The Aesthetic Industrial Complex: A Syllabus
After the group chat identity crisis, I didn’t go out that night. I stayed home and fell into a rabbit hole of niche influencers who all seemed to be offering MasterClass-level insights on things they definitely were not qualified to teach. Financial literacy from a girl named Lexx with a neon green Stanley cup and an astrology side hustle. Relationship advice from a guy who did Ayahuasca on a boys trip and came back fluent in empathy. And endless tutorials on how to “become that girl,” which mostly just involved journaling, and pretending your anxiety was just a charming little hobby.
It made me think maybe my friend wasn’t confused. Maybe she was just studying.
Because now, education isn’t something you get from a classroom or a credential. It’s something you absorb through your feed. A passive osmosis of hot takes, carousel posts, and thirty-second explainers on things like attachment theory, gut health, and how to “quiet quit” a job you already hate. Information is everywhere. A girl with good lighting and a mic taped to her tank top can teach you how to do your taxes, unpack generational trauma, and start a side hustle — all before your morning coffee.
We used to ask our friends for advice. Now we forward Reels from strangers who seem like they have it more together. In a weird way, social media has turned us all into students and teachers at once. There’s this democratization of knowledge that feels hopeful like maybe we can all learn something from each other. But there’s also this creeping feeling that none of it’s vetted, that we’re just reblogging ideas the way we used to reblog Tumblr quotes in 2012. If it sounds good, feels smart, and fits the aesthetic? Repost. No citations necessary.
I keep thinking about how my friend asked us to define her. And how social media lets us all do that not just define ourselves, but learn how to define ourselves through curated information. Every post is a flashcard for some pop-psychology term or aesthetic. The internet is basically one giant personality quiz, and we are all desperately trying to get the result that will finally make our lives make sense. Or at least make good content.
The worst part is, it works. Networking through social media? Incredible. You can find your people, your niche, your weird little micro-community of people who also want to discuss niche 1970s cinema and conspiracy theories. There’s something really beautiful about that. And if you’re a self-starter? You can teach yourself literally anything. Graphic design. Freelance contract law. How to identify manipulative behaviors in group chats that masquerade as community but are actually late-stage capitalism in Canva font.
But if you're not careful, you start confusing learning with scrolling. You start to believe that information = wisdom. And that vibes = values. And suddenly you're a walking, talking, algorithm-informed echo of the last five things you saved to your Instagram collections.
We don’t just look things up anymore we become them.
So yeah. Social media can democratize education. It can offer access where none existed. It can make experts out of amateurs and communities out of chaos. But it can also turn your friend group into a self-help podcast with no qualifications and too many opinions. It can make you feel like learning is just one more aesthetic to master. One more layer of your personal brand.
And maybe that’s what still haunts me about that night. Not that my friend didn’t know who she was. But that she thought she had to know in a way that could be branded, marketed, and monetized. That self-knowledge is something to post. That wisdom is only real if it fits in a caption.
We used to just be girls. Now we’re influencers of each other’s lives, carefully curating our growth for maximum engagement.