In his book Society of the Spectacle, French philosopher Guy Debord argues that the present state of social life is becoming dominated by “productions of the economy” and shifting our reality “from having to appearing.” He suggests that people are not able to engage with what is real and can only engage with a representation of reality because of modern working conditions. This skewed image of reality affects what people then strive to achieve. 

When Debord was writing in 1967, culture was already turning from reality into representations. ‘Hippie’ culture slowly abandoned its anti-war roots and moved towards the image of sex, drugs, and rock music. Only four years after Debord’s book, Coca-Cola broadcasted its Hilltop commercial, showing a diverse array of people using hippie ‘peace and love’ ideology to sell soda. 

With the advent of the internet, culture has been made more vulnerable to commodification. Now, people can scroll through “hippie aesthetic” pictures on Pinterest and buy “hippie clothes” on Amazon. While internet aesthetics may provide an easy remedy for modern woes, I see a growing phenomenon in which unique culture or lifestyle is being turned into an aesthetic, a collection of images obscured from reality. 

Modern economy and the epidemic of depression 

A 2012 National Health Institute study suggests that we may currently be in an “epidemic” of depression that is associated with modern economic struggles. According to a 2007 World Health Organization survey on mental health, most “developed” countries tend to have higher rates of depression. In these developed countries, there tends to be a higher rate of psychiatric disorders amongst those who live in urban environments rather than rural ones. 

Workplace burnout is a problem that has only been growing in recent years. And, according to a 2020 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, those with lower incomes are usually 1.5 to three times more likely than the rich to experience anxiety and depression. 

Modern economic conditions are increasing income inequality, burnout, and other circumstances that contribute to increased depression diagnosis, it’s natural that people will want some form of mental escape. Given the parallel rise of internet aesthetics, I think they provide an easy remedy for escaping depressive realities. 

An escape from capitalism-induced depression?

Cottagecore, one of the internet’s more popular aesthetics, idealizes off-the-grid country living in an attempt to escape from modernity. Similarly, the “dark academia” aesthetic romanticizes the early twentieth-century academic style and a life dedicated to literature with no worry about work. I think that adhering to these aesthetics is simply an easy way to feel like you are escaping the economic conditions you live under. 

To make something into an aesthetic is to make it into an image. When people engage with an aesthetic, they don’t engage with the lifestyle or culture that informed that aesthetic, but purely with its image-based representation. As French sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard puts it, “reality itself, entirely impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its own structure, has been confused with its own image.” 

In other words, when people engage with internet aesthetics, they are only engaging with a representation of culture alienated from its origin. Adhering to the punk aesthetic rather than punk culture ignores punk’s political, social, and musical origins. The qualifications to be a punk quickly turned from rebelling against oppressive institutions to buying designer Vivienne Westwood jewelry. Now, all one needs to be a punk is to shop for the aesthetic on Amazon.

Lifestyles that genuinely attempt to escape modern working conditions — like protesting American imperialist wars, living in the countryside, or singing punk songs about perverted Nancy Reagan sexual fantasies — are completely diluted when aestheticized, giving capitalism something it can easily sell, an image. Contemporary punk culture bears no resemblance to anti-establishment movements. It exists to coerce people into buying from Hot Topic.

Internet aesthetics strengthen capitalism

I argue that adherence to aesthetics supports the capitalist system by giving it something to profit from. When the cottage lifestyle became the cottagecore aesthetic, companies used this to sell clothing. Multi-million dollar fast fashion company PrettyLittleThing has an entire section of its website dedicated to selling cottagecore clothing, which it describes as “fiercely feminine and seriously chic”. For me, this is a clear deviation from even cottagecore’s origins, which was intended to represent a humble and modest lifestyle.

Although living a self-sufficient life in a cottage away from the city may be a way to escape capitalism, the aesthetic in itself does nothing because it does not require any change in lifestyle. While attempting to free themselves from modernity’s grasp, those who rely on aesthetics are inherently strengthening their grasp on them. 

I think that the only way to truly escape modern conditions is to ignore internet aesthetics entirely. We must make sure that our ideas are as unmotivated by images and are as informed by reality as possible. Only then will we be able to emancipate ourselves from the chains of modernity. 

Alexandra Owens is a second-year student at St. Michael’s College studying philosophy, political science, and Slavic literature. She is the visual arts director for the Philosophy Course Union and events executive for Philosophers for Humanity.