The Male Gaze Was Turned To a Business Model
I am in my early twenties and the first time I noticed the Internet made beauty business, was while I was cruising the social media late at night. Each time I would get to the end of the posts it seemed that they were all the same. Perfect lighting. Perfect angles. Carefully edited bodies. Faces created for more than just being there, rather to being seen. Initially, it was nothing alarming – it was about looks, fads, fun. As time went on, however, I saw that there was a trend that was going on that was hidden. These platforms paid for visibility weren’t neutral. The algorithm always gave a boost to a certain type of femininity: performative, hyper-visible and optimized for male attention. It was then that I started to consider the malestream as a cultural theory but also as an economic system. The “male gaze” first came into being as a part of feminist film theory, in Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Mainstream media often tries to present women in a heterosexual male point of view, using the women’s body as the object of the gaze and desire of the heterosexual male, argued Mulvey.[1] This isn’t a phenomenon that has been changed by the Internet over the years. Has commercialized it! Attention became a currency on social media sites. As soon as people began to make money out of the attention, making money out of the beauty became possible.
All these industries – from influencer marketing to beauty products, cosmetic surgery, fitness brands, adult content platforms, fashion marketing, to algorithm-driven advertising – generate billions of dollars today, all around the theme of ‘showing up. From influencer marketing to beauty products, cosmetic surgery to fitness branding, adult content platforms, fashion marketing, to algorithm-driven advertising – billions of dollars are turned over every day around the concept of ‘showing up. Statista projects that the worldwide influencer marketing sector will reach the milestone of $24 billion in 2024. Within the next few years, the beauty industry is expected to grow to be over $750 billion in the world.[2] These industries are not just part of digital culture, they are an integral part of digital culture. I am curious about what I found to be the internet didn’t just copy the male gaze. It automated it.
Algorithms are now systems of approval that are not visible to us. Engagement on platforms is rewarded, one of the reasons for engagement being visual is that the content is visual. This feedback loop helps creators understand what types of photos get more likes, views, sponsorships, and followers, then incorporating that information into their future photos. This continues a feedback loop by helping creators realize what is being liked and viewed more, what is being sponsored, and who is following and incorporating this into their future photos. As time goes on, the expression of beauty fades into the background and it becomes more about optimization.
I recall sitting with one of my friends and saying “I don’t take photos anymore because I don’t like taking photos. She did so because she was aware of which version of herself would be more successful online. The sentence stuck with me due to a profound feeling of discomfort with a shift in personal identity to algorithmic identity. The net has shown millions of themselves from a new point of view. Here is where the male gaze economy can be a force of psychology. Does not need to be supervised by a man to operate. Platform incentives are internalized by women. The algorithm will automatically swap out the audience without making a sound. The metrics of likes, comments, shares, followers gained, brand deals etc. quantify validation. Visibility becomes labor.
This is becoming more and more referred to as “self-surveillance”, i.e. people constantly monitoring and altering themselves to meet expectations from others. In his book The Birth of the Clinic, French philosopher Michel Foucault, said that “modern systems of power are effective when people start to regulate themselves voluntarily.[3] This is what can be seen in social media, probably today’s most obvious example. But the system is complicated yet. Indeed, many women are really making a lot of money online. The opportunities that have emerged from the influencer culture are new. Anyone can transform their creativity, fashion, fitness and beauty knowledge, and personal branding into content and generate income without going through the gatekeepers. Some creators have been able to make as much as a corporate salary using platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, OnlyFans and YouTube.
That is why it’s not possible to have simple moralistic judgments. It’s not that women are making “the wrong choices. That is not the problem, though, because the very nature of the digital economy is increasingly favoring visibility related to desirability. Capitalism’s ability to evolve quickly in response to the psychology of man is well known, and desire has always been a good sale. The system of the male gaze economy is very efficient. Platforms maximize engagement due to the fact that “the more engaged, the more money you make.” Emotionally stimulating content is what advertisers prefer, as it will help keep viewers on the site longer. Users make out which content is attended. Creators adapt accordingly. Algorithms encourage positive patterns. A cycle is established that is self-sustaining.
