Moods, Meanings, and Mediation: Internet Aesthetics as Postdigital Fan Practice

Abstract

This article explores internet aesthetics (visual and narrative systems like cottagecore or dark academia) as dynamic sites of participatory fan culture and affective identity work in the postdigital condition. Originating in platform cultures, internet aesthetics function as symbolic infrastructures through which users imagine, perform, and negotiate alternative selves and possible worlds. Drawing from affect theory, fan, and media aesthetics, the article develops a conceptual framework that repositions internet aesthetics as a form of productive fandom: one that centers on mood, atmosphere, and shared sensibility rather than linear narrative or character-based identification. The article examines how meaning is generated through curatorial, contemplative, and performative engagement and argues that internet aesthetics facilitate collaborative world-building practices in which users co-create aesthet-ic environments that traverse platform boundaries and blur the lines between digital, analog, and imaginary spaces. Central to this analysis is the notion that fandom operates not only through textual consumption but through embodied affect and cultural participation. The article’s main goal is to establish internet aesthetics as a significant object of inquiry within fan and media studies. Far from being superficial or transient trends, they are affective, social, and symbolic practices that enable users to articulate belonging, envision alternative futures, and navigate contemporary formations of subjectivity. In doing so, they reveal the cultural labor fandom performs in a digitally saturated, algorithmically shaped, and increasingly post-individual world.