Gim Girl Aesthetic*
The truth is that the frustration and desire to fit in is something very real in today's society, especially in the younger generations. We feel the pressure to feel accepted, so we try to imitate our peers, the people we follow and the influencers we see on our feeds. And it sucks. It really sucks. Because we feel that we can’t explore ourselves, have different hobbies and interests from the people around us, make different groups of friends, like different clothes and have a unique sense of style. We feel trapped in a reality that we want to live, but we can’t achieve.
In reality, even the influencers we follow don’t live those lives. Everything you see on social media is because someone decided to post it, it’s planned, prepared and probably has a strategic purpose behind it all. In marketing and advertising, we have two concepts called “brand identity and brand image” - funny enough, my thesis is about it. The brand identity is what the brand is, their values, their mission; and the brand image is what the people perceive about the brand, the image they formed in their head. And these are also applicable to influencers and content creators. These people are not regular social media users anymore, they plan what to post, they think about their audience and what content will have a bigger impact. And fairly enough, they think about the aesthetics of it all and the vibe they want to promote.
*Surf Girl Aesthetic*
But don’t think that everything related to an aesthetic is bad. Some people use this concept a lot to promote manifestation, aka to visualize a life they want to have. This could be useful and interesting, in a way it can help to motivate people to achieve their goals and it’s also really funny to do. However, it’s important to keep in mind that we don’t fully control our lives due to unforeseen events; so it’s crucial to relativize the importance of manifestation. Other than that, different aesthetics can also be fun to discover - when we don’t have the pressure to “put” ourselves in one of them. Exploring new concepts can help us find new things, new brands, try new hobbies, new styles and meet new people.
To sum up, aesthetics can be dangerous when we feel the need to live in a certain way to be validated, but can also be a fun thing to explore and can actually help us in the path to find ourselves. Maybe your column is linked to a box called “new personal unique aesthetic”. Be you, boo.
*A merge of aesthetics*
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