How performance has become the obsession of the century
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
These days, everyone wants to be aesthetic. It’s like a need to follow a trend and to keep up with what’s trending.
You’re considered cool if you’re part of one of the internet’s most popular cults: a clean girl, a coquette, an old money girl, or even a cottagecore girl.
These trends are not simply part of a performance; they are one of the reasons influencers and celebrities never go out of style.
The attitude required to follow an aesthetic isn’t just about pretending to be part of a group, you have to embrace it as a lifestyle.
For example, if you want to be a clean girl, you must have Korean skincare products in your routine, love strawberry matcha, and go to Pilates classes with your girlfriends.
It’s literally like being part of a cult, where your lifestyle is completely changed by an aesthetic mentality.
Rhode products / Image via Pinterest
Whether you’re a soft girl or a cool girl doesn’t really matter. The truth is that the internet has found a way into our minds by taking advantage of something humans desperately need: to belong.
Our need to belong is what moves us. It doesn’t matter if we’re not on TikTok or Instagram every day, if we see something that sounds appealing, we’re immediately seduced by the idea of being part of something bigger.
We love attention, and we care deeply about being admired and belonging to a group of people who are considered “cool.”
Is it really bad to want to belong? To stay trendy? To be admired by strangers we only know online?
Not really, but the real question is: Do you know who you are?
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Is being a coquette girl what you truly want? A clean girl? Or perhaps an old money girl?
We’re forgetting to do what we genuinely enjoy for ourselves. We’re forgetting to follow our own routines, and instead, we’re copying others simply because of a desire to be “aesthetic.”
There’s nothing wrong with experimenting or trying something new.
But what hurts you is trying too hard to be something you’re not.
Stylus.co 