Note: This document comprises the textual content of my senior independent project, the final product of which is a zine. Title linked to Issuu flipbook.
Un-Pinterest-ed – Viral Aesthetics Reimagined and Deromanticized through the Lens of Anthropology – Angelica Zhiyu Luo Disclaimer : No hate at all. I am, too, a humble devotee of aesthetics, which is… Not great, I know. Introduction Historian and media lecturer Stuart Ewen argues in his book “All Consuming Images,” style is an instrument we use to navigate displacement, a mitigative approach to tackle subjectivity disorientation. This is also somewhat illuminated in Merleau-Ponty's theory of the self as an embodied subjectivity, which contends that our physical and bodily presence, as well as our emotionality, are critical determinants of our worldliness, and the experience of being per se. To elaborate a little more, the French phenomenological philosopher argues, “[o]ur body, rather, is the origin of all the others, it is the very movement of expression, it projects significations on the outside by giving them a place and sees to it that they begin to exist as things, beneath our hands and before our eyes”1. This excerpt illustrates with clarity that things only exist insofar as we bestow meanings upon them; this endeavor is realized through the mutual dependence of our mind and body, and, accordingly, the interactive agency of said dual upon the outside world as well. As distressing as both remarks read, neither was wrong. In a world of mass media and, consequently, a digital landscape where anonymity is the default personality, style is the most approachable way to prove that we pertain as independent bodies and minds. It’s “a device of survival”2, or, to quote American scholar Joel Kovel, “the ego’s homage to the id.”3 The way I see it, style is a visual rhetoric. We seek empowerment through a meticulously curated exhibition of the self, and, in this process, endeavor an erasure of the past; we fidget with facades to modify our establishment, to claim communal membership, and to have our presence acknowledged by an intended demographic. Therefore, the social media content we see compiled under viral hashtags goes beyond their visual and auditory qualities: they mirror unacknowledged yearnings and dissatisfaction. By the same token, what we know as aesthetics and cores (i.e. styles so ideologically distinct and visually 1
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 147. Ewen, All Consuming Images, 73. 3 Ewen, 263. 2
cohered that, as they start circulating the public sphere, they attract a loyal fan base, forming a niche community or even a subculture of its own) serve to band-aid disappointments toward the past and the present, thereby consolidating a wonky pledge of futurity. Under the lingering shadows of a three-year pandemic, during which our previous knowledge of living, let alone living well, was entirely overturned and ridiculed, appropriating some rich girl’s life under the umbrella of “aesthetics” doesn’t sound so coo-coo after all. Recreating a slice of upper-echelon quotidian, we might just be able to envision what could have been, to flesh out a powerful ideal in confrontation with mundanity. With all that established, I am so excited to share with you my reinterpretations of viral aesthetics. In this little zine, I seek to revisit some of the internet's favorite styles of recent years (2021-2023) and explore their hidden connotations. I try to keep it as entertaining as it is theoretical and add tongue-in-cheek funsies for your enjoyment. Don’t be surprised, however, if you finish reading feeling deceived by trends previously known to you as affirmative or wholesome. We are, after all, reducing style to but a production of showmanship. In the meantime, I also strive to avoid painting broad strokes, even though this booklet is merely an academically unimportant, textualized meditation of a 22-year-old POC rooted in an entirely different culture, yet was still, unfortunately, conditioned to recognize white girl aesthetics as the authoritative benchmark against which one’s worthiness is measured. Feel free to read into this piece as my approach to decolonization, because… Why not? Being Aesthetic We start with the state of being aesthetic, which is, in itself, an intricate system of visual lexicons. It’s so difficult to enunciate with words, yet so easy to grasp with the teeniest bit of visual cues. A slim ekphrasis: being aesthetic is keeping a gratitude journal, plastering smashed avocado on whole-wheat toast, checking Pinterest for “inspo” (short for inspiration), and obsessing over the active apparel brands Alo Yoga and Set Active. Your iPhone wallpaper? A cloud of earth-toned aura marked with repetitive numbers, a.k.a. the angel number you identify with, a.k.a. a numeral combination you see everywhere and believe to be providing spiritual guidance. Pretty delusional, really. (Mine is 222, and I am a firm, firm believer.) To quote a random (nonetheless wise) contributor of Urban Dictionary, aesthetic “used to mean something that looks pretty or the appreciation of beauty, but now it means anything that looks good to a teenage girl.”4 4
