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The Problematic Allure of Social Media Aesthetics

October 18, 2021

aesthetics, Binati Sheth, guest post, philosophy, social media, society

Today’s post “The Problematic Allure of Social Media Aesthetics” is authored by Binati Sheth. She’s a writer, a gardener, and an amateur artist. Check out her blogs and essays. You can find her living her writerly life on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

When do you want to live? The past? The future? The present? If I were to give you a choice right now, what would you choose? Ideally, we want everyone to say the present. “I want to live in the present” should be the healthy choice. Sadly though, many people on social media are choosing not to. Enter, social media aesthetics.

Aesthetics is classified as a branch of philosophy (of beautiful things). These things could be natural, artificial, or hybrid. We all love beautiful things, and we all have unique definitions of beauty. Social media aesthetics are no different. A social media user creates or takes photos with a particular aesthetic framework in mind, to establish a brand identity, tone, and personality. It all sounds like harmless fun.

But, as they often do, humans end up ruining things.

During the pandemic, cottagecore, dark academia, and Y2K aesthetics trended globally. It began as a love for warm colors, rustic life, and a fondness for knowledge and nostalgia. I personally dabbled in dark academia while turning a blind eye to some of its problematic aspects. I wrote Victorian era letters to my pen pals while spinning a pirouette around all the oppression, instead focusing only on the opulence. As I was not alone in doing this, I noticed the problematic allure of chasing aesthetics. There’s an incredibly literal problem with aesthetics – it is not about impact; it is about beauty.

social media aesthetics — Social media aesthetics – such as cottagecore, dark academia, and Y2K aesthetics – can be alluring, but also very problematic

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Binary Dilemmas: What They Are and how to Avoid Them

February 22, 2021

Philosophy, Society

conditioning, dilemma, ignorance, mediocrity, misinformation, philosophy, questions, social media, society

Binary dilemmas are dilemmas that force you to choose either of two options. You could argue the term “binary dilemma” is somewhat redundant, in the sense that a dilemma usually only involves two options.

However, this is not always true; you could be facing a dilemma between wearing a red, a blue, or a white t-shirt. More importantly, I deploy the term “binary dilemma” to emphasize the particular social dynamics involved: Binary dilemmas are insidiously constructed in a way that conditions you to believe these are the only alternatives.

As a humoristic example of a binary dilemma, imagine a woman asking her boyfriend’s opinion on her new dress. If she phrases her question as “does this make me look fat or thin?”, there is no way for the hapless man to offer a pleasing answer.

If the example seems familiar, it’s taken from my post on the only game in town fallacy. However, whereas that post only focused on the fallacy, the focus of this post will be on avoiding binary dilemmas.

Moreover, the concept of a binary dilemma transcends a mere discussion between two people, having far wider consequences. Think of media, social media, social conditioning, misinformation, and ways to control public opinion.

Importantly, whereas in the example with the dress there is likely no intention to deceive, binary dilemmas are nearly always precisely constructed to make it appear as if there were no alternative.

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The Methodological Flaw of Agnosticism

February 7, 2020

Philosophy

agnosticism, atheism, ignorance, knowledge, methodology, philosophy, religion, society

Certain things are relative: Although we can say “hot” or “cold”, we can also compare, and say “hotter/colder than”. There are also things that are binary – either or. No matter what Hegelians might claim, I doubt you can be “a little bit pregnant”. In this context, an intellectually honest philosopher has to acknowledge a methodological flaw in agnosticism.

Theism is the belief in the existence of a supreme being – “God”. A pedantic observer would perhaps make all kinds of elaborations on this (arguably focusing on the difference between a theist and a deist), but for the purposes of this post – and focusing on what I term as the methodological flaw of agnosticism – the above definition should suffice.

That is, we have people – theists – believing in the existence of God. We also have atheists, who don’t find evidence for such a claim, and therefore do not accept the existence of God. Agnostics, on the other hand, are people who argue that nothing is known or can be known about the existence of God.

Agnosticism is effectively a perpetual suspension of judgment. As an agnostic, you basically say “I can’t know that there is a God, but I also can’t know that there isn’t. Hence, I refuse to take a stance”.

However, that’s precisely what the methodological flaw of agnosticism really is, as we’ll see.

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