aesthetics and capitalism
Inner Chapter | The Aesthetics of Economic Upturn
innerchapter.co
nostalgia, capitalism and aesthetics in china.
The "aesthetics of economic upturn" refers to a nostalgic movement on Chinese social media that celebrates the visual and cultural style of China's millennial-era economic reform period. Unlike similar Western trends that focus on wealth displays, this Chinese version is more about middle-class aspiration and optimism.
The article suggests this nostalgia emerges because:
Current aesthetics are more class-conscious and restrictive
Economic conditions are tougher for young people
There's less genuine diversity in expression
People miss a time when differences were celebrated rather than standardized
Essentially, it's a longing for an era when China felt like it was opening up to infinite possibilities, before aesthetic choices became markers of social class and economic anxiety set in.
is it the same for other cultures?
1985 essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” which predicted, with optimism, a looming world of monstrous machine-human hybrids in which we take “pleasure in the confusion of boundaries”—post-gender, post-capitalism, post-biology. With that reference point, it hit me: We are the Labubus, grinning ecstatically amid the wreckage of our rapidly dismantling, recom
... See moreI’ve been thinking of this Labubumatchadubaichocolate phase as IRL Brain Rot, a culture that exists physically but is incomprehensible without the internet, a set of artifacts and beliefs that adhere to the post-digital self.
Algorithms tailor to our nigh-subconscious preferences; matching with a friend expresses a kind of innate affinity, as if to
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