When did reading become an aesthetic, and what does that say about how we value women’s intellectual labor in the digital age? Constantly, I have asked myself this question plenty of times when scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram feeds. Numerous discourses have surrounded this conversation of reading, particularly when directed toward women, as a performative aesthetic. These discourses often hypothesize that reading in digital spaces has become less an act of intellectual engagement and more a curated image of femininity. Many people push back on this critique, arguing that even if reading is aestheticized, it still promotes literacy, or that as reading gains popularity, the stigma against it will lessen. However, what these counter arguments often ignore is that the internet is not a random accumulation of memes, aesthetics, and digital curation; it is a direct manifestation of the social, political, and psychological structures that govern material reality. In the digital age, reading is not exempt from commodification, or, to better broaden the terminology, education is not exempt from gendered labor expectations.
Across platforms such as TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and Tumblr, the image of the “smart girl” circulates as a carefully curated blend of intellect, beauty, and wealth. Viral trends featuring law school mood boards, minimalist luxury fashions from brands like The Row, matcha lattes, and books like Ways of Seeing by John Berger present learning not as liberation, but as a performance of aspirational class mobility. This performance of “being smart” reflects a broader system of gendered, racialized labor under capitalism. One example of this phenomenon is the TikTok influencer Beware of Pity. Although she presents herself as intellectually engaged, her content frequently oscillates between literary discussions and luxury product promotion: $100 skincare, designer perfumes, and overpriced stationery. This contradiction highlights a deeper material reality: the performance of education is increasingly entangled with consumerism, where wellness, beauty, and intellect are bought, curated, and displayed as a cohesive brand. This commodification transforms education into a site of gendered labor. The woman influencer becomes a product, constantly performing softness, discipline, and aesthetic perfection for public consumption. Influencers promoting “slow living” and “study routines” are stanned, or obsessed over, like pop stars, their followers flooding comment sections with declarations like “You are the blueprint” and “Everyone be quiet, my show is on.” The emphasis shifts from learning to performing an aspirational, hyper-feminine lifestyle that aligns intellectualism with class privilege, beauty, and consumption.
The aesthetic has transitioned from the overt displays of wealth, cars, and designer bags to a subtler caricature of the “everyday educated woman,” whose minimalism requires wealth. The audience, primarily women aspiring toward academic or aesthetic validation, forms parasocial bonds with these influencers, projecting ideals of perfection, order, and desirability. As a result, normal human behaviors such as messiness, imperfection, and failure are pathologized as personal flaws rather than systemic consequences of capitalist life. The viewer internalizes that if they just bought the $15 organic toothpaste or the $300 leather tote, they too could become worthy, beautiful, and intellectually validated. The parasocial dynamics driving this phenomenon are well-documented. In “Authenticity Meets Aesthetics: Physical Attractiveness as the Equalizer for Virtual and Human Influencers,” Ya-Hui Kuo and Son Bao Hoang Le argue that parasocial interaction (PSI), the one-sided emotional relationships consumers build with media figures, is maximized through physical attractiveness and curated vulnerability. Beauty becomes synonymous with trustworthiness, relatability, and authority, even in spaces supposedly centered around intellect. The “halo effect” leads audiences to equate beauty with intelligence, virtue, and authenticity, regardless of the content being produced. This psychological bond blurs the distinction between influencer and audience. When critiques arise, particularly ones aimed at how capitalism and gender expectations shape influencer culture, audiences often react defensively. They perceive criticism of the influencer as a personal attack on their own aspirations, values, and identity. The sacred parasocial bond protects the influencer from legitimate analysis and erases opportunities for systemic critique. This leads education to manifest as a co-opted marker of prestige. Instagram photos of influencers “studying” in Ivy League libraries rarely focus on the intellectual rigor of the material; instead, the camera fetishizes the influencer’s body, appearance, and curated surroundings. Even when the woman is absent from the frame, the props of class performance— books, digital devices, and coffee cups— remain meticulously staged. The labor required to construct this “natural” aesthetic is invisible to the consumer, who internalizes it as authentic rather than orchestrated. It is promoted through these images, videos, and concepts that to be educated is not to critique the systems, ask questions, or develop one’s skills, but to invest in capitalistic endeavors in order to perform a role.
I believe this is the materialization of the neoliberal turn in choice feminism. As we saw in the 1970s, this was the era of the free-market citizen, where people were told they now had full autonomy over their lives, that they were finally empowered to act as they pleased. This model of governance promised to produce an ideal social, political, economic, and psychological structure through minimal state interference. But citizenship in this framework was no longer defined by rights; it was redefined by responsibilities, and empowerment was measured by consumer choice. Within this individualistic mode of governance, we will inevitably continue to see the rise of these consumerist ideals. But I do believe that we, the people, often referred to in Marxist theory as the proletariat, can make a change and begin to resist these structures consciously. This means withdrawing support from content creators and brands that commodify education and instead investing in community-led alternatives such as funding libraries, supporting community colleges, crowdfunding for our peers, organizing group reading sessions, and fostering collective education. We must be willing to boycott the brands, nearly all under capitalism, that profit from the emotional and gendered labor of young women in order to maintain their dominance in the digital marketplace.
Words by Kayla Wyatt
Graphic by Eve Friday