Do you know the real arthoe movement or do you just know the aesthetic?

How white creators turned a movement into a pinterest worthy aesthetic in the late 2010's

The color of bright yellow and kankens in every primary color litters pinterest. Girls (white mind you) tagging everything with #arthoeaesthetic or #arthoe. In my personal experience as a young adult during this time I never saw POC on my pinterest board and if I did they were a dime a dozen not even coming near their white counterparts in regards to social media attention.

Screenshots of Clairo’s “pretty girl” are on niche meme boards with snippets of again white girls with short messy bobs decorated with small daisies. The Vincent Van Gogh socks haunt me to this day. You know the ones, the starry night painting and the sunflowers to match that horrid yellow.

All of this was pretty and eye catching but little did I know it was a movement. Sounds dramatic but it was created by POC black femmes that wanted to insert POC,Queer,and femmes in predominately white art spaces. Hence all the edits of themselves in Van Goghs starry night or edits of them at museums.

Behind the scenes a 15 year old Mars was being exploited and over the years has been snubbed by the other (older and adult) members of arthoe. Mars at 15 was a sex worker and the others had that knowledge and never helped Mars when it came to having enough funds to enjoy the parties or events that came with being the influencers and founders of arthoe.

“Through Tumblr I formed friendships with a group of young adults who would later completely take advantage of me to boost their careers.” - Mars in their pinned instagram post @biblicallyaccuratebisexual

To present day,Mars is still facing housing instability and has not recieved their flowers from the internet or even her ex friends.Other members seem to be having a pretty secure life from what we can see one in particular, Amandla Stenberg who has had numerous acting roles and opportunities.

All members are tagged on Mars’ pinned instagram post and in the comments Amandla seems to be confused on the whole situation and it is unclear if she has spoken with Mars privately.

@Fridacashflow is a model and is also tagged but it doesn’t seem like they have acknowledged much.@sageflocka is an artist that is primarily known for doing Sza’s artwork and is also a model.And lastly we have Rhia Phin who has a big following on Tik tok.All of those mentioined who were in the collective are where they are now because of arthoe. At least in some capacity.

I think the saddest part and honestly the worst part is the fact that they didn’t help out someone I would think they would call a friend. I can’t imagine not helping someone who I considered a friend and even if I couldn’t help them monetarily I would try to be a shoulder for them. A young person like Mars should have been able to rely on their support system that they believed they had. That is the worst feeling realizing that you thought you had something but it was the complete opposite.

There of course are two sides to every story and there is very scarce “resources”on this matter but if you delve into the reddit of “NYCinfluecersnark/reddit” you may converse with others about this situatioin and see what others are saying who have seen this situation transpire in real time.

I also encourage you to delve deeper and watch my youtube video about the arthoe aesthetic.