cottagecore and other internet aesthetics

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.