cottagecore and other internet aesthetics

i just want a thread for it, i don't have anything to say. i imagine some visually-minded ilxors have thoughts on these "aesthetics" that aren't quite subcultures.

I used to live in a cabin and I like braided rugs, and if I came across, like, a set of blue cotton curtains with cows on them, I would probably hang them up and be pleased about it. I guess maybe that makes me cottagecore? Idk, it's weird that this is a thing.

What's a non-internet aesthetic in 2021?

i am personally above and beyond the internet and am an aesthetic onto myself

not everyone can accomplish this though. to them i recommend the "chaotic academia" aesthetic https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Chaotic_Academia

"use vandalism for help on an exam" - wait, what?

You have performed a chaotic action.

this wiki is very illuminating, especially if you go to the tab for aesthetics that include the "wave" suffix. i knew that "laborwave" was a thing but apparently there is also a non-ironic "fashwave," which is vaporwave music that promotes a fascist agenda. (i kinda knew there were alt righters into vaporwave, but i didn't know it was its own defined subgenre. everything, it seems, is its own defined subgenre).

chaotic academia is just... literally chaotic academia, how is that an aesthetic

how potentially fascist is cottagecore

D&D alignment-ing and political compass-ing the shit out of everything is extremely trendy these days. I guess structuralism is making a comeback.

Cottagecore probably ties to fascism most closely via tradwives, I'd guess.

um I would like to retract anything I may have said in this thread about liking cabins and braided rugs, please forget I ever said it.

i just want a thread for it, i don't have anything to say

board description!

I think the missing link is Mormons, actually: https://jewishcurrents.org/my-mommies-and-me/

It does get down to how specifically you define cottagecore, though :)

Cottagecore probably ties to fascism most closely via tradwives, I'd guess.

― vcrash,

So there is a trend among gen z of embracing traditional gender roles and cottagecore and the archetype of the “trad wife” are part of that. This is reactionary but I wouldn’t say fascist. But again, not at all politically neutral. I’d call it conservative.

A lot of these people seem to blame “millennials” and “boomers” for dismantling society in the name of individualism (the patrick deneen/why liberalism failed narrative, but given a generational kick).

I think they could find what they are looking to in socialism rather than conservatism. The longing for community they feel, the resentment of competition and the atomization it causes, is really a hatred of capitalism, not millennials. But then again I would say that.

Can't we just like innocuous things without constantly worrying about super-online dorks who like those things for stupid reasons, is my question

Only if you log off

i will log off only when they log off

It's good to think about how your taste mightn't be a random or neutral happening

I find this all quite new and fascinating. First time I came across one of these kinds of very specific, very much a product of the internet aesthetics was healthgoth - a small but perfectly defined fashion style that nevertheless got a lot of mainstream coverage.

But I guess the idea of aesthetic microgenres is nothing particularly new in the worlds of fashion and art. But the ongoing Spotification of everything means these microgenres can proliferate really easily, and become their own "things" in themselves: Essentially you can create a playlist/moodboard based on shit you find in your house or using a GIS. And I like how that can extend into other forms: "I found a bunch of old business text books and I'm going to make a playlist about them. I'm going to sew a jacket about them". Or "This week I'm feeling very Squirrelcore".
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of internet aesthetics. I can't not love it.

A lot of this reminds me of the metal my friends and I would listen to in the 90s and 2000s. There'd be this constant chug and cycle of different subgenres with fascinating names and cover art styles: Tankcore, Sludge, Unblack, Funeral Doom etc... It was ridiculous and very silly. I couldn't really tell the difference between most of them, and the idea that one band's sound could be pretty much a whole genre unto itself seemed daft in a cool way.

It's good to think about how your taste mightn't be a random or neutral happening

Not exactly within the scope of this thread, but I never realised that *Corporate Memphis* was the name for the ubiquitous obnoxious online illustration style before reading this

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-internet-is-turning-on-big-techs-colorful-corporate-mascots/

xpost Certainly not an appreciation for like hand-crafted wicker baskets or whatever, at any rate. Dipshits can attach whatever dipshit ethos they want to value-free objects and aesthetics, IDGAF, just don't actively ruin it for the rest of us.

