Blog article The Vanishing Self: Digital Visual Cultures as a Formation Analogous to Religion

Visibility Replaces Introspection, the Image Replaces the Subject

Digital technologies increasingly determine not only what we see – but also how we see ourselves. This becomes particularly evident in the way we deal with images: on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or BeReal, visual cultures emerge that are based on algorithmic systems and circulate, reinforce, and normalize affective forms of imagery. Faces, bodies, and gestures are not merely depictions of real people, but components of a system of algorithmically generated visibility. What is visible is rewarded – what pleases is amplified. In this way, a visual culture arises in which certain aesthetic codes dominate, regardless of whether they are subjectively felt or socially desired. These visual worlds produce a new form of normative control: they not only dictate what is considered beautiful, vibrant, or credible, but also restructure the relationship between inner experience and external self-presentation.

For women and girls, these digital visual worlds have particular consequences. The British author Ellen Atlanta describes in Pixel Flesh how AI-based aesthetics, filters, feed algorithms, and body-related beauty practices – such as skincare, makeup, or cosmetic procedures – interact to create an image of femininity that is normative and affectively charged (Atlanta 2024). Glow, softness, and empowerment stand for a visual language that does not express emotional states but aesthetically simulates them: instead of showing how someone feels, digital images aestheticize feelings whose real basis remains uncertain. What matters is not whether the feeling was actually experienced, but whether it is made visible in the correct form. This development affects questions of beauty and self-staging but also has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between inner experience and external representation – a relationship that is culturally imagined and lived in different ways, but which is now being redirected by digital visual cultures. This is precisely where this blog post picks up. The central thesis is that we are witnessing a disruptive anthropological transformation that re-codes our cultural understanding of the self. In this text, the self is not understood as a fixed inner essence, but as a culturally and medially formatted relationship to oneself, which is currently being structurally altered by digital visual cultures.

From the morally embedded to the expressive self
The idea of the existence of a self is not an anthropological constant but a historically changeable and socially situated cultural construct. The philosopher Charles Taylor has shown that in modernity, the idea emerged that the true self lies within the individual. The inner world is elevated as an authentic instance of moral orientation and emotional truthfulness – an idea that runs through therapeutic, educational, and pop-cultural discourses. This notion still shapes our understanding of who we “really” are – not what we display externally, but what we feel. While premodern societies were structured by religious orders, social roles, and overarching systems of meaning, modern thinking increasingly focuses on the subject: the presumed inner world is elevated to the source of truth, morality, and identity (Taylor 1989). This development – often described as “expressivism” – took on new forms in the twentieth century. The American sociologist and cultural theorist Philip Rieff describes the modern self as “therapeutic,” meaning as a cultural formation in which individuals no longer derive meaning, fulfillment, and orientation from external orders but seek them within themselves and in constant self-work (Rieff 1987). Likewise, Christopher Lasch, in The Culture of Narcissism, diagnoses a culture in which the gaze at one’s own self becomes the central reference point – not out of selfishness, but due to a structural compulsion toward self-optimization (Lasch 1979). The historian Yuval Noah Harari, in turn, calls the “belief in the self” the defining narrative of the twenty-first century (Harari 2017).

The idea that the “true self” is found within remains fundamentally ambivalent: on the one hand, it opens up spaces for autonomy and differentiation; on the other hand, there is growing pressure to make this inner self visible. This pressure is not merely individual but is systematically produced by the dynamics of the digital world, such as platform logics, algorithmic reward systems, and cultural ideals of authenticity. This is precisely where digital visual cultures come into play. They transform the relationship between inside and outside by transferring affective behavior and self-relations into visual, algorithmically structured forms.

The sociologist of religion Paul Heelas describes, in the context of New Age thinking, a “spiritual self” that no longer refers to transcendent instances but to the feeling of inner coherence: what is considered authentic is measured by whether it “feels right” inside (Heelas 1996). This subjective experience becomes the source of truth, meaning, and orientation – and thus is sacralized. Digital visual cultures take up this idea but translate it into technological terms: the “right feeling” must now be visually representable, socially connectable, and platform-compatible. This is achieved, for example, through filters, standardized visual aesthetics, or forms of interaction that encode and reinforce certain emotions.

In her book Explosive Moderne (2024), sociologist Eva Illouz describes how emotions become the primary orientation point in modern societies: feelings are no longer merely side effects of actions but their foundations – and thus gain social explosiveness. This diagnosis builds on Illouz’s earlier work, in which emotions are understood not only as inner states but also as socially structured forms of expression.

