- Cherry Wine Is About Domestic Abuse. It’s Now Called A Cute Proposal Song.

My parents’ greenhouse converted into a cozy place! Love to sit here on a rainy day and watch/listen to the storm.

I'm very much trying not to look at my youth (which is barely over) with rose-coloured glasses but... I think it is somewhat upsetting how the aesthetics that were homegrown tumblr aesthetics (2014 indie kid, cottagecore, dark academia, art hoe) are being mined by companies and broadcasted/disseminated on tik tok. There was most certainly rampant materialism on here (the kankens, the american apparel) but when I was in my young teens and wanted to be an art hoe there was no real market for that kind of clothing. So I hauled ass to the thrift store and for like under $25 I was able to dress like an art hoe (and what I guess in now called goblin core). And when I got into Dark Academia back in 2018, there was NO explaining what that was to anyone at the mall. There were literally only tumblr moodboards. So once again I hauled ass to the thrift store and bought black turtlenecks and plaid pants. And nowadays it's so weird to get advertisements from institutions doing historical analysis on dark academia, to see that taylor swift is selling cottagecore-inspired overpriced merch, that ALL the shit we did in the mid 2010's is being mined by companies in a way that. any kid that wants to emulate these looks is going to be sold really shitty shein fast fashion. It feels like we have nothing

bella core

Hozier finally said something about how stupid people sound when they reduce him to mystical forest bullshit so they can ignore his Black inspirations FINALLY

Full interview:

Harper's BAZAAR

Hozier, King of Whatever You Need Him to Be

The lyrical musician talks about the romanticism and art of his latest album, Unreal Unearth

Working on something if you aren’t sick of me talking about Saltburn yet 😂

(Process video on insta or tiktok)

Reaching out on my way home

You can be so cold, I'll try again

You make me sad and second-guess myself

You can be so cold, Midwest Indigo

(love my hometown)

I heart loserboys

Endless gifs of my favorite characters 6/∞ Cole Johnson The Babysitter: Killer Queen.  

we as a society have lost our culture when we let VHS tapes die. and now they're killing DVDs. is the physical not sacred anymore?

honestly i think the main problem with aesthetic subculture today as opposed to other subcultures is how much it focuses on appearance as opposed to beliefs or values. like, the way that people refer to their lifestyle as an "aesthetic" (ie concerned with beauty/appearance) should be pretty emblematic as to exactly what part of the culture is valued. and honestly i see this as a real pervasive problem that makes me kind of fucking mad.

i've already heard opinions like this tossed around and seen people been called "elitist" for this viewpoint but truthfully? i feel the way aesthetic culture stands right now is more elitist than anything else and frankly incredibly consumerist. the entire movement is based on appearance and cultivating a "look," and when you apply that that to a literal lifestyle, then it becomes inherently shallow. aesthetic culture is a fashion movement cosplaying as a culture, and one that requires money to properly emulate.

as someone who has put in effort to appear "dark academic," it takes money to buy enough aesthetic clothes to make aesthetic outfits. it's takes money to buy enough items to turn your room into an aesthetic space. aesthetic culture is inherently materialistic because it focuses so much on building a look. and there wouldn't be a problem with just having fun and trying to create a cool look for yourself if it didn't so persistently try to define itself as a culture. people will try to do things they associate with being "cottagecore" or "dark academia" without putting any thoughts behind the origins or values of these movements. when you try to emulate a look without putting any thought into values, it proves to be very limiting because you want to act in a way that helps your look, and no one's personality is entirely one aesthetic.

cottagecore is derived from freedom from societal constructs and an eco-conscious mentality, but most people into cottagecore think it's more "being soft and wearing pretty dresses and baking bread," essentially taking away most of the movement's value. the purpose of dark academia is to pursue knowledge and enlightenment through the humanities and arts, but people will take it as "looking cool and dark and mysterious" without actually reading works of art that inspire deep thought.

aesthetic culture is shallow, materialistic, and unsustainable, as the default approach to it is to simply emulate a "look" rather to put any deep thought behind a culture. everyone always acts like gen z are the new revolutionaries when frankly, our subcultures and countercultures don't even hold a candle to previous movements; especially those of the 50s and 60s (which, i remind you, was the generation of the hippie-to-reagan pipeline), and aesthetic culture is quite frankly the worst of it.

i'm not going to sit here and say aesthetic culture is inherently bad; obviously, practicing the values emphasized by these subcultures and counter movements brings value to the movement as a whole, but just going through the motions of something that looks pretty is shallow and limiting and frankly, pretty embarrassing.

tl;dr: aesthetic culture is cool if you try to actually find the value in what the aesthetic stands for and we should bring back the word "poser"