A perfectly symmetrical, verdantly green Monstera Deliciosa leaf, the just-right scent of a bougie candle, a freshly pressed eyeshadow palette — all are aesthetic currency for a specific type of contemporary success, one that reads as #influencer or #spon, reflected in the shiny digital surfaces of Instagram and YouTube. If climbing the rungs of influencer culture is a new kind of American dream, that ascent has shifted the internet into a bankable arena for flaunting status — not just selling products, but also personality.
The artist Molly Soda — born Amalia Soto — has spent much of her career dissecting the space between how we live on the internet and how we live IRL. Her latest exhibition, "You Got This," a sly series of video works and installations, analyzes the pervasive wellness, self-help, and self-improvement economies that populate Internet culture—specifically YouTube—as a conduit for consumerist behavior and aspirational "realness." Currently on view by appointment at Jack Barrett Gallery, and accessible online, "You Got This" riffs on the tropes of vloggers and stock suburban aesthetics as a way to archive this current moment in American hustle culture. Her interest in these backdrops — from a tricked out beauty room/home office to a suburban McMansion — is also eerily relevant to our current WFH moment.
"It's always a play with authenticity and relatability when it comes to the internet because I think we're so longing for it in ourselves," Soda says in a Skype call. "We want to feel that. And brands want that. We want it from each other, but it just doesn't exist."
#Exhibition #YouGotThis #BeautyInfluencer #Eyeshadow #Care