crazytaxicab, “aesthetic.” 2
As a stylistic statement on its very own terms, the word “aesthetic” dominates the ecosystem of hashtag-life-goals, configuring a mode of living where self-care is the sacred mantra, and its practitioner a human-shaped insignia of wellness, romanticism, and mindfulness. It is a lifestyle that contends for decompression and reinvention, thus legitimizing otherwise cringe-worthy personality rebranding. In addition, individuals who believe in this practice carefully assort and compile pleasing snippets of life, which they would later recompose with smartphone gadgets, and make digitally public for up-close scrutiny. In other words, social media is an aesthetic person’s curriculum vitae, a badge of honor that qualifies their membership. Just like all its derivatives, the general aesthetic personality is approached and circulated through social media, which is just the perfect landscape to promote a concocted, sugar-coated, false reality. For instance, as you follow through “day-in-the-life” vlogs (short for video log, a form of self-documentary), where content creators report their errands and day-to-day encounters, but in a way carefully calibrated (some even choreographed) by the laws of aesthetics, filmed and edited in the most visually pleasing manner possible, as the audience, you project yourself onto that semblance of a make-believe icon, disassociating from the disarray of your reality. Unknowingly, you become involved in a head-to-toe revamp, constructing a system of knowledge that denies practices part and parcel with your own coming into being, replacing them with the replica of some white girl’s white way of doing white laundry. Fact check: even her laundry has more social mobility than you do. Before we delve into its meticulously taxonomized subordinates, I propose revisiting the bedrock of an aesthetic lifestyle – self-care. Deceivingly intuitive and proudly compassionate toward fragile psyches, self-care, I argue, is a neoliberal construct, one not only as fictional and subjective as governance and authority, but also equally as hegemonic. As a responsibility imposed onto us, but later voluntarily reinforced by and circulated among ourselves, self-care greatly benefits business corporates, policy-makers, and medical enterprises. In her book chapter titled “Caring for Ourselves? Self-care and Neoliberalism”, social policy and care ethics scholar Lizzie Ward asserts that self-care is an ideological instrument applied to fortify neoliberal imperatives. We certainly should take good care of ourselves, for longevity and health project onto our engagement with the world – or, in English: if sick, cough-cough, death, eternally muffled in cemetery dirt. Nonetheless, as the phrase “self-care” glues two separate entities with a tiny hyphen, self-monitoring and advancing one’s health standing thus becomes a personal obligation, practiced as if reciprocating what Marcel Mauss coined as a relational debt – and to whom are we returning this debt? Shrug. Furthermore, Ward argues, “[b]y constructing care as an individual responsibility of the ‘self’, the normative policy framework that has emerged furthers existing inequalities
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by obscuring the collective responsibility of the state to provide adequately for its citizens.”5 To decompose this statement: self-care and the common-sensual ethics enforced upon this practice hold the people accountable for public policy defects, thereby exempting the state from candidly fulfilling its duty. Consequently, administrative inadequacies in resource allocation and poverty relief morph into inadequacies of personal stamina and discipline, and the populace becomes directly liable for mending deteriorative public policies with their personal agencies. Even worse, if we fail to discipline ourselves into shapes and forms specifically complementary to systemic flaws, we would be considered deserving of the punishment. Given this premise, it becomes all the clearer why the aesthetic self-care discourse has developed such a jarring proximity to toxic disciplining. It is because we are deceived into manufacturing us against ourselves, only in the interest of unresponsive authorities. Aesthetic self-care sweeps online communities with body-molding initiatives, peer-pressuring