A Case of The Aestheticized Life as a Commodity

The rise of social media in the last decade has accelerated the concept of self-branding. Particularly on public platforms, the creation of an immediately identifiable set of qualities is crucial to making oneself understandable. Though now a prevalent concept that almost every social media user partakes in, the idea of the self as a brand is epitomized by the rise of influencer culture, in which many, if not all, of the individuals’ digital social appearances are aestheticized versions of themselves and their lifestyles. Life aspects from locations, fashion, to even diets constitute an affectively appealing lexicon of symbols and signifiers which garner thousands and millions of followers. Through this selective, curated process of creating a branded persona, certain social elements are highlighted, while others are omitted, and still many are manipulated and made ambiguous. The study of influencer culture through the branded images they use to represent themselves reveals social trends and characteristics of our internet-mediated era. By creating a branded identity through the aestheticization of everyday life, influencers produce commodities that, although non-physical in itself, profoundly affect our tangible, material reality.

Jessica Surowiec, or rather, a self-curated representation of a Jessica Surowiec appears in a self-controlled time and space that is captured in a photograph and publicized on her Instagram account, which has more than ninety thousand followers. She looks like a Caucacian woman in her mid-twenties dressed in a simple, form-fitting white knit dress and wearing make up (nude lipstick and trimmed eyebrows, at the least) and with slightly wavy blonde hair. She seems to be standing next to a minimally decorated counter that is clean, spacious, and well-lit from the large windowed door in the back. Next to her on the counter are some colorful foods of an unknown sort, one blended into a smoothie held in a mason jar, another opened package containing what looks like solid cubes, and a third in orange plastic packaging. The photograph has a warm orange color tone and is of medium to high quality, perhaps taken by a very nice phone or a professional camera. The deep depth of field keeps Surowiec in clear focus while rendering the decorated background discernible as well. With her face placed in the top left third and her body taking up a considerable area within the photograph, Suroweic is apparently the main focus point of the image, but by the relationship of her right hand being placed onto the mason jar containing the smoothie it may be inferred that the foods on the counter is of importance as well. This is confirmed by the fact that she tagged the name brand of the food producer, Evive Smoothie, in her post and clarified that this is a sponsored post in her captions. 

In the current social media climate overrun by influencer content and brand-sponsored posts, this captured moment seems to be rather normal, even unremarkable. But this desensitization to photography as a mediated representation of real life often inhibits the realization that this is in fact an aestheticized moment in time created in service of constructing a version of the influencer and her life. The identity of Suroweic is constructed just as much by what she chose to display as by what she chose to omit in the photograph, and it is between these two categories that an aestheticized life is produced. She probably chose to stage this scene next to a counter and a sink for its natural association with a kitchen, and by extension her food product. Perhaps by contract with the sponsor, she deliberately placed the product in three forms, showcasing the progression of making the frozen cubes into a liquid smoothie. She dressed herself in a fitted, beige dress, which is thematically similar to her attire in other posts in which she dresses feminine, chic, and in muted colors. She has a slight smile on her face, which portrays her with some kind of positive emotion. Finally, everything in the mise-en-scène creates a balanced, coherent warm color pallet––even the smoothie products adhere to this scheme. But considering how this is a sponsored post, perhaps the relationship is inverse: the smoothie products dictate the color scheme, and the mise-en-scène is built around the products. These signifiers produce the image of a person who is sleek, put together, warm, and benevolent. Just as the qualities added into the photo stylize this constructed moment, the omitted “subtractive” qualities (that is, subtracted from ordinary life expectations) also contribute to the moment’s creation. If one assumes that she is portraying her morning, as she writes “Every morning” in the captions, she clearly omitted showing herself in pajamas or with morning hair. Upon closer inspection, her surrounding is also not a real kitchen but more of a combination of a bathroom and a kitchen, as indicated by the mirror on her left. The ambiguity of the space breaks the previously established association of food with a kitchen. Because of this, other food and kitchen-related items such as kitchen towels, sponges, and stove are missing, creating a much cleaner and minimalist setting that is typical of her self-branding. In this sense, the reality of the space is of little importance to the self-image that Suroweic has constructed. The combination of the added and subtracted elements create a scene that is suspended from reality––an aestheticized Suroweic in an aestheticized moment in life that is recognizable as reality only by symbolism and association, rather than actual utilitarian objects. 

It is assumed that this Instagram post has a clear audience and aim, as it directly addresses Suroweic’s followers with the aim of converting them into Evive Smoothie consumers. But at a more fundamental level, the very act of aestheticizing this moment in her life takes into account the existence of certain social relationships with her followers. That is, the particular aesthetic choices are influenced by the assumed viewership just as much (if not more, in many influencers’ cases) as by Suroweic’s personal preferred style. This notion of audience-expectation-guided aestheticization ties into the larger act of curating a consistent identity-brand across Suroweic’s posts with consistent color schemes, fashion, location, and facial expressions. The cumulative monetary value (i.e. how much did the location and products within one of her images cost) depicted in each photo is also consistent throughout her posts, which is significant because it brands Suroweic with a particular socioeconomic status. Even though none of the items’s monetary value are explicitly stated, the items themselves operate symbolically to create a veneer of luxury, indicating her supposed wealth and resources. This consistent branding is paramount in maintaining a social relationship with viewers––with every new post, her followers are indulged in a familiar aesthetic, and the confirmation and satisfaction of their expectation in itself is pleasurable, regardless of what specific visual qualities the images have. The branding’s effect also extends past existing followers: For novel audiences who are potential followers, having a track record of consistent aesthetic in the form of an image collection (i.e. her Instagram feed) conveys a cohesive, easily understandable branded identity on which the new viewers can quickly form an opinion. The element of speed is significant because it allows the post to appeal to the affective intuition of the viewer; the fact that the interaction with the image does not involve extensive cognitive functions means the perception is one of fluency, a process that is easy and pleasurable. Therefore, in creating a post like the one above, Suroweic as well as many other influencers must have taken into account how the symbols and signifiers in the image build and satisfy audience expectations of what her carefully constructed and maintained identity is. In many ways, she is a product manufacturer who develops her products—images of herself—based on the current and future audience’s needs and wants. In exchange, the audience consumes her constructed identity and life as commodities with the price of fluent, immediate, and affective attention. 

