“Aesthetic” is a word I have seen thrown around a lot on the internet these days, and you might have too especially if you’re part of the tumblr/pinterest/instagram crowds. Being “aesthetic” or “aesthetically pleasing” often means abiding by a set of visual concepts or patterns that appeal to the eye and/or represent a certain subcultural group whom one identifies with. “Aesthetics” in fact goes beyond this social media definition, and it refers to a branch in philosophy that studies what constitutes beauty and art, and why something is considered beautiful. But these days when we look up “aesthetic” on social media, it returns in much more cookie cutter forms: step-by-step guides to emulate a particular style of visual display, “mood boards” that further associate intangible concepts with *very* specific images, and of course, prototype “influencers” who shape the trends of what is considered beautiful and what isn’t. This is a natural evolution of “aesthetic”, especially since human society has never collectively endorsed a more personalized definition of beauty despite constant emergences of movements that attempt to allow for more individuality (i.e., romanticism and many more). We fall back on the argument that “humans are social animals!1!!1!” to justify the efforts to homogenize and assimilate and box everyone up into little frames of acceptable norms.
I’m not the first to admit to having spent way more time than necessary in picking out photos to broadcast on my online feed, either to ensure they reflect the best possible presentation of my life (yuck) or to generally keep a sense of visual cohesion. There’s something strange about our obsession with consistency, and not just the visual aspect of our online presence (and in real life too, but this is a discussion for another day). In expressing ideas, we are deeply scared of contradicting ourselves, especially on social media because tHe iNTerNeT nEveR fOrGEts. But weirdly, many of us think that even the looks of our online self have to roughly blend together. Visual cohesion is possibly a big part of making something “aesthetic” appealing to our eye. And in the broader context, we honor cohesion so much that we often try to mold ourselves to the trends and popular aesthetics, so we are not the loose thread, the lone person who does not match visual norms and is thus “unaesthetic”. And yes, the perpetual desire to only show the highlights of our lives online is also an example of this self-mold, and so is this new, opposing trend of casual instagram or manufactured authenticity.
Well I personally won’t be fighting this battle against “society” for trying to indoctrinate me/us into thinking there’s nothing wrong with setting “norms” especially for something like beauty and art. Despite the indoctrination, I believe when we’re equipped with a certain level of awareness, it should be adequately intuitive to understand that taste can be deeply personal (and that’s why pinterest also has 2493 designs of the same quote “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”). And although philosophers, artists, and thinkers from all periods of the past have contributed to this conversation on what actually makes something beautiful, and although no shortage of theories have been produced to essentialize and define beauty, I (not a philosopher or artist, but I surely hope I can think) find it altogether better to treat beauty and art as a highly erratic and variable entity. What I mean by this is that there really shouldn’t be a consistent idea of what beauty is, for society or for any individual. In simpler terms, I call bullsh*t on aesthetics.
Though it’s not the easiest thing to do, perhaps it’s time I undid any previously set ideas about what society or even I personally find aesthetic. It’s time I learned to just appreciate beauty not in how it ticks off some checkboxes of design rules but in whatever arbitrary criteria I find valuable in the moment. “Taste” can change from one moment to another, and I am allowed to appreciate and like even the most contrasting “aesthetics” without feeling obliged to value a particular style more than the other. I’m also going to save myself the burden of reflecting even for a moment whether something is beautiful enough to be put out there. I am NOT trying to dismiss “art” altogether – this is not an argument to treat every art as the same. I wish to try this new practice of unlearning beauty and aesthetic simply for a more open-minded, less restrictive appreciation of visual imagery and concepts.