healthy individuals to adopt overly harsh life practices. Five or more workouts per week, “clean” diets blander than paper napkins, over-generalized skincare routines… These all exemplify self-imprisoning guidelines that Pinterest and Instagram-based aesthetics have tricked us into normalizing – even idealizing. Successfully adhering to harsh rules for the purpose of self-advancement is satisfactory; it insinuates perseverance and commitment, which are typically applaudable virtues. But at what cost? With that question in mind, I kindly request that you proceed to the next section. That-Girl, Clean Girl We enter the internet’s that-girl phase, which doesn’t stray far at all from the generic aesthetic discourse, also conjoining quite seamlessly with the clean-girl trend – yet another reiteration of the immaculacy in simplicity, effortlessness, and “I woke up like this”. The only apparent difference between these three, I argue, would be that the term “that-girl”, on its own, denotes a third-person point of view, dissociating one’s state of being from the body, and alienating the self from physicality. With the definite article “that”, this phrase situates you in a conversation of which you do not partake, but of which you are the main character, and, consequently, the subject of admiration and mimicry. Furthermore, naming a style after a
5
Ward, “Caring for Ourselves?”, 46. 4
girl who has never been, a silhouette as blurry and anonymous as one can be, that-girl suggests semiotically an other-worldly presence, an airborne sylph that cannot be touched, seen, let alone imitated. If you identify with this trend, you probably love a slicked-back middle-part bun, wear silky stretchy rompers to a humbling fitness club (read: Equinox), own a luxurious collection of taupe body-con items, and give off supermodel vibes. The cleanliness, confidence, and charisma that you radiate are truly unmatched, but you know being that girl has never been an effortless endeavor. Just like every other aesthetic babe, you assemble, with images snatched from Pinterest, a pseudo-self that exhibits an obsession with discipline and the highest of calibers in navigating life. With a precise progress-tracking system, that girl strives to stay on top of every trivial yet perceivable change in life. It’s destruction for advancement; the nuanced, soft side of oneself is reduced to a to-do list, dehumanized into a goal, a Pinterest board, not a naturally flawed, breathing person. Were we to take into account the feminist theory of affective anthropology, which suggests that emotivity and ambivalence constitute life-making, we may also argue that the that-girl spirit goes against itself in multiple ways, contradicting the purpose of its establishment. Wearing the identity of that girl, one inherently holds more responsibility for their health and presentability than anyone does for theirs; that girl is to live up to expectations, to set the standard, or at least hold on to the reputation of being so in control and well-groomed, that mortal vices would gladly chaperon their own little demon horns back to the netherworld. Yet, under this lavishly buttered surface, lies a burnt piece of truth: the confinement of humanity. As editorial writer Shamani Joshi contends in her piece for “VICE”, “Even as millions hopped onto the trend, there are many who feel it can quickly turn problematic and even dangerous by promoting disordered eating, glamorising hustle culture, prioritising toxic productivity, and falling prey to the social media trope of concealing cracks through aesthetic imagery. It also happens to be a trend predominantly followed by heteronormative white women from a specific socio-economic background. Some also feel the term itself can be alienating for those outside the gender binary spectrum.”6 It is not effortless to be that girl or a clean girl, nor is either community one of easy entry. Regardless of the initial incentive to promote a wow-worthy, wholesome lifestyle, and, to quote a certain demographic of self-care influencers, “to become one’s better self”, the high maintenance required to prop that girl up 6
Shamani, “I Tried To Be TikTok's ‘That Girl’ for a Week.” 5
