The other day, I saw a post on Instagram that said something like: “Everything looks like art now. Ads, content, AI, interiors, people’s houses. It’s all so polished it makes everything feel flat.”
It stuck with me.
Because yes – this is exactly the feeling I haven’t been able to name lately.
We live in an extremely aesthetic era. Everything is beautiful. Everything is composed. You scroll through campaigns, exhibitions, product drops, personal content, and they all kind of blur into the same visual language. A little Warhol, a little i-D magazine, a little AI. Lots of matte lighting. Big fonts. Conceptual captions. A “vibe.”
At first glance, this feels like progress. We’ve all become more visually fluent. We know our way around an image. But there’s something else happening underneath: a kind of flattening — not just of visuals, but of feeling.
And I can’t tell if that’s something to mourn, or just something to notice.
So I did what I always do when I’m conflicted: I argued with myself.
A Self-Debate on the Aesthetic Trap
The Romantic (a.k.a. Me, spiralling in Notes app):
We’ve lost something. When everything is curated within an inch of its life, it starts to feel like nothing. The art that rises to the top is the art that performs best – not necessarily the art that feels the most. And when the same visual logic is applied to advertising, AI, fashion, and fine art, we stop differentiating between any of it. The museum becomes a concept store. Depth becomes a prop.
The Pragmatist (a.k.a. Me, after espresso):
That’s dramatic. What if this is just the aesthetic language of our time? Art has always changed to reflect its context. The Renaissance had realism. The 2010s had millennial pink. We have hyper-curated visual fluency. Maybe we’re just in our “Everything Is Art” period – it doesn’t mean nothing matters. It just means it’s harder to tell at first glance.
Romantic:
“Harder to tell” is exactly the problem! When everything looks the same, we stop paying attention. It’s exhausting to constantly decode what’s real, what’s sponsored, what’s meant to be felt vs. sold. This aesthetic collapse doesn’t just flatten style – it flattens emotion. The work that’s tender, risky, ambiguous gets drowned out by what looks like it belongs on a tote bag.
Pragmatist:
Or maybe we just need to get better at looking. Some of the most moving work right now does exist within this aesthetic context – but it uses the language of visual sameness to subvert it. It draws you in with familiarity, then breaks your heart. Think of artists who operate inside the system to critique it. Seduction then rupture.
Romantic:
Okay, but don’t you ever miss when things felt a little… less performative? When art didn’t have to look like content to be seen?
Pragmatist:
Of course. But nostalgia’s not strategy. The internet didn’t kill art. It just forced it to adapt. If anything, the answer might not be to reject the flatness – but to plant dynamite inside it. To make work that feels like content until you’re crying in your kitchen at 2am, wondering why an AI-looking image made you feel something real.
Romantic:
Okay fine. But I still reserve the right to be wistful.
Pragmatist:
Always. Just don’t forget to look deeper.
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