Don’t fall for the productivity aesthetic. It’s a scam.

To morph into That Girl, there are a few things you must do. You should drink no less than three beverages in the morning, including but not limited to a matcha tea latte, hot lemon water, and a healthy smoothie. You need to work out before 9 a.m., preferably in a matching set. It would be best if you had a multi-step skincare routine that costs anywhere between $100 and $1,000. Then, the housekeeping: journaling, reading, meditating, and making your bed before you start the workday. In the evenings, That Girl goes through it all again: beverages, skincare, reading, and making a beautifully plated meal. And don’t forget to document this routine online for accountability.

It might seem like this is a trend that lifts users toward self-betterment. But in reality, it’s a tired, recycled aesthetic devised to turn us into the Best Workers we can be.

What are online aesthetics?

Aesthetics have existed for millennia. Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Socrates, and Xenophon all debated the ways art and beauty interact. Thousands of years later, their efforts were the basis for discussions led by philosophers like Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who defined aesthetics as a younger sister of logic, and Arthur Schopenhauer, who argued that aesthetics should never be intertwined with politics or it would ruin the point of beauty. One of the most relevant descriptions of aesthetics was penned by Oscar Wilde, who wrote, “Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful,” and said that “by beautifying the outward aspects of life, one would beautify the inner ones.”