against only the most human desires strips life away from her. The dynamic becomes toxic: originally employed to foster self-endorsement, and thereby to help acquire more control and mobility over what’s predetermined by the intrinsically stratified and repressive environment, this stylistic framework takes control over its patron, incarcerating every nuanced, negotiable aspect of life within the rigid matrix of “discipline”, a structure in which disobedience is associated directly with incompetence and sloth. The emotional presence of that girl in the world is squished into a palm-size cookie mold; her agency to experience nuances deprived, and her contention toward natural instincts militarized into a system of absolute objectivity. Despite being established to assist in finding breathable air pockets in one’s stress-compressed life, it is evident that, from an affective anthropological perspective, this aesthetic and its incidental forfeiture of nuances, flexibility, and emotional subtleties to a that-girl rubric makes life-making even more difficult than it already is, let alone making it enjoyable. By the same token, under the context of social media monetization, content creators who market themselves as that girl profit off the unachievable. In other words, the more oddly satisfying restraints they put on themselves, the more moolah. Here’s an example to help your thoughts simmer. Just a bit into the YouTube video “*ai controls* productive VLOG | packed schedule, 5 am (ish) morning, mic'd workout, work blocks, etc”7 by Annika Stevie, she narrates out loud an AI-generated schedule as the skeleton of said vlog. Upon outlining a preliminary structure, Stevie expresses semi-wryly, “It seems like I’m going to have a very early morning, which I know is satisfying for you guys to watch”8, immediately after which we segue to the screenshot of a 5:50 a.m. alarm. Waking up around 5 a.m. is a standard practice in retaining that-girl productivity. Unnecessarily early and unnecessarily routinized, this schedule draws a clear line between the dawn-loving minority, and the pillow-favoring, slouching majority. Outspeeding the limitation of time by exploiting quieter hours certainly is a way to cram more tasks into twenty-four hours, and it sure works. For a few days. Before you give in to the snooze and start snoring like a baby pug at 8 p.m. sharp. Jetlag, but pinned to just one location: your overpriced studio apartment. Mindlessly succumbing to the internet feed counters the genuine pursuit for betterment. Instead of prioritizing personal urgencies and overcoming what is relevant to reality, these uncalled-for propositions (i.e. that-girl objectives in personal growth that extend not far beyond rituality) hijack liminal resources (i.e. time, effort, money) that could have been allotted elsewhere. My question was, why worry so intensely about a life that does not speak to you? Why put yourself on the spot for social media hype? Given the limitation of the that-girl aesthetic, even if one does feel like becoming their better self, I doubt 7 8
Annika, “*ai controls*.” Ibid. 6
the sustainability of that feeling. It just doesn’t make sense to me how a body should and would conform to alien demands, rather than following its own rhythm. A body is a body of its own. Puzzled to the greatest extent, I was soon enlightened when examining our next aesthetic: old money. Old Money “I-T-G-I-R-L” is what Aliya’s Interlude articulates in her new release alphabet by alphabet. Not a mouthful to pronounce, but an entire life of hindrance to fulfill. We now understand that being aesthetic and becoming that girl is all about showmanship, and on that note, we circle back to “All Consuming Images”, in which Ewen suggests that it has been a good while since style became a badge of power and financial prowess. “When a rising middle class of merchants began to appropriate the marks of style from the late Middle Ages on, it was a tangible expression of their increasing power, both locally and globally. When they took on the vestments, titles, and properties previously monopolized by the aristocracy, it was because they had assumed a central, increasingly decisive position in the world… Yet more important than its formal obeisance to the values of elites, this ‘middle class’ pretension was more a social mask, claiming a power that was not there, than it was an achievement of real social power.”9 This excerpt was taken from the book section where Ewen discussed knock-off mass production in the 19th century. Just one page prior, we find this remark: “At the heart of this mobile dream, argues Eric Foner, lay the republican ‘middle class goal of economic independence… the opportunity to quit the wage earning class.”10 Appearance is the direct projection of an individual’s subjective reality, romantic ideals, and priorities. In the same vein, it is only natural that one’s courses of self-presentation reflect the financial deficiencies (or surpluses) that superglue them to their socioeconomic situation. In other words, for the best of us who are born without a silver spoon, what is lacking in our psyche, we compensate with skin-deep trickery; the absences that constitute class melancholia, we tend to cope with a facade. Just like how middle-class 9
Ewen, All Consuming Images, 64. Ewen, 63.
