Marketing Your Personality

Aesthetics

Go on Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, and you’ll find countless aesthetic posts. Search for “____ aesthetic,” and you’ll probably find a post with a collection of a drink, different outfits, makeup products, books, and whatever else supposedly fits that aesthetic. Essentially, an aesthetic is a style as they mostly relate to fashion and appearance, but they encompass other aspects of personality, too.

These trends come and go quickly thanks to social media. There’s nothing blatantly wrong with them either. Everyone has the right to choose how they present and express themselves. Our identities consist of many different parts: values, skills, jobs, hobbies, and our style preferences. These aesthetics are reflections of these, and maybe they help give us inspiration for how to express ourselves.

But, as I said, these trends live and die fast. They promote new clothes and products. Then they die off. Then another aesthetic gains popularity along with its products. Then that one dies, too. The cycle repeats.

The issue with aesthetics

This might not seem to be a serious issue. After all, this cycle is the nature of many trends. Aesthetics, though, uniquely promote mass consumption of identities (and the products needed to identify whichever way). Buying into these aesthetics really creates inauthentic identities. Sure, people might like to read, so they feel they fit with the “dark academia” look. Yet, they are so much more complex than what that look is based around.

Many of these aesthetics target the binary genders particularly. “Clean girl,” “strawberry girl,” “cottagecore girl,” or any other aesthetic evidently aim for younger women to buy into these looks. "Workwear," "soft boy," or "skater boy," aim at younger men. They promote different, surface-level ways to make oneself different from others even though many young people are following them.

Besides the false authenticity, these trends and the people who follow them are building new beauty standards for young women. The representation in these aesthetics have very narrow views of what women look like for their body type or race. These beauty standards keep finding ways to creep into our cultural mindsets, and aesthetics are one of the current ways.

Aesthetics and consumerism

As I’ve mentioned, these aesthetics seemingly require different products or outfits to achieve them. Some aesthetics definitely lean more into finding the products that fit the aesthetic, but in one way or another, the aesthetics promote consumption of new products to feel a part of the trend. Take the “clean girl aesthetic,” for example. There are plenty of sites to figure out how to have this aesthetic.  An article from Foxy Locks goes into everything needed for this look. It describes the clothes, the makeup, and the lifestyle choices that young women need. It shows off many different products to achieve the “fluffy brows,” “dewy skin,” and “light blush” which are pillars to the “clean girl” look as well as the necessity for perfectly manicured nails.

Just makeup and manicures alone can cost someone a lot of money for the upkeep, but of course, young women need the clothing, too. Besides blogs like the one from Foxy Locks, “clean girls” themselves will show off their own ideas of the aesthetic. This image which I found on Instagram is just one example of how women show what they use or think other women should use for this aesthetic. If they aren’t being paid to make these style looks, then they are definitely great passive marketers for these companies because the majority of items in that image are branded. 

Brands themselves will promote these aesthetics, too. Sephora has a catalog page dedicated to the clean girl aesthetic and the products young women can buy to realize this style. It has ten different items listed (some types of makeup are repeated), and the highlighted reviews mention something about the “clean” look for this aesthetic. 

Brands can easily twist these aesthetic trends in their favor, or they can just let the consumers do the marketing for them. Either way, consumers are a part of a fast-moving, expensive cycle when they buy into these trends.

Aesthetics and gender 

Aesthetics tend to align themselves based on the binary idea of gender. Some aesthetics have their girl/boy version of the other (e.g. clean girl/clean boy, e-boy/e-girl), but the presentation of either still fits with visual norms for masculine and feminine, like the feminine versions usually include more makeup. Makeup is a necessity for the identity of a woman, but it is not for men. 

Other aesthetics do not have their binary counterpart either. The workwear trend particularly advertises to men, giving them that construction worker-chique Carhartt jacket and sending them to their desk job. This aesthetic is based on the simplicity and the practicality of outfits to give off the tradesmen look without having to actually work in the trades. Since tradesmen are usually . . . men, it is no surprise that when I search for “workwear for women aesthetic” nothing specific pops up like the way it does for men. The results do show “workwear,” but it is not based in the trades like workwear for men. The pant suits, blouses, and dress pants give off the attire of someone who works in an office, and the women who purchase these products likely do.

There really are not any popular examples of these aesthetics breaking traditional gender presentations, so they are quite limiting to everyone’s purchased identity. People can obviously break away from them on their own accord, but that’s only if the individual is brave enough to break out of the confines of their chosen aesthetic. These aesthetics could truly be more inclusive toward men and women who do not fit within gender norms and people outside of the gender binary. After all, clothing, makeup, and other building blocks of aesthetics are gender-less.

Aesthetics and beauty standards

Aesthetics are curated images of perfection for that style. To build these images of perfection, they have to conform to socially accepted versions of perfection, meaning that they rigidly uphold current beauty standards. 

Aesthetics do this in some obvious ways but also more discreetly. Women-centered aesthetics (clean girl, vanilla girl, strawberry girl) all emphasize certain makeup looks. The “clean girl” specifically promotes “no-makeup makeup,” meaning that makeup is central to the aesthetic, but people should not know you are wearing it. If that’s the goal, then women should not even have to wear makeup at all, yet the need for perfection is inherent to this style. Being natural naturally is against the ideals of the aesthetic, if one does not fit into the beauty standard of this aesthetic. God forbid a woman has a blemish!

Obviously, no one is actually policing women and saying they cannot claim the “clean girl” look if they have some sort of “imperfection,” but it is the principle of what this aesthetic promotes.

Within the TikToks or posts that trend the most, there is a lack of diversity. Many of the influencers are thin white women, so the trend appears to only be for them. It cements itself in Eurocentric beauty ideals. Plenty of women of color and women with different figures create content about this aesthetic, but the central figures are an unattainable ideal for women.

Doing away with aesthetics

They don’t necessarily need to disappear, and they probably will not be able to. I urge people to consider their promotion of consumption, gender norms, and beauty standards, though. It is perfectly fine to follow trends (I do too), but we need to think more critically about the effects of appearance-based trends like these aesthetics. Our appearances and physical belongings are such limited parts of our identities. It would be a shame for people to dedicate time and money to curate these styles for themselves without customizing them or recognizing that they are ideals. Most people cannot fit into the exact characteristics of an aesthetic.

by Margaret Armstrong