Byung-Chul Han argued that contemporary beauty became smooth and frictionless, avoiding all critique. AI is reversing this by letting people judge and prefer authentic things again: natural skin, hand-drawn designs, home-cooked meals. We're learning to spot the real.
I know exactly what you're thinking, but hear me out for just 60 seconds. In 2015, philosopher Byung-Chul Han argued that contemporary beauty had become smooth. We were optimizing for instant pleasure and avoiding any type of blemish, friction, or confrontation. I personally felt that culture, especially when I was in high school. You might remember a time when it felt dangerous to critique anything. We had to accept everything as equally beautiful to avoid being canceled. But now AI is reminding us that not everything deserves to be called beautiful, and we're allowed to say that. Everyone can have a different definition of what is beautiful, but we all kind of agree on what's not. It's not AI slop trying to imitate beauty, nor is it the perfectly engineered animation. AI is making it okay to judge again, and it's reawakening our instinctual desire for beauty as humans, which we've been suppressing for years. We're returning to the natural skin, the natural body, the home-cooked meal, the hand- drawn designs. Beauty is what cannot be faked. It's a stamp of authenticity. While the way we signal that will have to continue evolving with technology, we're no longer required to call everything beautiful just to avoid sounding harsh. That discernment is what's going to continue pushing for more experimentation and creativity.
