Behind every quick judgment about who seems likable is a long history of beauty standards, what we could call Aesthetics and Likability, shaping not just who we admire, but who feels “right” to trust, like, follow, or even hire. From ancient Greece to TikTok filters, Western ideas of beauty and the relationship between aesthetics and likability have quietly influenced who we trust, admire, and accept.
🏛️ The Origins of Aesthetics and Likability: From Plato to Kant
For Plato, whose ideas are foundational to Western aesthetics, true beauty wasn’t about looks—it was about reaching higher ideals. Aristotle, meanwhile, saw beauty reflected in nature’s balance and harmony. Both philosophers connected beauty with morality shaping early ideas about goodness and virtue that still influence Western thinking today. Later, Kant’s aesthetic theory argued that beauty creates a kind of pleasure that feels both deeply personal and universally shared.
🎨 When Beauty Stopped Being ‘Just’ Beautiful: Romanticism, Rebellion, and Beyond
The Romantics flipped the script, celebrating raw emotion over perfect balance. The Aestheticism movement, which followed, pushed this rebellion further—arguing that art didn’t need to serve a moral purpose to matter. Beauty, they claimed, could exist purely for its own sake. In other words, beauty was no longer required to carry meaning, it just had to captivate. But even as art broke free from these older ideals, society continued to cling to narrow ideas about whose beauty was allowed to be seen, admired, or celebrated. The rules may have changed for art, but not for the people inside the frame.
🧠 Why We Like What We Like: The Psychology Behind Likability
Research shows the “halo effect” still tricks us into thinking attractive people are kinder or smarter. Studies on the Pleasure-Interest Model show we respond to both easy pleasure and interesting challenges in aesthetics. Meaning we’re drawn both to things that feel instantly pleasurable and to things that challenge us in ways we find rewarding over time. This explains why some art grabs us instantly while other pieces grow on us over time.
🗺️ Beauty, Power, and Colonialism: Who Gets to Be “Likable”?
Leaning into the hard truth: Western aesthetics weren’t just about taste, they were tools of power. Through colonialism and cultural dominance, Eurocentric beauty standards (light skin, narrow features) became universal “ideals.” This history, explored in depth in aesthetic philosophy, still shapes who gets seen as naturally likable today in practically every area of the world.
📱 Western Aesthetics and Likability in Algorithms
Now algorithms help decide what beauty we see, rewarding certain features and expressions. Research into fictional character design shows complexity makes characters more interesting, yet digital culture often favors simple, scroll-stopping aesthetics.
🌿 Rethinking Aesthetics and Likability: Beyond Smooth Surfaces
This journey through Western aesthetics makes me wonder: what beauty are we missing when we focus only on what’s easy to like? Being deeply interested in how humans think and connect, perhaps it’s time to question these defaults and make room for beauty that challenges us.
A few questions to further your thinking:
- What might your definition of beauty look like if likability wasn’t the goal?
- What if we all one day looked the same, what would be the driving forces of power in the world today?
- What methods do you believe would be used for rise of power and division?