In the social media ecosystem, this kind of affective attention is a valued currency sought by both influencers and product brands. Brands identify certain influencers’ followings as profitable sources of potential consumers and pay the influencers in exchange for access to their audience. This exchange structure introduces a dynamic power relation among the three parties, each exerting a unique kind of control over one another. On the more obvious end, the hiring product brand has power over the influencer, dictating how the products are to be featured in the influencer’s post, often via a written contract. In Suroweic’s case, these criteria may have been that the brand logo must be shown, that the product must be discernable and appear in the same frame as her, and/or that the product must be featured in its practical use. These contractual guidelines set restrictions on the content of the Suroweic’s aestheticized moment, as she is limited in how and with what she can construct this particular moment. However, a seemingly reverse power relation also exists, one where the influencer has authority over the product brand. Just as the influencer must respect the criteria set by the product brand, the product brand must also respect the constructed aesthetics of the influencer in order to access her following. For the influencer, only images consistent with her own brand elicit the desired audience engagement, so the sponsored post must also adhere to her aesthetic standards. In order to maximize engagement and conversion rate, product brands are careful in selecting influencers based on how similar their brand images are and how well their products fit the influencer’s brand, both in terms of visual aesthetics and the online persona of the influencer (e.g. what products this persona typically uses, what kind of products she likes/dislikes, what consumer values she holds, etc.). It is important to note that product brands may take into account the influencer’s branded identity without necessarily taking into account the actual person behind the identity, which highlights the notion that the aesthetic branding itself is more important and even has power over the influencer. She must post according to her preconstructed brand or else loses her previously engaged audience who are attracted to her constructed online identity and life. An inconsistency caused by an off-brand post breaks the illusion of a real person living an aesthetically pleasing life, which risks losing the following that gives the influencer her value in the eyes of product brands. “The aestheticized life”, once solidified by the consistent posts of the influencer, takes on a life of its own as a separate entity. The influencer and the product brand may alter it, but only to a certain extent. Once that extent is past, “the aestheticized life” is broken and with it all the value (i.e. audience attention and engagement) that the product brand is trying to capitalize off of short-term and the influencer is capitalizing off of long-term. Although the audience also has the control over who and what they spend their affective attention on, hence determining the value of the influencer, they have the least direct causal relationship among the three. Overall, the aestheticized life holds the most power and is an authority that both the influencer and the product brand must obey in order to maximize the profit made from the audience’s attention, engagement, and conversion. 

Social media influencer culture exists in an economic system in which human attention is the currency, and it is this notion that has the most profound effect on our perceived reality since attention is a concept that exists in both the virtual and the real, tangible world. With the recognition that attention is monetarily profitable comes the abandonment of presenting reality on social media, because influencers and product brands realize that producing fantasies through the distillation, symbolic representation, and aestheticization of reality is more attractive and effective in earning viewers attention and engagement. The system of producing fantasies has become standardized with a checklist of criteria that constitute the aesthetics of a constructed life, such as a color scheme, a mood or emotion, a location, or a symbolic display of wealth, all of which stay consistent throughout the influencer’s online presence. The creation of such fantasies sis process is much akin to the manufacture of commodities, and these fantasies do in fact become commodities by the similar method in which the audience consumes them: in one case the viewers spend attention, and in the other they spend dollars. The end result is the merging and equation of attention to real money in terms of their value, which is ostensibly proven by the fact that influencers can receive spendable, real-life money by essentially leasing out the attention of their followers. In the product brand’s perspective, this equation also stands true because the virtual attention and engagement of the audience converts to monetary spendings for their products. However, the equation is an illusion if considered from the audience’s perspective. While the influencer and the product brand can convert audience attention into real money, the audience cannot convert the fantasy, that is the aestheticized life, that they consume into money, even though they expend their attention to consume it. The audience is paying with virtual currency without gaining real-world value back whereas the influencer and the product brand can do so. 

Influencer culture, as a phenomenon of the internet in the twenty-first century world, reflects specific social values and how virtual platforms are manifesting and affecting our tangible reality. The above post by Suroweic exemplifies the elements typical of a sponsored post that both fits her constructed brand and achieves an end set by the product brand. In aestheticizing––essentially the process of adding, manipulating, and subtracting from ordinary life to transform it into a lexicon of symbols––individuals and life, the culture creates identities and moments that are quickly understandable and consumable because of their affectively appealing characteristics. The process of perceiving them is furthermore a fluid one, in which the audience derives pleasure from quickly appraising them and not expending much cognitive energy on it. Thus the aestheticized personas and moments of life become easily consumable commodities that the audience pay to indulge in with their intuitive, affective attention. Through this commodification and interaction with the aestheticized lives, the pre-established economic system of the monetary reality merges with that of the virtual ecosystem, transforming our modern preconceptions of power and value.