Chasing Aesthetics

The Moodboardification of Life

Moodboards were once niche—used by designers or art students to cobble together an aesthetic vision for a project. But today, they’ve sprawled into something more potent and strange. They dictate taste. They set trends. And, in a way, they shape how we see the world. What started as tools for creativity have now become the blueprints for our consumer lives.

The peculiar thing is how these moodboards are no longer just inspiration; they’re replication. The Brutalist coffee table, the thrifted leather jacket paired with Converse, the grainy ‘90s film aesthetic—they’re everywhere, not because we discovered them but because we were told to want them. Moodboards have become the new gods of aesthetic capitalism, and they’re doing numbers.

The Numbers Behind the Aesthetic Gluttony

Moodboard culture is a major driver of consumer spending. It’s not just about the vibes; it’s about the economics of the vibe:

1. The Power of Influencer Aesthetics:
   Social platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok are ground zero for moodboard culture. They don’t just inspire—they sell. A 2023 study found that 76% of Pinterest users purchased products based on pins they saved. TikTok, the holy grail of Gen Z aesthetics, is even more staggering. TikTok Shop generated over $100 million in U.S. Black Friday sales alone in 2024. That’s not coincidence; that’s the machine working.

2. Fast Fashion’s Unholy Alliance with Moodboards:
   Take Shein, a brand practically built on the aesthetic churn of TikTok and Instagram. Its $30 billion valuation is tied directly to how fast it can replicate moodboard-inspired trends. The industry behind it? In 2023, the global fast fashion market was valued at $99 billion, and it’s projected to hit $133 billion by 2027. Why? Because when a moodboard trend goes viral, millions of people want that exact look immediately—and cheaply.

3. Social Media as a Sales Funnel:
   Instagram’s shopping integration or TikTok’s in-app purchasing features have monetized moodboard culture at unprecedented levels. They’ve collapsed the gap between seeing and buying. You don’t just pin the look; you click and own it. As of 2024, 71% of Instagram users said they made a purchase because of something they saw on the platform. The moodboard isn’t just dictating taste—it’s monetizing it.

Moodboards as Cultural Homogenizers

Here’s the issue: when everything is curated to fit the same aesthetic, we lose something vital—individuality. Moodboards, in their current form, are aesthetic monocultures. They flatten the raw, messy, unpolished parts of life into something digestible, saleable, and endlessly replicable.

Think about the architecture of this cultural economy.

• A Cycle of Aesthetic Cannibalism:
  Moodboards borrow from culture, but they don’t give back. The art deco building turned Pinterest fodder loses its context. The vintage Levi’s jacket is no longer a symbol of rebellious individuality—it’s just “on trend.” We strip the world of its depth and turn it into an algorithmic stew of vibes.

• The Problem with Perfection:
  Moodboards sell us a fantasy of life without flaws. That Brutalist-inspired loft with perfect light? It never has a dirty dish. The #cottagecore picnic? No ants, no sweat. But real life is messy, and messy doesn’t sell. So we curate, and in doing so, we let life itself mimic the moodboard rather than the other way around.

What makes moodboards particularly dangerous is how they drive not just taste but consumption—fast, reckless, unsustainable consumption.

• The Environmental Impact of Fast Trends:
  The constant churn of trends means endless production. The fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world. Moodboard culture has accelerated this. Every trend you see on TikTok is being churned out in factories at breakneck speed. Shein alone reportedly produces over 10,000 new designs every day. The result? Landfills full of discarded aesthetics.

• Financial Strain on Individuals:
  The pressure to “live the moodboard” isn’t just cultural—it’s financial. The average millennial now spends over $3,000 annually on “self-care” (read: aesthetic maintenance), from skincare routines to home decor updates. Debt is rising, and a large part of it is tied to our need to look like we belong on a grid.

Here’s where it gets strange: moodboards no longer just inspire products—they are the product. Entire brands have been built to mimic the vibe of a moodboard. Think of brands like Glossier, which sells the fantasy of “effortless beauty,” or Kinfolk, which turned Scandinavian minimalism into a cultural empire. Even Starbucks isn’t selling coffee; it’s selling a lifestyle aestheticized to perfection.

And we buy into it because moodboards have trained us to see taste as something external, something bought. It’s not about having taste—it’s about buying the right objects, wearing the right clothes, taking the right photos, and arranging them all just so.

Is There a Way Out?

What’s the alternative? How do we break free from the grip of moodboard culture without becoming cultural Luddites?

1. Reclaim the Mess:
   Life isn’t supposed to look perfect. Let the paint chip. Let your living room mismatch. The aesthetic moments that matter most are the ones you can’t plan.

2. Be Critical of Trends:
   Ask yourself: Why do I like this? Is it because it’s meaningful to me or because I’ve been told to like it? Learn to discern true inspiration from algorithmic marketing.

3. Slow Down:
   Instead of buying into every trend, invest in things that matter to you—things that last. Moodboards encourage rapid consumption, but real taste takes time to develop.

Moodboards aren’t the enemy. But the way we’ve let them take over culture, commerce, and even our personal lives is worth rethinking. Life isn’t a grid, and it doesn’t need to be. The moments that matter most—the real markers of taste and identity—happen in the gaps, in the mess, in the uncurated spaces where moodboards can’t reach.

Taste isn’t what you buy. It’s how you see. And the sooner we reclaim that, the sooner we can break free from the moodboard economy.