Aesthetic anxiety

When perfectionism and visual culture come together

In his recent essay for The Economist, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen detailed the human psychology behind perfectionism. “From Emerson’s provocative defense of “self-reliance” in 1841 to the rise of the self-help industry from the 1930s and the emergence of our own selfie culture, selfhood was regarded as our highest value and the object of our striving. Educational, aesthetic and financial betterment and the need for validation from others are the elements that form the perfectionist air we all now breathe,” Cohen writes.

Nowhere is this drive for perfectionism more visible than in the constant aesthetic improvement that we subject ourselves to. Being the most aesthetically advanced versions of ourselves is an aspiration and an ideology, with brands increasingly busying their strategies with active aestheticization our everyday life. Products we buy, our faces and bodies, our experiences and leisure, our living spaces and bookshelves are all increasingly transformed into works of art. “Everyday life is an art, as art is part of everyday life” is the modern branding’s mantra, fed by the massive offering of social media inspiration.

The current construction of life as a visible work of art has been decades in the making. It is an outcome of simultaneous deinstitutionalization and…