I open TikTok to a woman doing a ‘Mob Wife’ makeup tutorial. I scroll, finding someone decorating their house to be more in line with their ‘Cottagecore’ aesthetic. The next, an advert selling me Office Siren® glasses. Clean Girl. Quiet Luxury. Fairycore. Old Money. It never ends. The spinning wheel of an algorithm cycling through these cores until I linger on a video long enough for it to go yes, that is who she wants to be. Lets feed her more. And feed it does, the word synonymous with the endless scroll methodically designed to hold attention and turn viewers into consumers, rabid and never satiated.
Young women are at the center of this ride that never stops. Increasingly I have seen Gen Z girls blamed for their own consumerist behaviours; their apparent need to label every aesthetic choice under some new niche core. But can we truly blame them for these caricatures of personality spreading like viruses when everything being shown to them reinforces their wish to fit in. Everybody is selling you something for you to be Your Best Self Ever (I Promise (This Time For Real)) and clothing trends move faster than it takes for my new shirt to ship from China. But what is being fed to these girls and at the rate at which these trends move is a well-oiled capitalist machine decades in the making. It is not the 19 year old buying new activewear to be a Pink Pilates Princess who is to blame, but those who abuse the intrinsic need we all feel to be a part of a collective for the sake of profit.
Where I do take issue with the consumers and purveyors of the aesthetic pandemic is the obvious performativity at the core of these… cores. The anti-consumer minimalist who records their capsule wardrobe outfit videos buys and donates ten new clothing items each month. The Clean Girl’s apartment is spotless perfection prime for advertisers’ product placement, but please do not open that drawer or cupboard and oh I’ve been meaning to get to that room. The self-described Lit Girl reads The Bell Jar, only she does it in the busiest café in her neighbourhood, phone set to record, spending 20 minutes on one page. Her eyes are focused elsewhere, scanning the room and ensuring everyone can see her novel of choice. There is nothing wrong with reading in public, in truth the fact that people are reading at all anymore brings me indescribable joy. But buying new clothes or having a messy house or reading a book is as normal and human as anything. So why do people perform these things, for their hungry viewers or to placate the even hungrier algorithm overlord?
I do not have the answer. I don’t even know why I get so annoyed at people performing online when in truth so much of life is a performance. Making new friends requires a level of personality performance to ensure I am nailing the social interaction. Working in customer service is closer to acting than what some Netflix stars are doing. Perhaps I just need to put my phone down and get into the real world, maybe read a book. There is a gorgeous new café I’ve been meaning to try.
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