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housewives obsessed over mass-produced, cheap-as-dirt, fake Versailles glassware a hundred years ago, our current generation is still attempting to fabricate lies to baby our insecurities, feigning for reputation by pretending to own it. The old money aesthetic is a style whose name speaks for itself, a blatant, unironic romanticization of nepotism. If you wore this style before it was made popular by Sofia Richie (social media personality, nepo-baby, daughter to Lionel Richie) and wore it out of instinct, you know how to live in affluence, rather than to live for affluence. Your fashion language boils down to quiet luxury, minimalism, and vanilla-scented dreams about summers in Luxembourg. Leather (preferably vegan, because you’re trying to make a statement) is your best friend, pearl a loyal sidekick, and modest Dior purses the mellowest of companies. The old money aesthetic affirms monetary competence through a subliminal indifference toward money per se – not in a wasteful, I-wipe-with-cash manner, but through a narrative that contends for sustainability, for spending to match one’s financial standing, and for properly using instead of worshipping luxury. Elegance, timelessness, and ease inhabit the core of this aesthetic. A real-deal old-money fashionista knows their worth and treats it accordingly; fashion and beauty purchases made by this demographic are more of an investment than an impetuous submission to consumerism. Durable items that hold their values well dominate old money acquisitions. Mono basics, sturdy knits, cashmere trench coats… Made to last through wears, bought to wear for years. I am not saying that the real-deal old money demographic deserves inherent privilege. No one has the right to be born better than anyone else, not in my book. It is, however, a pure matter of luck, an arcane power over which we have no control. And to make it worse, defiance against the system does not ameliorate the scathing reality of being born into our current societal situation. (As I wrote that sentence, I pictured a stork letting a baby slip its beak and absentmindedly watching their tiny diapered behind land wherever; “oops” was what he said.) Under this premise, it is not uncommon for us to take refuge under the “fake it ‘till you make it” mind frame, as a last resort to pamper our distressed selves. More specifically, with fashion and style as the cornerstone, we construct a play-pretend habitus, a fictional social space. According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, habitus “implies ‘a sense of one’s place’ but also a ‘sense of place of the others’”, and social space “presents itself in the form of agents endowed with different properties that are systematically linked among themselves.” In his work “Social Space and Symbolic Power”, Bourdieu contemplates the demographics of red wine, champagne, and whisky drinkers, contending that there is a greater chance for champagne drinkers to collect antiquities and secure membership in selective gatherings.
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“These properties, when they are perceived by agents endowed with the pertinent categories of perception – capable of seeing that playing golf makes you ‘look’ like a traditional member of the old bourgeoisie – function, in the very reality of social life, as signs.”11 Bourdieu demonstrates powerfully how seemingly disconnected behaviors join to form a social space, and thus, as social spaces exist in relation to each other, multiple habiti encompassing versions of socially contextual norms. During this process, mutually independent initiatives, repercussions, and active agents are spliced into an interconnected entity, generating relationality with and to one another, similar to Marcel Mauss’s proposal in his gift theory. The more frequently these behavioral patterns recur amongst a particular group of people, the more they adhere to one another, forming a social space, a habitus, a collective of signs to summarize (at least stereotypically) what it’s like to be of a particular social standing. Looking for a more relevant example? Just go back to my “slim ekphrasis” of being aesthetic. In that passage, I enumerated a series of behavioral traits that mark my understanding of the style and its patrons, rendering, with signs and, in the hope of giving you a visual cue to decipher this trend, how I navigate this netizen community. To me, under the context of aesthetics, these behaviors are intrinsically associated with one another, and, together, breathe life into an aesthetic portraiture. Integrating this thread of thought into the old money discussion, I could not help but wonder if this style rose to the mainstream to buffer class melancholia, and whether the pandemic served as the trend’s primary instigator. As attested by scholar Francisco H. G. Ferreira through IMF (International Monetary Fund) as early as summer 2021, “[t]he severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is clearly seen in the numbers: more than 3.1 million deaths and rising, 120 million people pushed into extreme poverty, and a massive global recession. As suffering and poverty have risen, some data show an increase in another extreme: the wealth of billionaires.”12 The discrepancy between the rich and poor was enlarged by unimaginable times, and, to make matters worse, it was channeled into the desperation of watching loved ones perish, all the while not knowing how to help or cope at all. While we’re at it, I bring us back to my statement in the introduction, “Appropriating some rich girl’s life under the umbrella of aesthetics doesn’t sound so coo-coo after all.” Being boxed into plain walls, foraging digitally for food deliveries during the lockdown, seeing family gasping for life linked up to respirators, and knowing that their (my) grandfather died from medical negligence… We all suffered from the system’s grave incompetence in resource
