Cottagecore
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Cottagecore is an Internet aesthetic which celebrates a return to traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking and pottery, and is related to similar nostalgic aesthetic movements such as grandmacore, farmcore, goblincore and faeriecore.[1] According to its proponents, the ideas of cottagecore can help to satisfy a popular desire for "an aspirational form of nostalgia" as well as an escape from many forms of stress and trauma.[1] The New York Times termed it a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding.
The movement gained further traction in many online spheres and on social media due to the mass quarantining in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] [3] Accordingly, it has been described by The Guardian as a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors."[2] It emphasizes simplicity and the soft peacefulness of the pastoral life as an escape from the dangers of the modern world.[4]
Gardening, interacting with farm animals, and dancing with a loved one under the moonlight. These classic cottagecore themes eschew digital connectedness in favor of a connectedness to nature.
— Writer Amelia Hall in The Guardian, 2020[2]
Antecedents and cultural context
While cottagecore arose as a named aesthetic in 2018, similar aesthetics and ideals have a long cultural history. Marie Antoinette[5] was criticised for the expense and self-indulgence of her Hameau de la Reine, a model village where the Queen would host intimate gatherings with friends, and even dress as a shepherdess or milkmaid to play at living a simple life while servants maintained the working farm. This was not a unique folly; it was fashionable in 18th-century Europe for nobles to build picturesque ornamental farms on their country estates in the style of rural villages.
The 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement was an approach to art, architecture and design that embraced 'folk' styles and techniques as a critique of industrial production.[2]
A 2020 New York Times article compared cottagecore to the social simulation video game series Animal Crossing being acted out in real life.[1][2]
Politics and criticism
Cottagecore has become a subculture of the LGBT and particularly the lesbian community, stemming from the drive for escape from a heteronormative society. Cottagecore videos of lesbians performing tasks like baking bread, embroidering, and thrifting to calming music have gone viral on social media app TikTok. Some cottagecore aficionados report wishing to reclaim non-sexual ideas and images of intimacy and togetherness – as one Reddit user explains, "cottagecore sees love as a connection between two souls."[6]
Others see cottagecore as a way to disentangle and reclaim traditional rural pleasures and surroundings from the homophobia and transphobia they experienced growing up in small towns. One cottagecore fan told i-D magazine, "Even now when I go back [to my hometown] I can't help but feel watched and judged all the time for how I look or dress. It especially makes me feel like the things I loved in childhood, like having farm animals and picking blackberries in the fields and getting lost in the woods, are cis- and hetero-coded. So for me, cottagecore is an ideal where I can be visibly queer in rural spaces."[6]
Cottagecore has been criticised as perpetuating colonialist values, as it "romanticizes the legacy of settler colonialism and frontier living that relies on the stolen land of indigenous people".[7]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Isabel Slone (March 10, 2020). "Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment". The New York Times. Retrieved May 23, 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Amelia Hall (15 April 2020). "Why is 'cottagecore' booming? Because being outside is now the ultimate taboo: The visual and lifestyle movement is designed to fetishise the wholesome purity of the outdoors". The Guardian. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
- ^ Emma Bowman (9 August 2020). "The Escapist Land Of 'Cottagecore,' From Marie Antoinette To Taylor Swift". NPR. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
- ^ Gabe Bergado (April 22, 2020). "Cottagecore Offers an Escape From Today's Stressful World: "In a time where most people live in concrete jungles, or well manicured suburbs, a connection back to nature and a more pastoral lifestyle is craved."". Teen Vogue. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
- ^ Nesvig, Kara. "Millie Bobby Brown Jumped on the Cottagecore Bandwagon". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
- ^ a b Woolley, Sarah (13 February 2020). "Cottagecore is the pastoral fantasy aesthetic taking over TikTok". i-D. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
- ^ Slone, Isabel (2020-03-10). "Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-08-11.