By: Ayatain Ali
Identity presentation for women is a paradox, a liberating prison. It is my sisters being puppeteered, unaware of it because the confines of the box are vast and ever-expanding. Who pulls the threads when reality exists in various spaces? Perhaps more pressing is the question of whether awareness is even necessary when the illusion of choice provides enough bliss.
As digital spaces have evolved, a widespread yet individualized need to market yourself as an aesthetic class to prove your worth has emerged. “Aesthetic” has changed from an academic term and a tool used by auteurs and artists to a defining characteristic of our identities. It can refer to both individual taste and a nonspecific proxy for beauty. This shift has brought about the development, co-opting, and even erasure of subcultures. Since culture is not as crucial in creating Gen Z’s identities as it was for millennials, Gen Z is better equipped to approach culture as a playground with less self-conscious contradiction. For them, digital is the mainstream, and it’s disposable.
The ones who came before us could symbolize their individual rebellion through a pierced septum, but there is no “unique” anymore. Even though there isn’t a lot of unanimous hype behind specific aesthetics, our culture hasn’t cared less about them. People still aestheticize their everyday lives, which is a part of the Zoomer/millennial motto to romanticize your daily life and be the main character of your story. This may be a response to the past few decades’ turbulent political and social atmosphere or a consequence of being raised by the internet and increased media consumption.
Romanticization is also part of performing femininity, such as through online conventions that differentiate between types of girls, which has become increasingly specific and abstract. Some popular examples are; ‘sad girl,’ ‘clean girl,’ ‘blueberry/strawberry/tomato/coconut or onion girls.’ Young people, predominantly girls, yearn for identity and community. However, online aesthetics develop alongside commodification, sold to us with community despite the absence of community. All that exists is a general look and feel. Yet, we’re pushed more and more towards buying things and making buying things our identity.
An extension of the source of the appeal of such over-complicated niches stems from widespread celebrity idolisation. This phenomenon is the latest branding and PR technique, a masterful manipulation tool. When Hailey Bieber can dye her hair brown and the internet receives it as a personalized innovation labeled ‘cinnamon cookie butter hair’, she’s the genius benefitted by the world of girls seeking a pre-validated aesthetic sense to call their own.
Algorithms have fragmented online spaces into taste communities; there is no objective mainstream. A TikTok video could blow up in the blink of an eye, creating yet another micro-trend — a problem criticized for creating unsustainable aspirations of constant buying and consumption thanks to the never-ending influx of new. Various micro-trends, however, have grown into macro ones.
Fashion brands now frequently employ phrases like “Cottagecore,” “Coconut Girl,” and “Y2K” to describe their wares, helping their items rise in Google search results. Consequently, the well-known phenomenon that clearance rack clothes result from numerous decisions made by higher-ups no longer applies. Instead, there is a trickle-up and trickle-across effect because said trends immediately impact mainstream merchants and fashion designers.
The cycle of niches eventually being subsumed by the mainstream has happened over generations, but the internet has sped this process up at an unrecognizable rate. Nowadays, a subculture is co-opted prior to it being developed. As many posts were genuinely informative about cottage core, many only showed it as an aesthetic, an identity adopted as a complete performance. That is what all subcultures turned aesthetics have been transformed into; the aesthetics are watered-down, gentrified versions of their respective subcultures. Using these aesthetics to self-identify is a continuation of the commercialization of fashion and subcultures until they essentially have no cultural meaning.
Apart from aesthetic communities, some practices and concepts are aestheticized and given feminine labels like “girl dinners” and “hot girl walks.” Dinner preparation has historically been a woman’s responsibility in the household. ‘Girl dinner ’ has the advantage of dispelling the notion that you must cook anything; you simply put it together. As a result, you shift from believing that food production makes it excellent and qualifies you as a woman to considering that having food defines you as a valid woman.
We are on a quest to crack the code for digestible womanhood, the recipe for which keeps changing. Don’t build a home on the fragile grounds of a hashtag; they are all susceptible to floods that keep coming without warning, and you will drown trying to find a life raft, a new way to live. Many argue, saying, “Let people enjoy things.” If only it were indeed that, but there is a sinister essence to this revolution described above. It taints and distorts identity cyclically, a machine we keep powering up. It fills up the land, soaks up the water, and paints the clouds gray.
There is little hope, but that too in the form of dispersed communities. When profit-seeking at the expense of women being used as pawns is concluded, we will overcome this; it starts with you refusing to be shepherded.