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Bourdieu, “Social Space and Symbolic Power,” 20. Ferreira, “Inequality in the Time of COVID-19.” 9
allocation and crisis management, as well as the racialization and politicization of a calamity that should have kindled transnational solidarity. It is only natural that we fantasize; to not cave into grief, we need to feel hopeful again, even if it’s through an idealization of what could have been. Ballet, Coquette, and Dupes Writing the last section conjured a whirlwind of emotions. As I mentioned in the disclaimer, I have long fallen “victim” to the mirage of aesthetics, which made it doubly difficult for me to realize that all the digital panels and pins I held dearly to my heart were but a retreat from loss and fear. I mourned, I ached every second, and I feared that AAPI hate would eventually prey on the people I love. In the following passages, I hope to branch out from there and extend my reflections to more aesthetics. Although not so much visually or color coordination-wise, ballet core and the old money aesthetic find common ground in their underlying ideologies. Ballet core attires mimic what a ballerina would wear in between practices, as she scurries gracefully from one Parisien arrondissement to another. It is a pastel and elephant-grey-washed blend of practicality, vitality, and delicacy. The recently en-vogue coquette core shares similar qualities: laces, fringes, delicate floral prints, generously creamed shortcakes, strawberry champagne in a rococo salon… This aesthetic communicates directly with our inner princess, fully accepting the “un-cool” girlhood longing for royalty. However, there's a twist. As pretty as they are, all three aesthetics are starkly detached from working-class realities – although they warp this narrative into a rhetoric of grace and prudence. A swimming ease streams beneath every inch of silk and every strand of beaded pearl. These aesthetics monumentalize unearned opulence as well as a definite sense of futurity, one that’s fully endorsed monetarily; neither is hardly fathomable to the best of us. There is only so much time and dedication that can be distributed about, and thus a stingy quota of agencies to allot, especially for bread-earners of bigger families, or those born with limited social mobility. A celebration of financially undemanding and resourceful lifestyles henceforth marks inherited privileges as desirable, simultaneously stigmatizing and dismissing working-class ordeals. In pampering the gnawing pain of being financially and socially grounded, phone-swiping, unsuspecting, and malleable adolescents opt to seek refuge in fictional novelties, in the talkative little people on mobile screens that feel comfortable exhibiting themselves (a.k.a. influencers). There is nothing morally wrong
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with consensually sharing and being shared alternate versions of life, but the ensuing imitation tends to be problematic. The old money, coquette, and ballet aesthetics rebrand and justify class exclusivity, insinuating that, in comparison to the gift-wrapper-parceled prospects that patiently await silver spoon babies to tear asunder, honors proactively acquired through strenuous work are far less significant, not even aesthetically. Style is a capitalized discourse; every aspect of it champions and prompts the neo-liberalization of bodies, privacy, and all affective qualities of being human. Indian anthropologist and film intellectual Tejaswini Ganti contends in her work “Neoliberalism” that this notion comprises multiple facets, one of which is “an ideology that values market exchange as ‘an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide to all human action and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs’.”13 Fully echoing this proposal, in media and communication academic Sarah Banet-Weiser’s work on female influencers’ branding endeavors, she attests that these individuals share a high willingness to commoditize themselves, and they seek empowerment through a spectatorial consumption of their online presence, their outspoken personalities, and their aesthetic disciplining.14 Under the governance of market-oriented ethics, and thus the prioritization of profitability, doesn’t over-hyping a rich aesthetic sound painstakingly ironic? In trying to bump up one’s social standing through online aestheticism, they are to cater specifically to those who consume them, in the hope of being so frequently digitally consumed that their forfeiture of individuality and privacy buys them a golden ticket to the upper crust. As far as I’m concerned, this dynamism trails the motion of a möbius ring, iterating painfully a mindless reproduction and consumption of the self, sprouting from and forever stabbing back into itself an insatiable loop of suffering. Collateral damage alert: aesthetic influencers attract teenagers like honey attracts bees. Endorsed by a sun-kissed complexion, a meticulously arranged walk-in closet (where designer paper bags are not tossed in the recycle bin, but displayed top-shelf), and the sheer fact that they have won the fight against algorithms, influencers are living proofs that deliberate reproductions of formerly unattained lifestyles and, thus, modifications of online personalities might just be the present-day key to visibility. This, without doubt, fortifies the neoliberal narrative of body commodification, serving to drag numerous original personalities into appropriating and adapting hashtagged fallacies, rather than being in conversation with their own bodies through a natural process of trial and error. Nevertheless, I propose that there is still something commendable about the aforementioned rich aesthetics: the democratization of beauty, which leads us to our next and final Gen-Z spectacle, the dupe 13 14
