Beauty has regressed into becoming complaisant to consumerism that is masqueraded as “likes” on social media. Beauty in social media is always and only likeable. You can either only “like” an image, or scroll past dozens of more until you “like” another. There is no experience between viewer and image via smart-phone: there is only a transaction between user and algorithm. The transaction being time and information. There is no artistic integrity in social media, only artistic compromise between ego and metadata.  

The experience of beauty is when one undergoes an encounter that leaves an impression on the subject. It needs both the positive and negative qualities of emotion in order for there to be an impression. Digitized beauty limits the user to positivity. In order to retrieve consumer data, the app is designed to be a constant reflection of the user in order to foster a continuous “positive experience.” The user is always within themselves. You can’t “dislike” content. The algorithm prevents this and knows that there is nothing more agreeable to a person than themselves. Digitized beauty is consumption. Digitized beauty is inherently narcissistic. 

Sublime is dualistic in positivity and negativity. Sublime doesn’t cause an immediate feeling of pleasure, but first overwhelms the subject. The feeling of insignificance overwhelms the viewer. The subject is faced with their own finities. That is what constitutes as the negativity in sublime. In the face of natural beauty, the subject is pulled out of itself, and then, beside itself. He or she takes refuge in insignificance. The subject is not looking at a mirror of themselves nor is within themselves but is face-to-face with the non-identical and is able to interpret that into a universal identity: that is what constitutes as the positive in sublime. Natural beauty evades consumption. Natural beauty humbles.

When one experiences natural beauty through travel, the subject journeys to be faced with foreign landscapes. When faced with unfamiliar terrain, the subject is first overwhelmed with insignificance and is then rewarded with the humbling experience of beauty. The subject craves the beautiful experience: to be pulled out of itself, to be beside themselves and then make what is transcendent into something tangible, whether it is in a medium or memory. When one is faced with the godly presence of mountains, they are speechless, humbled, then in awe. They think of the civilizations these mountains have quietly watched, and the rings of time each stone holds. 

When one is faced with another’s beauty, one can see their divine essence. They are faced with the reality that the person’s beauty is finite, and the only way one can experience this beauty is to respect and honor the other’s existence as individual and unique. When one really sees another’s beauty, it is because they are seeing the other as the other, not as a reflection of themselves. The subject is again beside themselves in order to experience the other and how they flourish in their individuality. 

Genuine natural beauty is the experience of when one realizes their own finitude: it harbors positivity, negativity, and space-time. It is 4-dimensional. Digitized beauty is one-dimensional in positivity and holds no space for time: it is easily consumable, a self-reflection of the ego, and caters to the fleeting present of what is trending via hashtags, likes and views.