Organically-looking features are frequently designed. Organic-looking features are often architecturally designed. Several digital well-being studies and the Center for Humane Technology research indicate that engaging and emotionally charged content tends to drive more retention and engagement because algorithms like these are designed to promote such content. The Internet is basically an advertising machine. Beauty standards can thus be accelerated by algorithms that were not felt by past generations. Beauty ideals were set in magazines that were published on a monthly basis. They are now being updated on the hourly level through social media.
There’s a new form of psychological fatigue that I believe has developed from this constant exposure. The young today is a generation of life within the context of the permanent visibility culture. They don’t just eat the standards of beauty; they are eating them all the time. All images turn into potential performances. All time is filled with happiness. All bodies turn into equivalent. This pressure is increasingly being reflected in the statistics of the mental health of teenagers. Research from groups such as the American Psychological Association and Pew Research Center have been correlated to increased anxiety, depression, body discontent, and self-esteem issues in adolescents, particularly young girls, and a correlation of heavy social media usage. Surgery practices among younger patients have also come a long way in the past 10 years, as well, although that may be influenced by “Instagram face,” the digital beauty aesthetic, which was popularized by filters and the influence culture.[4] Sometimes I feel I don’t fully understand what becomes of human identity when self-worth is quantifiable.
The moral issues surrounding this economy get even more sinister when you think about how young the system starts to program people. Toay, teenagers are getting to learn the branding before they turn 18. Before children can really grasp their own concept of self, they first have to grasp the concept of engagement measures. Securing benefits entire industries, selling products of confidence. That paradox could be the 19th century of the internet. Often platforms are presented as a place for self-expression. To some degree they are. However, empowerment is never completely benign in systems that are geared towards profit. Insecurity is also of value when it brings in money. The more dissatisfied people are with themselves, the more products they buy, the more improvements they seek, the more subscriptions they sign up for, the more content they aspire to.
Capitalism found out that self-image can be something that can be repeated as a revenue stream. The male gaze economy impacts men, but in other ways. There is an increasing pressure for men with respect to fitness, wealth signaling, aesthetics of status and hyper-masculine performance online. Yet, women continue to be assessed based on their looks and being seen on most major social media platforms. But what I’m most concerned with, isn’t just objectification, but normalization. This is now part of the everyday fabric of life, and many have forgotten that this is a structure. Many people don’t realize that this is a structure because it is so much a part of daily life. It is the norm to constantly present oneself. Algorithmic comparison seems like a natural thing to do. Performing as a public person is normal. However, there are no consequences taken away by normalization.
The internet changed the way the relationship was observed and the Economics. The male gaze has been in practice in the past in the film, advertising and fashion industry, which are all dominated by institutionalized control. Nowadays, people are involved in the production system. All of a sudden, every one of us is a consumer, a performer, and a product. That’s the biggest change that could possibly happen. The digital economy has created a conundrum with regard to the transformation of personal identity to value in the marketplace. But I don’t think it’s about getting away from tech or about blanketing the users of these systems. This would be an abdication of economic realities, and personal agency. The greater challenge is to create digital world(s) in which human value is not perceived as being mostly related to performance.
That demands ethical issues about which tech firms don’t pay much attention:
What to reward in algorithms?
Could engagement be the only measure of visibility?
What is the duty of platforms on mental health?
Is it profitable to have digital spaces and not increase insecurity?
the internet at this time is a place that values attention the most. Often, the easiest way to get attention is by presenting a beautiful, desirable, or outraged object or an object that stimulates the emotions. However, societies can be influenced by what is most proactively rewarded in a way that is more or less permanent. In a world where “visibility” is the most influential social currency, people will align their identities more and more with a “seeing” that is more than any possible understanding. That’s why it can be so exhausting to be the man who’s always looking at the women. It’s not just a matter of others’ perceptions of women. It is about the view of the generations and the way they see themselves. When perception of self is algorithmic, the distinction between real and virtual personhood starts to blur.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Opinion Desk.
[1] Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), foundational theory on the “male gaze.
[2] Statista, Influencer Marketing Industry Market Size Worldwide.
[3] Michel Foucault’s theory of self-surveillance and disciplinary systems overview.
[4] Research discussing “Instagram Face” and cosmetic trends shaped by social media.