In digital image cultures, emotions are not simply “shown,” but translated into formats that ensure collective readability and connectivity. This produces a new form of credibility: a feeling is considered “real” if it can be transferred into visual language, interaction codes, and algorithmically rewarded forms of expression. Against this backdrop, one can speak of emotional performance: feelings are stylized, quantified, and algorithmically amplified. This does not happen because these feelings are more intensely felt, but because they are made more visible.

The externalization of the inner self
The idea that the self is an expression of an inner state persists in digital visual cultures but is simultaneously translated into visual structures that conform to the aesthetic routines of platforms such as Instagram, BeReal, or TikTok, the logics of algorithmic sorting, and culturally shared expectations of visibility and expression. Visual worlds emerge in which certain visual codes – for example, for naturalness, self-confidence, or vitality – circulate. These codes are not only reproduced by users but are deliberately aesthetically staged: joy is staged, shaped, or made visible, for instance through facial expressions, gestures, light, color choices, and body posture. Crucially, these depictions often arise independently of subjective experience: what becomes visible is not the actual feeling, but a visually rehearsed version of it that culturally counts as a sign of inner coherence. In this way, a deep rupture arises between inner states and external images – a rupture that not only changes perception and communication but can also profoundly unsettle the self-relations of those involved.

In her analysis in Pixel Flesh, Atlanta exemplifies how this dynamic manifests particularly in the lives of young women: to produce a visually credible image of naturalness, vitality, authenticity, or beauty in self-presentation on digital platforms, needs such as adequate food intake are suppressed, sleeping positions are chosen so that hairstyles are not damaged, and bodies are deliberately shaped. The published images suggest the experience of freedom and beauty. What actually becomes visible, however, is less lived freedom than a rigorous form of self-discipline and self-surveillance that inscribes itself deeply into the body and self-perception (Atlanta 2024).

Digital visual cultures as formations analogous to religion
What we observe in digital visual cultures is not a superficial fashion trend but an expression of profound structural shifts in the relationship between self, visibility, and social order. The iconic visual worlds presented on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or BeReal function as formations analogous to religion: they are based on cultural premises that cannot be empirically verified yet nevertheless assume an ordering, obligatory, and orienting function – similar to religions. Their effectiveness lies precisely in the fact that they are not recognized as religion but appear as desirable expressions of everyday life or lifestyle.

With high aesthetic precision, these visual worlds define what is considered beautiful, credible, or attractive – regardless of whether these states are subjectively experienced or felt. In practice, this means that users adapt their self-presentation to visual codes that are amplified by algorithms and legitimized through social resonance. In this way, forms of self-perception and self-control emerge that are not based on individual experience but on standardized visual logics. This process increasingly permeates everyday life and subtly shapes perception, expression, and self-relation – often making it impossible to fully escape this influence.

The new visual worlds tie into structures known from the history of religion, especially the function of goddess images. Here, too, the female body does not serve to depict real subjects; rather, it becomes a projection surface for desires, notions of order, and social norms. The images promise meaning and guidance while also fulfilling a controlling function by depicting abstract ideals rather than real women. At the center is not so much the question of female self-determination or what women themselves want or need. Instead, it is about an image that serves to discipline and control female bodies – by both men and women. The idealized digital images can also be seen in this tradition. They do not depict real life but reflect and reinforce patriarchal norms, such as the expectation that women should present themselves as flawless, controlled, and compliant.

Conclusion
The developments described have consequences for the concept of the self. What we see here is not the erasure of the inner world, since feelings or desires continue to exist. But it is likely a shift in their cultural relevance because it is no longer the experience itself but its visibility that becomes the measure of meaning. Actual inner experiences are overlaid by visual languages that prioritize visibility, algorithmic readability, and compatibility with culturally established forms of expression and aesthetic expectations. At the same time, a second, more fundamental question arises: if what people experience as their inner self – however culturally shaped – is only resonant under certain visual, media, and algorithmically structured conditions, what forms of relationships then become possible? And which ones are lost? Digital visual worlds enable relationships with machines, systems, and platforms, but they make relationships with other people beyond the digital realm more difficult. Thus, these new, iconic digital worlds are examples of a disruptive transformation: the shift from interpersonal to machine-mediated relationships.