Transformation of Mass Aesthetics Involved by Social Media: the Formation and Alienation of Popular Trends

In the context of the digital age, social media platforms play a significant role in reconstruct mass aesthetics. This paper discusses the transformation pf mass aesthetics involved by social media, with a concentration on formation and alienation of popular trends. Through interaction of users, algorithmic recommendation and capital operation, social media platforms have accelerated the dissemination and rigidity of trends and have deeply reshaped contemporary social aesthetic standards. Aesthetic system dominated by traditional elite class has been broken by technological empowerment, which enabled that average users also gain aesthetic discourse power through content creation and interactive participation. This change has benefited the democratization of aesthetics and diversification of individual expression, but has also led to aesthetic homogenization, symbolization, and commercialization, producing a fast-food style consumerist aesthetic culture. The study further reveals the influence of social media on mass aesthetics is not only reflected in the following blindly of trendy signs and self-objectification but also extended to individual cognition and self-identity level. The rise of short videos and the other sensory-stimulating media have fragmented users attention and weakened their capacity to receive aesthetic content in depth. Simultaneously, social media platforms guide users to adjust their self-image to cater to popular trends with industrial aesthetic formula, which has even caused a disconnect between virtual identity and real self, exacerbating identity anxiety and the loss/erosion of aesthetic judgement.