Ganti, “Neoliberalism,” 91. Banet-Weiser, “Branding the Post-Feminist Self.” 11
era. To put it simply, it is a surging tide of excitement for beauty on a budget. Originally meaning deception, “dupe”, under this context, refers to luxury knock-offs that are priced reasonably but perform just as well as their originals, saving money for less wealthy fashion devotees one product at a time. Rising to the mainstream almost concurrently with or perhaps as a byproduct of the old money aesthetic, this trend has induced unprecedented online engagement, looping in all who feel deserving of a classy, high-end treat but were once taken aback by the price tag. Known for its flawless replication of luxury products, for example, the brand e.l.f. cosmetics has claimed its triumph in this arena. From Charlotte Tilbury to YSL Beauty, Dior, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and more, e.l.f. cosmetics has continuously replicated and released otherwise costly formulae at drugstore prices. I find this trend critical to our discussion due to its mirroring the case we covered earlier: the hype for knock-off glassware a good century back. As it appears to me, the ebb flow of legitimizing and publicly promoting knock-offs, although materialistic and insincere at its surface, insinuates our persistent effort (and equally, of course, a lack of true progress) toward the democratization of beauty and fashion. In terms of cosmetic dupes, renowned formulae formerly accessible only to those of affluence, or – as luxe makeup lines target specifically the demographic that has little money to spare, yet still aspires to own designer items – made to further the demonic prowess of consumerism by reaching modest buyers, are finally, for once, produced and brought to market for their actual practicality. Beauty thus transcends slightly beyond an entity entirely subject to capitalization; it is, although very slowly, shedding its old, crusty skin as a perpetrator of social stratification, one that disempowers beauty enthusiasts by reinforcing the threshold of financial power and social class, and butterflying into a democratic channel of self-expression. And I applaud that. Ending Notes Just as I started to wrap up this semester-long project, Fernanda Ramirez, a YouTuber to whom I am avidly subscribed, posted new content. It was a 26-minute-long video titled “A *BALLET INSPIRED* DAY IN MY LIFE | signing up for adult ballet classes for the FIRST TIME EVER!”15 I had to watch it, and quickly finished the entire thing. My observation: something was different. Bubbly per usual, the 22-year-old Mexican-Canadian with over a 1.32 million following vlogged her first experience with adult ballet, through the course of which she made several intriguing statements.
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Fernanda Ramirez, “A *BALLET INSPIRED* DAY IN MY LIFE.” 12
As Ramirez verbalizes her juggling punctuality and taking a detour to buy professional ballet shoes, she contended, and I transcribe: “... I’m just gonna go in socks because technically… What if I hated it? What if I didn’t even like it? You know? It’s like was I really supposed to go buy shoes? What if I hated it? … For all my people that are older than me or my age, we gotta constantly do new things so that the years feel exciting, and so that we’re just excited about life. I feel like you constantly need to be in a new era, and although the word ‘era’ is so cheesy, and people are, like, not annoyed by it, but are kinda like, ‘why is everything an era?’ But I actually think it’s really fun and helpful to call things “eras”, because when you’re out of an era, you can just hop into a new era!”16 A little later, as she waits for class to start, she chants a string of positive affirmations: “Let’s pray to God. Everybody, when you’re watching this video, pray to God: Fernanda’s gonna love ballet. Fernanda’s gonna be naturally amazing at ballet. Fernanda is so good at following instructions, and has such good memory, and is so good at what she does… [Pray that] They let me film inside; they let me film some of it; they’re totally okay with me pulling out my phone…”17 At the very end of the vlog, Ramirez concludes her experience with a disclaimer, which, from my observation as a long-time subscriber, is not a habitual practice: “Just know that I have a lot of admiration for all the ballet dancers. This is just a fun little video, and I hope no one gets, like, offended or something. I know people can get kind of weird about making things into an aesthetic, but, truly, I think, it’s really fun as an adult to try new things. I always thought that it was something that was very beautiful, and, as said earlier, I did it when I was younger, so it’s kind of healing the inner child, but this video is all fun and games. I’m excited to continue my journey with ballet, and I am looking forward to making more videos like this one.”18
