Blaming the Mirror: The Polarisation of the Feminine in the Age of Algorithms

A symbolic and political reading of viral aesthetics, from Clean Girl to Witchtok

The algorithm — TikTok, Instagram, Reels — doesn’t show us what we love. It shows us what we’re willing to watch. This unstable mirror captures a generation in the grip of an identity crisis, and in the endless stream of images, it’s the female figure that bears the weight of society’s tensions. Clean girl, witchtok, tradwife — these seemingly light-hearted aesthetics carry entire symbolic landscapes, suspended between a longing for order and a drive towards rupture. They reflect a visual polarisation of the feminine in the age of the algorithm. This piece offers a political and symbolic reading — not to judge, but to understand what they reveal about our time.

As a society, we are exposed — stripped bare before our own image. Never have we faced such a collective identity crisis. The mirror doesn’t offer comfort; it delivers a disquieting truth. It shows us what we fixate on, what we reject, what we secretly long for. And when that reflection unsettles us, our first reflex is to smash the glass.

We love to hate influencers. We accuse them of embodying a cult of nothingness, of selling air, of posing without purpose. But that void — it’s ours. It’s what the algorithm reflects back to us. It’s what we consume on repeat, without naming it. What we see in them is not too much shallowness — it’s the raw exposure of a system running on empty. And rather than confront that system, we turn on those who make it visible. We don’t critique the structure. We blame the woman who shows it too well.

In truth, there is no cult of nothingness. There is a culture of image, of body, of surface — a symbolic culture, coded and sensory, that few know how to read. Aesthetics are a language. The body is, too. And when that language is feminine, it is swiftly dismissed as shallow. But it isn’t empty — it’s illegible to those unwilling to recognise it as a form of thought.

“Fashion is the mirror of our times; it is therefore inherently political,” said Andrew Bolton. Today, that mirror has shifted — from catwalks to screens, from couture silhouettes to TikTok trends. What we’re seeing isn’t just content. It’s signs. Subtle signals from a time that is trying to read itself in the image.

When identity blurs, aesthetics harden — as if the image might hold together what’s falling apart inside. We are witnessing a visual and symbolic polarisation of the feminine in the algorithmic age.

On one side, the clean girl: Skinnytok, matcha lattes, Alo Yoga leggings, neutral tones, old money fantasies. A kind of modern-day asceticism where control is the currency. As if visual purity could restore order. You can almost hear Wagner playing softly in the background — premium Pilates edition, class contempt included. PrettyLittleThing rebranded as a beige temple of good taste — polyester masquerading as silk. Luxury is no longer loud; it’s hushed. But just as normative. An international uniform, right down to the placement of filler beneath the skin. A muted nostalgia for the supermodel era, repackaged as a new form of well-behaved submission. And then comes the tradwife, even more disconcerting — pushing this fantasy into the realm of fetish, dressing up patriarchal ideals as personal choice.

On the other side: chaos. Untamed femininity, witchcraft, hysteria, excess, refusal, open misandry. A counterculture that doesn’t adapt — it explodes the frame, rejects control, embraces rage. Witchtok, 4B movement, #womeninmalefields, Lilith, astrology — a wild, defiant femininity that refuses silence and sets fire to everything in its path. No glow, no discipline — but blood, flames, incantations, dance. A raw space of creation where to create is first to destroy. Destroy roles, moulds, expectations. This is the feminine that screams, laughs too loud, goes off script. And I’ll admit — that fire speaks to me. It feels more alive than all the perfectly aligned silhouettes.

Two strategies in the face of anxiety. One adapts to the violence of the system by making it beautiful. The other turns it inside out, performs it, tears it apart.

In both cases, it’s a political response to an unstable world: capitalism in crisis, a patriarchal triangle crumbling brick by brick, a planet in flames, a generation searching for meaning in its own reflection. These aren’t just trends — they’re unconscious acts of resistance.

And at the root of both, there is fear. You can feel that something is collapsing — that the old world no longer holds. Yet nothing solid has emerged to replace it. The pyramid — hierarchical, virilist, linear — is losing its grip. But the circular, horizontal alternative has yet to be born. And perhaps it never will be. Perhaps we’ll always falter between verticality and dispersion, between imposed centre and diffuse presence.

Between triangle and circle lies a kind of geometric chaos — a succession of forms that wobble, search, and never quite fit. Transitional, unstable, sometimes incoherent shapes — suspended between authority and fluidity, control and intuition. At the heart of this shift, a symbolic rebalancing is underway: the feminine is returning.

Not as gender — let’s not confuse this with essentialism. But as force.

The yin resurfaces: soft power, inward power, relational power. The kind that forces nothing, but transforms everything. The power of the cycle, of regeneration, of deep time. It is a creative force — not frontal, but organic. A force that weaves, connects, gives form without domination. And in the current chaos, it is still this force that threads meaning through what seems to dissolve.

But this evolution demands courage. Because between the old and the new, there is nothing solid. No clear reference. No role to step into. No model to follow. Only flows, instincts, and fragile attempts. Some copy. Others flee. Many collapse. But a few persist.

And in the blur, a new form of beauty begins to take shape. Not a beauty to offer, or to explain. A presence. A new form.

As if, without asking permission, a woman stood — and stayed standing. Not to seduce, not to convince, not to apologise. But simply to exist. In a kind of authenticity no one had yet dared to truly witness.