The semiotics of this stuff is the only interesting thing about it

It's good to think about how your taste mightn't be a random or neutral happening

I agree but there's a balance and I think it often tips over into neurosis. Particularly the obsession with trying to create unproblematic taste and then assuming that's a sign of moral superiority.

The Corporate Memphis thing is so pervasive that it's become the default for almost all corporate design and it'll be seen as the prevailing aesthetic trend of the present day. I've noticed it in every workplace I've been to in the last ten years.

xp otm

I can understand why people might be neurotic or even wanna feel (morally) superior I just think it's interesting to pull at the webs of context between every piece of culture and ourselves and sometimes it's fun in a bad way to raise an eyebrow at our protestations that we didn't notice the webs

the interwebs

It's 2021 I'm not sure how much longer we can assert that the Internet is a foreign country

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Aesthetics

Not just internet but a lot to go through here.

Don't really think you need the internet to connect the dots between cottagecore and reactionary impulses anyway. That being said, to appropriate one of my all-time least fave memes, let people enjoy baskets.

Cottagecore seems pretty strongly gendered--are there Men Online into cottagecore too? Idk

From my own observation, it seems like the other side of, like, ax-throwing or "off-grid prepping" or something. All the baskets, none of the starvation and freezing to death.

I feel like cottagecore could have a less malevolent root - a lot of people have housing instability, high rents, plus the general unease of life now... having a fantasy of retreating into a cozy, safe place seems like a natural instinct

I mean people could just want a home for themselves, a safe place, is that Nazi?

95% of the fantasy genre has been cottagecore if cottagecore exists

See also 'food porn'

It's good to think about how your taste mightn't be a random or neutral happening

― scamp til you're damp (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 17, 2021 9:47 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

A star turn from nv as usual.

I feel like cottagecore could have a less malevolent root - a lot of people have housing instability, high rents, plus the general unease of life now... having a fantasy of retreating into a cozy, safe place seems like a natural instinct

Yesssss I was keeping it short but yeah, lots of the homestead people are doing it because of housing shortage, financial insecurity, low-wage work, the desolation of two people working two jobs each to afford a "normal" middle-class life and never seeing each other or their kids.

I realize that's not the same phenomenon exactly as cottagecore but, I submit, not unrelated.

Tankcore, Sludge, Unblack, Funeral Doom etc... It was ridiculous and very silly.

Much as a language is a dialect with an army, sludge and funeral doom have been around for 3+ decades now. Their distinctive traits and staying power are such that I don't think it's fair to put them in the same basket as tankcore and unblack.

Also when my job was a nightmare, my deepest fantasy was to live alone in a moldering house and strip paint off woodwork with a toothbrush--a tiny, exacting, low-risk task that restored value to something was so much more appealing than my actual life.

A quick search for "cottagecore racism" gave me this excellent (imo) blog post + comments that says pretty much everything I would have said:

https://baixueagain.tumblr.com/post/189439029744/time-to-stop-tagging-cottagecore-alongside

Point 1:

Cottagecore romanticizes the legacy of settler colonialism and frontier living that relies on the stolen land of indigenous people. Solarpunk needs to be decolonial and pro-community, including urban communities, in order to flourish as a genre.

The history of the Homesteading Act, as well as modern white financial/land privileges, mean that Solarpunk needs to move away from cottagecore fantasies.

Comment:

Cottagecore does NOT, in fact, romanticize the legacy of colonial settlers. It does, however, romanticize: femininity, domesticity, and in some cases, rural life surrounded by vibrant, healing nature. It is wholesome by definition. It is safe. It is warm. It is peaceful. It is often unabashedly and unapologetically feminine. It is, for most, a fantasy.

Counter-comment:

white supremacist pastoral fantasies are all about recreating what they view as a natural ideal. domesticity and femininity are prized by white supremacists and every word of this fits exactly within their framework of gender roles. unapologetically feminine also stands out because this phrase is commonly used by anti-feminists who view feminism as an attack on womanhood that forces women to be unfeminine.

