Aesthetics. We all have them. Ranging from color schemes to attractive human qualities, everyone has specific guidelines when it comes to appreciating them. Aesthetic is defined as “concerning beauty and the appreciation of it”. We humans have been constantly looking for our aesthetics since the beginning of our time. It has been shown all aspects of our daily lives. However, it can be seen most often in our fashion and our varying social media platforms. It’s simple, humans love seeing and highlighting beauty and appeals to them. What’s so wrong about that?
When we talk about aesthetics related to painting, modern art, pictures, etc, nothing is usually wrong. However, there is a fine line between wanting to share the beauty and appeal, and endangering creatures’ well-being solely because for a moment, they fit our aesthetics. Yes, I’m talking about animal endangerment due to the fashion industry and the processes that are taken in order to achieve certain fashion trend regardless of the effect they have on innocent creatures, but also a trend that has been spreading a lot recently: Animal endangerment for the sake of pictures.
We all know about endangered species. We’ve all seen the commercials and donated spare change to foundations at the mall, but when it comes down to it… what’s it all worth if the greater part of the population is not willing to change? Humans have slowly lost their sensibility and empathy towards wild animals and creatures. Replacing those instead with the need for the perfect selfie, as seen recently on the beaches of Costa Rica where tourists kept stepping in between and over sea turtles during their nesting period and greatly affected the process said turtles were going through.
In a recent ad by PETA titled “Behind the Leather”, multiple animal skin-made clothing accessories were taken and designed to look like the internal parts of the animals they belonged to. This was done in order to raise awareness of the cruel methods and innocent lives taken to achieve producing, previously mentioned, fur and skin-made fashion products. We often get caught up in the aesthetic appeal of what we buy, that we forget where it came from, how it was made, and what kind of processes and measures were taken to actually produce it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ever-growing mistreatment of animals’ spectrum, we constantly endanger and affect animals’ well-being for reasons such as pictures and “cool and unique” videos to post online and impress their peers. Thus forgetting that not only are they risking their lives, but the life of an innocent creature in the process. Forgetting that these very same creatures are meant to be wild, to roam, and most importantly: they are not here for your entertainment or to get you likes and shares. So why treat them as such? Why try to control what is free? What is innocent? What is not and never was meant to be tamed or controlled?
Hundreds of years ago, we had no other choice but to rely on animal fur, but in this modern day and age? It’s not as if we had no other options! Humanity has made such amazing and huge advancements before and it still does. So, why do we sometimes second guess buying synthetic coats over fur coats? Why do we rely on excuses such as “just following trends” and “everyone else wears them” to justify such cruel methods? We are slowly losing thousands of species and beautiful creatures because for a moment, it was trendy. For a moment, we spent some money to fit in. Everyone knows how quickly trends change! So, why are we still allowing millions of deaths and inhumane processes at their expense? When was it that we forgot the immense impact that altering and messing with the lives of wild creatures has on our world and their survival? They won’t understand that it was all for a cool selfie! When a mother attacks its own young because it was moved or wrongly handled by a person, it will not understand that you didn’t know better. So why mess with them? Why not take the short amount of time that is needed to educate ourselves on the effects and impacts that our actions might have? When did we decide that aesthetics and trends were far more valuable than the lives of creatures meant to co-exist with us? When exactly was it that we humans lost our sense of humanity?
