What Does It Really Mean to “Be Aesthetic”?

When asked to describe themselves, people once used adjectives like kind, funny, sporty, or nerdy. Now, it is increasingly common to hear terms like “clean girl,” “dark academia,” or “coquette.”

Philosophers have used the term “aesthetic” for hundreds of years to understand art and beauty. But for Gen Z, aesthetics are about much more than understanding art. They are about understanding who you are.

Social media and internet trends generate hundreds of aesthetics for people to identify with, seemingly overnight. Choosing your aesthetic has begun to resemble a dystopian coming-of-age novel: You must choose in order to belong. But why does Gen Z place so much importance on being aesthetic? What does “being aesthetic” truly mean?

A Shift in Perception

Gen Z clearly views aesthetics in a new way. In an interview for NPR, Ailsa Chang invited The Washington Post’s Shane O’Neill to explain how Gen Z transformed “aesthetic” into an adjective.

O’Neill said that “aesthetic” now refers more generally to “the sound, the look, the feel” of something. In other words, describing yourself as aesthetic no longer means that you are simply aesthetically pleasing. It means that you have successfully curated a cohesive look and lifestyle. Your aesthetic has become a key element of your identity. You have become the aesthetic.

O’Neill attributes this shift partly to Tumblr, saying, “You can trace this all the way back to Plato if you want to talk about aesthetics, but for our purposes, we can just go back to maybe, like, the Tumblr era. Tumblr had a reblog function, and that encouraged this mixing and matching, and it gave rise to brand-new aesthetics.”

This shift in the word’s meaning is important for understanding not only how Gen Z defines aesthetics, but also how its members define themselves.

Aesthetic as Identity

Identity is difficult to define, especially when you are young. Gen Z uses aesthetics as a tool to make deciding who they are feel a little less overwhelming.

Choosing an aesthetic can relieve some of the pressure of determining how you want to be defined. It can also make the threat of judgment feel smaller during a particularly vulnerable time in life. Curation may seem like the key to unlocking your sense of self, but it can come with some gnarly side effects.

As Sourabhi Rajesh points out in an article on Medium, “There is a quiet pressure to stay on brand.” Rajesh calls this “aesthetic anxiety.” Suddenly, everything becomes about performance and perception. People can become paralyzed by the pressure to maintain aesthetic cohesion, questioning every choice: “Does this match my aesthetic?”

Don’t worry, social media has devised a solution for that, too. Each aesthetic now comes with a curated guide explaining exactly how to achieve it: what to like, what to wear, which hobbies to pursue, and what music to listen to. All you have to do is search for the “coastal granddaughter aesthetic” on Amazon, and everything you supposedly need is right there, one click away.

Aesthetics as Microtrends

Aesthetics have become synonymous with microtrends because they have also become synonymous with material possessions. The lightning-fast cycle of trending aesthetics, which often move from niche to mainstream to dead in almost no time, has implications that extend far beyond Gen Z’s desire to be perceived in a certain way.

Tosin Odugbemi Hoskins, founding principal of the brand consultancy Atelier Oluwatosin, has pointed to aesthetics as one reason Gen Z may exhibit stronger consumerist tendencies than previous generations. To target Gen Z, a brand simply has to make what it is selling look aesthetic. If you make it aesthetic, they will buy it.

On her podcast, The Psychology of Your 20s, Jemma Sbeg points out a major flaw in aesthetics driven by microtrends. She explains that part of what makes trends cool is a certain degree of inaccessibility. With retailers like Amazon and SHEIN, however, a trending aesthetic can become completely accessible only days after it first becomes cool. This accessibility contributes to the trend’s quick death as everyone moves on to the next one.

Sbeg notes that both conformity and consumerism can be psychologically addictive. She also identifies a recent cultural shift away from microtrends and toward authenticity as people begin to recognize these trends for what they often are: marketing ploys.

Aesthetic Experimentation

A key difference between Gen Z’s aesthetics and the subcultural movements of previous generations, such as hippie, punk, indie, and emo culture, is that these social media communities do not carry the same level of exclusivity. This openness provides room for experimentation, which many fashion experts consider essential to developing an authentic personal style.

One article about subculture fashion highlighted this difference, explaining that if you did not fully embody your subculture’s ideology while sporting its look, “you’d be considered a poser.” By contrast, Gen Zers are not necessarily expected to choose only one aesthetic. You can be “cottagecore” one day and “coastal granddaughter” the next.

Stylist Scott Cruft identifies this difference as a win for Gen Z, saying, “The TikTok generation are still young and still finding their feet, so the way different styles pop up lets them dabble into different aesthetics and gives them more options to find what works for them in the long run.” Perhaps your particular blend of aesthetics can ultimately create an authentic identity of your own.

Personal Style and Curating a Vibe

In her podcast, Sbeg references Amy Francombe’s Vogue article, “Micro-Trends Are Dead. Long Live the Vibe.” Framing an aesthetic as a “vibe” rather than a “microtrend” makes it less about which items you own and more about the overall feeling you create.

The conversation surrounding personal style has recently begun to shift, making it more chic to be unique. Blending elements that bring you genuine purpose or joy makes style less about being defined by a specific aesthetic and more about possessing an overall aesthetic quality. In some ways, this shift brings the word closer to its origins.

The word “aesthetic” derives from a Greek word meaning “to perceive” or “to feel.” In this sense, there is nothing wrong with identifying with an aesthetic. However, doing so requires a level of conscious consideration that the frenzy of social media trends often sweeps away.

It takes time to get to know yourself. Just as an art exhibition cannot be curated overnight, building a personal aesthetic requires deeply considering how each element brings meaning and beauty into your life.

At the end of the day, if it genuinely feels like you, then it is, indeed, aesthetic.