And more good points all around re settler colonialism, the manufactured urban vs rural divide, the gendered ideal...

I’m especially concerned by how you frame femininity, especially rural femininity. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked on a farm, or done a lot of outdoorsy things. I have. It’s not delicate and romantic, and it involves a lot more than sitting and knitting by the fire or foraging for berries. It is back-breaking, physically taxing work, and rural women often spend a whole lot of their time doing extremely “unfeminine” things, even if they’re “just” keeping house.

White supremacists refuse to acknowledge that. They work really hard to push the image of the rural housewife who does simple housekeeping tasks in peace as she waits for her big strong husband to get home. I’m half of a mind that this is because they know they can get unwitting urban or suburban women out into the middle of nowhere with this ideal, and by the time the woman comes to understand the extremely unpicturesque life she’s signed up for, it’s too late, because she’s out in buttfuck nowhere with no actual knowledge of how to survive on her own.

What's a non-internet aesthetic in 2021?

Anyway I'm susceptible to the appeal of a nice cottage garden and fiber arts and 6-hour braises myself but I also choose community & collective support over individualism and isolationism. Right after I finish looking at these 10-acre plots of land in Vermont.

It’s not delicate and romantic, and it involves a lot more than sitting and knitting by the fire or foraging for berries. It is back-breaking, physically taxing work, and rural women often spend a whole lot of their time doing extremely “unfeminine” things, even if they’re “just” keeping house.

if liking the countryside is fascist then i'm not sure there's any hope for us.

that said, is there much difference between cottagecore and ages-old romanticisation of Merrie England? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_England

It’s not “liking the countryside”, it’s the whole back-to-the-land aesthetic that is deliberately drawing on false and reactionary portrayals of rural life to romanticise a world where women and minorities knew their place.

Okay now I can 100% get behind Corporate Memphis as being fash af

Ha, I didn't know that it had a name, but yeah, corporate memphis is so ubiquitous that you hardly see it.

I read a bit about the “dark academia” aesthetic recently, and like all of these it seemed to be a way of infusing shitty contemporary corporate drone life with some kind of romance and glamour - a little bit cosplay but also a way of imbuing mundane experiences with extra (private?) meaning and resonance - catching the bus in the rain, drinking coffee and reading poetry, whatever. Maybe I’m misreading it?

But it reminded me of my own experience of being a teen/young adult who would dip into certain “aesthetics” to enhance/comprehend experiences - hippy boho, Michael Mann, JG Ballard and Len Deighton downbeat protagonist were my go-tos.

These were pretty unexamined politically but I was definitely consciously adopting them as prisms through which to see the world.

ew fuck Memphis, for years I forgot what that shit was called and was convinced it was just from a dream I had about design history class

idk about “aesthetics” but the emotional aspects of stuff like the “after hours” or “dark naturalism” (lol) resonate with me idk

Mommy's on-the-phonecore refers to an aesthetic based around waiting for your mother to stop chatting in different crowded spaces, such as malls, parks and diners, as well as spaces that may seem to be popular

Some of these aesthetics seem not very versatile.

That's by far my favourite

I love how, like, Fluxus and De Stijl are on the same footing as fawncore and incels.

Aesthetics wiki > Aesthetics 101 > Philosophy > Relationship with Reality > This page is under construction

Had a lol but also p.keen to read it when it’s constructed!

It's interesting how some of these go beyond fashion, art, music etc by describing states of mind. Like the Cafe/Coffeeshop one says to be into this you should be either tired all the time or super energetic with no in between

In any event, merely scrolling through that list makes me feel fucking ancient.

i don't even know what we're talking about anymore

This: https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Aesthetics

…but neither do I.

It's interesting how some of these go beyond fashion, art, music etc by describing states of mind

Yeah! I mean that's kind of what I was trying to articulate before, that it seems to incorporate a kind of pick-n-mix approach to perception or modelling one's own inner self. Which I think happens/happened anyway but this is a very self-aware manifestation!

Reminds me a bit of the flash-forward at the end of Grant Morrison's Invisibles where the future Invisibles have a "cycling meme", that gives them access to multiple personas and self-images to help them push past the limits of perceiving the self as an atomised individual.

