The Culture of Curation

Written by Chloe Jad | Designed by Madeline Michalowski | Photographed by Katey Cooney

Paintings, sculptures, drawings, gardens, pottery. Human beings have always recognized the seductive power of appearance. The human eye is inherently inclined toward beauty, aesthetics, and perfection; so much so, that each human being is programmed to make judgments about the world around them through this lens: the appearance of their city, their home, their peers, and, inevitably, themselves.

The ancient Greeks, in particular, were exceptionally adept at turning a keen eye upon the world around them, seeking to live amongst beauty in every sense. A burning hunger to translate the phenomenon that is human existence led the ancient Greeks to recreate the perfection of the human form with incredible success, capturing the essence of humanity in sculpture and painting. They knew the power of appearance and pioneered the culture of creation: harnessing the power of appearance and giving it its due diligence through external recreation.

And so humanity became increasingly aware of what was considered beautiful, both in objects and in themselves. It seems as humans became more and more self-conscious toward their outward appearance, the way others perceived them, and the power of their appearance, there consequently emerged a desire to be regarded as someone of a beautiful appearance.

From the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans onward, society progressed, and cultures whittled down their aesthetic rules through time: women were to look like this, men were to look like this, and this formula of desired features was the only way to attain the status of “beautiful.” As humanity progressed, so did the definition of beauty. It wasn’t until the 21st century that the “formula” started to become less restrictive and trendy, and become more inclusive, holistic, and variegated. If only the ancient Greeks knew what tumultuous storm was to come in the form of social media.

We were built for culture and society, programmed for coexistence and socializing and relationships and competition. But our brain was never programmed to evolve at the rate of technology and learn an entirely new form of survival: the survival of the ego. We were never meant to be this aware of others on such a massive scale: others’ lives, faces, ideas, friends, families, houses, clothes, coffees, dates, clothes, etc.

Social media changed the playing field. Thus began the culture of curation.

With the ability to project our personalities to an essentially infinite audience on Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok, we had to relearn methods of survival for our egos, self-esteems, and self-perceptions. Suddenly, we became our own masterpieces, our own art endeavors and projects to morph, manipulate, and sculpt akin to the ancient Greeks with their statues.

Some literally recreate themselves online with new names, identities, and personas (think virtual reality avatars from Ready Player One), but even the average, every-day user of social media participates in the curation of their cyberspace personalities. Every post, every picture, comment, like, share, story, contributes to this alter ego, this online entity we manifest behind our screens.

And every social media platform receives a different piece of ourselves, different facets of our personality that we get to compartmentalize and share with curated lists of people. A different “you” exists in a Snapchat story, and yet another in an Instagram post, and yet another in a Tweet—even your Spotify sees a different you with the creation of every playlist. In our incredibly woven web of cyberspace, we curate and capture different parts of ourselves in different eras of our personalities, in different lenses, and for different reasons. We are scattered across our technology’s code of 1s and 0s.

Instagram, for example, is the paradigm of the culture of curation and the phenomenon of cyber versions of ourselves that we project to the world. Instagram provides a spectacular medium for the curation of our vibes, aesthetics, and visual representations of ourselves that we want the world to perceive us as—the appearances we choose to portray. Our feeds act as summaries of our essences, an accumulation of squares of color tastefully amalgamated to our inner-avatar’s deepest desires. And, on top of it all, Instagram feeds us that drug of instant gratification which validates our appearances with the click of a red heart.

But haven’t you met countless people with disparities between their physical appearance/presence/personality, and those of their Instagram selves? Is this lying? Is this cheating? Followers are left comparing themselves with a curated, polished, perfected entity—and we all follow one another, making it one big, messy cycle of instant gratification of our appearance and endless self-depreciation of our self-esteem. All the while, we are blind to the fact that what we see from others is simply a puzzle piece to an imperfect whole, just as we fragment ourselves across our various accounts.

These scattered pieces of ourselves are impossible to make cohesive. But, is this a blessing, or is this a curse? Is it not perversely beautiful that we can embody variegated facets of ourselves simply depending on which app we click on? Do we need to be one cohesive unit, or is this identity-fragmentation not the perfect way to explore and express every angle, develop every matrix, and flesh out every niche of ourselves? Because, is every person not a supernova of experiences, memories, ideas, identities, emotions, and culture?

We have, at our literal fingertips, the ability to curate whoever we wish to be. Whether we live up to our curations is a different story, but, by all means, we must take advantage of this astounding outlet for artistic and self-expression. We just have to keep in mind that all we get to see are pieces of the puzzle, and every single human wishes to harness and exercise the imperturbable power of appearance. Remember, we are all simply playing into a game: a culture that idolizes appearance and falls at the feet of its might.

Social media changed the playing field, and we have yet to learn the game.