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Fernanda Ramirez, “A *BALLET INSPIRED* DAY IN MY LIFE.” Ibid. 18 Ibid. 17
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Despite having followed her activities for years now, I have never once fallen out of love with Ramirez. I am forever grateful for her content motivating me at my lowest, and for her cheering me up with an incredibly enthusiastic and adventurous personality. Yet, even so, I still sensed that she was endeavoring to justify creating content (and thus profit) off of yet another Pinterest-worthy trend. It is undeniable that she seemed genuinely intrigued by the visual qualities of ballet core, but she remained unsure, minutes before class, if she would survive even the sample tester of a ballerina’s life. In addition, as Ramirez validated multiple times the bright side of eras – similar to aesthetics and cores, but with an impending expiry date – and acclaimed the mobility to effortlessly hop from one personality to another, she seemed to also have acknowledged the ontological conflict of the self that underlies the aesthetic discourse. From the comment, “I know people can get kind of weird about making things into an aesthetic”, we know that she is aware of the public discontent toward aestheticization and, accordingly, commoditization of lifestyles in a neoliberal context, but still chose to firm her stance as a supporter. Furthermore, as she prayed for the ballet instructors to let her film in class, it is evident that she was prioritizing her content production over truly experiencing the artistry of ballet, somewhat on the verge of disregarding its culture. It seemed to me that, in this video, Ramirez is also struggling with her reality. She attempts to affirm her audience and, simultaneously, herself, that constantly switching identities and chasing every edition of picture-perfect lives is a youthful obligation, something we should make time to do when we still have the chance. To some extent, I agree. I also think it is a beautiful thing and a great privilege to experience different versions of oneself, to perhaps even locate their true calling among the handful of stylistic test-runs. Although a grueling rollercoaster of replication, body modification, and neoliberal self-commodification, I do believe that the discourse of aesthetics has brought comfort to pandemic survivors. Everyone needs a little escape every once in a while, even if it’s just a hoax or a play-house tragedy. Stuart Ewen dedicates a considerable portion of his book to the American middle class, characterizing this demographic as “constructed out of images, attitudes, acquisitions, and style”19, one that sought a mobile dream. Ewen accounts that, at the inception of this group two centuries ago, what sustained hope was the willful delusion of being on a social escalator ascending, slowly yet surely, to economic independence. Imagination moved generations of wage-earners, and, even two centuries later, we still find ourselves indulged in personality masquerades. The only difference is that our generation does it privately and publicly, anonymously and collectively, through the medium we pretentiously entitled “World Wide Web”, despite its limited earthly tactility. 19
Ewen, All Consuming Images, 62. 14
I do, nonetheless, think that we are still mourning, and if it were up to me, I would give us a little more time to coddle in grown-up fairytales. All we need to do is heal. It will get better – or at least I hope. Bibliography Banet-Weiser, Sarah. “Branding the Post-Feminist Self: Girls’ Video Production and YouTube” In Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls' Media Culture, ed. Mary Celeste Kearney. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. Bourdieu, Pierre. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7, no. 1 (1989): 14–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/202060. crazytaxicab. “Aesthetic.” Urban Dictionary, March 24, 2021. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=aesthetic. Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. United States of America: Basic Books, Inc., 1988. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. “Inequality in the Time of COVID-19.” FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, 2021. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2021/06/inequality-and-covid-19-ferreira.htm#authors Ganti, Tejaswini. “Neoliberalism.” Annual Review of Anthropology 43 (2014): 89–104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43049564. Joshi, Shamani. “I Tried to Be TikTok’s ‘that Girl’ for a Week.” VICE, September 9, 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5db8ek/tiktok-youtube-viral-trend-that-girl-internet-genz-challeg e. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. Ramirez, Fernanda. “A *BALLET INSPIRED* DAY IN MY LIFE | signing up for adult ballet classes for the FIRST TIME EVER!,” YouTube Video, 26:30, December 6, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJKiSh3RL2I&t=768s. Stevie, Annika. “*ai controls* productive VLOG | packed schedule, 5 am (ish) morning, mic'd workout, work blocks, etc,” YouTube Video, 27:30, September 2, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvueA924W9c. Ward, Lizzie. “Caring for Ourselves?: Self-Care and Neoliberalism.” In Ethics of Care: Critical Advances in International Perspective, edited by Lizzie Ward, Marian Barnes, Tula Brannelly, and Nicki Ward, 1st ed., 45–56. Bristol University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1t89d95.8.
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