But I must also admit that I (clearly?) have no idea about any of this.

Muswell Hillbillies

(wrong thread?)

xps to emsworth: my thread may be relevant to your interests

I too am unsure what the hell is being discussed.

did you ever have a tea party with your stuffed animals?

congratulations, you're a Nazi

Ah, fuck.

I feel like one distinction being inconsistently drawn itt is that which exists between appreciation for an aesthetic and fetishization of an aesthetic.

isn't it the fetish that makes it an aesthetic at all

Perhaps. How would you define the fetish?

circularly, as the kind of relation that makes it an aesthetic

what is this about again

xxxp ha thanks gyac that looks great - will enjoy getting up to speed

absolutely didn’t know what to expect when I hit the link and was thinking it might be this one!

In a lot of contexts you just say "fetischization" to signify that a person's appreciation for an aesthetic is suspect.

These internet aesthetics seem to me like a reclamation of the idea of youth sub-cultures.
Gen X teens were especially concerned with tribal notions of fashion and music cliques and whether you were a punk, a skin, a metalhead, a mod etc. People wore their affiliations like a badge of pride and could get quite territorial about whether something was proper goth or not etc.

That seemed to fade out a bit for millennials who had a world of internet to draw from, and soon the idea of just listening to one style of music and dressing in a way that reflected it seemed quaint. Much cooler to be into everything, to treat yourself to helpings of pop AND metal AND hip hop AND indie. It wasn't always immediately apparent what kind of music someone was into just by looking at the clothes they wore. It became vogueish to fuck with people's expectations: US indie bands talking-up how much they appreciated Norwegian black metal; metal bands eschewing leather jackets for cardigans; and of course the critical reappraisal of commercial pop music throughout the late-90s/early-00s, meant the floodgates were open for people to embrace eclecticism, to pick and choose from everything art and culture had to offer.

So my guess is that these aesthetics are a best-of-both-worlds. It's about creating and drawing inspiration from these micro-subcultures which can be selected from on a day-to-day basis. A zoomer could dress as a harried university librarian one day, get a strange pang of nostalgia from a laundry basket the next, be fawning over adorable picturesque English cottages another day, getting inspired by unfashionable clothes from ten years ago, or getting really into a certain hue of magenta etc.

It's like choosing songs for a playlist or making a bespoke DJ mix that extends beyond music into a whole vibe: observing one's physical and emotional world and mixing and matching various elements so they fit together and make sense. But unlike the Gen X subcultures, it's ephemeral; it's a type of cosplay, and like emsworth says, there's a certain level of self-awareness going on here. There's no pressure to affiliate yourself to that particular mode for very long - "I'm feeling very cottagecore today" is something I could imagine someone saying with a smidge of self-deprecating irony.

I mean, I'm not saying this is entirely new. I can imagine fashion designers and other creative workers have been thinking about and analysing the world around them in this way for a very long time, but this feels very much more grassroots and youth-driven

Spotify made an official playlist inspired by the "Dark Academia" internet micro-aesthetic.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX17GkScaAekA

A study playlist! No less. Chopin, Satie, Tchaikovsky join the ranks of Caiio, cxlt. and all your other favorite psuedonymous crafters of vibes.

I do hate it when people their to damnedest to discourage you from enjoying good music!

try their damnedest even!

to them i recommend the "chaotic academia" aesthetic https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Chaotic_Academia

wait is this a joke?

once i was in a coffee shop and a very tall and handsome man sat down with a brand new copy of "anti-oedipus." he glanced at the back of the book, stood up, looked around, then sat back down. then he cracked it open, seemed to read it for like eight seconds and then closed it with a sort of shudder. he was tapping his foot at his point and his eyes were darting wildly, suspiciously around the coffee shop. this is chaotic academia in action it is rhizomic.

All vaporwave is fascist.

how did that happen? originally it was like a marxist/"hauntalogical" aesthetic.

here's an aesthetic for you

🤮

Are the manic street preachers "bibliopunk"?

