the aesthetic of aesthetics.

If you've been on the internet for a bit, you've definitely heard the adjective-noun combo of "_____ aesthetic". As a 17 year old girl who spent her entire middle school experience in front of a computer due to COVID, this is familiar to me; 'preppy aesthetic', 'cottagecore aesthetic', 'VSCO girl aesthetic'. Or, say, you're Gen-Z. You've probably said in your life, maybe jokingly, 'so aesthetic'. If you're NOT chronically online you most likely have no idea what I'm talking about unless you've been around 'hip' (millenial way of saying chronically online) people.  

According to Dictionary.com, the term aesthetic "concerns what is beautiful". According to Merriam-Webster, the term aesthetic means "a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty & taste". If you're a pessimistic adult who is currently seeing the decline in media literacy, perhaps you are thinking, "what the heck do these kids know about philosophy?" I do not believe that the word aesthetic paired with an adjective is purposefully philosophical. Honestly, people first started using saying "_____ aesthetic" back in early Tumblr days, when vaporwave was really popular. 

This is the Vaporwave aesthetic, popular on Tumblr in the early-mid 2010s; I do not know how to explain it as it precedes my consciousness. Personally, if I were to just look at what I see and transmit my thoughts, I'd say that it's trying to be Bladerunner 2049 while mixed with a warped perception of what early modern technology looked like, due to idealism as well as lack of information on the internet in the 2010s, also sprinkles some surrealism with the random Japanese text and water bottle. Interestingly the Venus de Milo seems to be (perhaps not intentionally) alluding to The Renaissance movement of the 1500s-1600s where Greco-Roman classicism and humanism was deeply revered. Kinda cool how what goes around comes around. (Shoutout to myself for taking Latin! I personally do not recommend it!) 

My anthropological, educated guess as to why the combination of "_____ aesthetic" became a commonly-used term is that the people of Tumblr were tired of saying 'aesthetics of vaporwave' and began saying 'vaporwave aesthetic' instead, which therefore created a pattern of Tumblr users creating moodboards and tagging it "______ aesthetic" as it is the aesthetics, the beauty of, said adjective. However, the main difference between these 2010s moodboards and today is that these vaporwave images are intangible; the Frankenstein's monster(s) of a bored Tumblr users who wanted two contrasting things to create an image that somehow went together really well. Truly, this began happening RIGHT before the pandemic. 

I remember during my fifth-grade school year, I had the most ideal summer planned out. I watched many different TikTok compilations on YouTube of VSCO girls and their trampoline sleepovers, and transferred my digital dream teenage years to Pinterest where I began collecting images of what I believed a VSCO girl summer would be like. My idealized summer was the beauty of suburban, environmentally conscious, affluent, teenage girlhood. The VSCO girl aesthetic, if you will. The phrase "_____ aesthetic" began becoming tangible & coherent to the masses once COVID shut our lives down and we suddenly had the time to categorize different looks. styles, ways people presented themselves, into aesthetics!

Suddenly, April 2020, we had cottagecore; images of a Snow-White-fairy-garden-picturesque that began translating to how people were dressing, what music people were listening to, what they decorated their home with. Cottagecore-themed things people did included baking cute treats and giving them away, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, writing, singing whimsical songs, reading, planting a garden, I remember there was a huge emphasis on strawberries/fruit idk y'all were weird. However, cottagecore wasn't free from human idiocy; unfortunately, a song that was associated with cottagecore, 'Strawberry Blonde' by Mitski, had its entire meaning diminished, as the author's intention was  about her personal experience being a WOC with unrequited love into a cute lil song that was soo cottagecore by ignorant TikTok users. (what I don't understand is how you were ignorant during COVID like there was nothing to do BUT research.)

Perhaps "_______ aesthetic" is unintentionally philosophical on Gen-Z's part; an equation of "seeing thing I believe is beautiful + creating my version of what this life would be like = living my life in that specific way. Anecdotally, I was really into glitchcore & HelloKitty and the glittery anime profile pictures and whatnot, and all I did during COVID was online school and go to a kawaii shop in Katy, TX, one time. What you view reflects what you do. 

xoxo, Louisa

(P.S. people in my gen usually say 'so aesthetic' jokingly. however, i may not be the expert bc i've been seeing people using it in their friend's ig comments so idk don't quote me)

Aesthetics wiki

I don't own any of these photos. This is just my take on the topic. I may be missing information; if so, just contact me!