Not sure if this has already been linked, but thought this was an excellent exploration of internet aesthetics and "vibe capitalism"

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/tiktok-and-the-vibes-revival

Anecdotally, I've found that instagram ads are much more persuasive in getting me to buy things than any other channel - I guess when yr vibescrolling through the grid, you're infinitely more suggestible to buying a houseplant subscription/new pair of yogis/a ridic expensive swedish raincoat/whateves? Since deleting the app and only accessing insta via firefox packed with adblockers, it's a notably different experience...

agreed - instagram seems to have me absolutely nailed and i hate it

Thirded. I have no need for some Japanese cat jogging pants but I still follow the Instagram link

once i was in a coffee shop and a very tall and handsome man sat down with a brand new copy of "anti-oedipus." he glanced at the back of the book, stood up, looked around, then sat back down. then he cracked it open, seemed to read it for like eight seconds and then closed it with a sort of shudder. he was tapping his foot at his point and his eyes were darting wildly, suspiciously around the coffee shop. this is chaotic academia in action it is rhizomic.

― treeship., Sunday, May 23, 2021 2:54 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

This man's thinking was too arborescent

What are some current aesthetics you enjoy?

I don't entirely mean this in the cottagecore/dark academia sense of the term, though it can be that, too. It's more that as I get older* I find it easy to pinpoint aesthetic trends I dislike - slowed down pop song trailer music, the way every cartoon show tends to look now, Corporate Memphis - but harder to find ones I enjoy.

This has also been brought home to me by how much I enjoyed films like The Souvenir, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Licorice Pizza purely as fetishistic evocations of their periods, which tbf I didn't even grow up in. Which is a trend in and of itself ofc, but I don't want to start a discussion about nostalgia, it's more I would enjoy getting a similar aesthetic charge out of something looking entirely now, tho I understand that this will never happen as tidily for a time that you're actually in.

Important bit for me here is I'm looking for aesthetic trends rather than specific artists, works or even, in the case of music, genres.

* yes I get the irony of asking this on a forum where I'm probably in the younger half of posters

It's always in danger of being too retro for me but I very much like the revival of juicy colored lighting (pioneered by italian horror films) in Refn's films, Color Out Of Space, We Are The Flesh, Bliss, Mandy and many more. I'd like to see more experimentation and evolution of it though.

And I like the ragged messy style of some new-ish comic artists

Yeah I think bisexual lighting is an aesthetic I enjoy.

Which comic artists are you thinking of? I've been watching a lot of Cartoonist Kayfabe and getting more and more into the art of comics (as opposed to writing) and there as well all my fave aesthetics seem to be ancient.

I like to make playlists of mood music and they're very much centred around specific vibes or aesthetics. It all started when I was trying to make a playlist based on the video game Earthbound, and then it got more specifically about the beach level of that game, so I ended up mining what I'd call "16Bit Balearic".
I've done a playlist called that is numinous and wintry, a sort of implacable mix of soothing neo-classical music mixed with more tempestuous and upsetting stuff so it doesn't just become an Einaudi-fest. That one's called "Quiet & Falling".
Then there's one that has a slightly acoustic/Latin vibe but not exactly called STRING.
I also have one called "SEED" which is sort of rural-ambient-drone-folk-horror.

Which comic artists are you thinking of?

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, February 24, 2022 11:03 AM

Kind of scribbly alternative stuff that seems more viable in mainstream now, I'm blanking a bit but I think Loic Locatelli and Muriel Bellini have a bit of it even if the latter is a lot more underground looking and they are very different, but I'm seeing more artists willing to make a total mess and it's cool. There's an artist I'm forgetting, she's in a punk band and everything is super wonky, I can't get on my instagram anymore so I can't name many names

Lale Westvind is great and I don't know if that new book is ever coming out. Forgot about how comics can delay forever

an aesthetic i'm really liking is dance music nights that de-emphasize starpower and treating people like cattle with wallets. man power is doing this in the uk, i saw some other night called 'fuck it, let's dance' that's also on this tip. also musical and lineup diversity.

not really an aesthetic but more of a way of balancing doing something for the joy of it with business i suppose.