The Predictable Downfall of Cottagecore

Can you hear the bumblebees swarm? I hope you enjoyed this Cottagecore analysis! As always, comment down below to let me know what other aesthetics you want me to cover!

timestamps:
00:00 - intro
00:55 - What is Cottagecore?
02:43 - Orgins
04:12 - Fashion!
06:13 - Issues arise
09:30 - More issues form
12:58 - Reality of rural life
14:13 - Personal experience
17:46 - The good stuff
20:58 - Deep rooted issues
24:34 - The merge
26:32 - Conclusion

resources:
(there were so many i made a paste bin)

music in this video:
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strawberry blond piano cover by @joelink5870
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Gried - Good morning:
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@DCINoot Start Again:
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Audio effects by Sonny Fascia
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Youtube Audio Library tracks
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footage used:

✧ software used:
- Clips Studio Paint
- OBS
- CapCut

♡ thank you for simply being here - it means the world ♡
tags:
#artist #digitalartist #artchallenge #challenge #artyoutuber #digitalpainting #clipstudiopaint #crazyart #artoftheday

[juno_moth]

this video is an analysis of the cottagecore aesthetic and it's decline in popularity - NOT a hit piece on the lifestyle btw! there's a poll right now on my channel where you can pick which aesthetic we will be talking about next, so make sure to vote and subscribe!

[kerryanne]

Cottage core is what you make of it, if you’re sitting looking at aesthetic images you will find a bunch of women who look the same taking beautiful pictures. If you’re searching groups for people learning how to preserve, forage, sew crops in their garden etc you will find people also into cottagecore who have the same interest with a variety of bodies and appearances.They just want to live a life where they have control and the ability to own something they make and be efficient even if it’s harder work because they’re so tired of being slaved for min wage

[asterbluejay]

The irony of the video being interrupted by a shein ad will never be lost to me

[Medavelvan]

When we were kids back in the late '80s, my dad read the 'Little House on the Prairie' books series to us every day and that inspired him to move out of the city to start a farm. My brother, sister and I were thrilled at the idea of living on a farm "just like the Ingles!". At the time, dad was an engineer and a total city boy - so any sort of nature seemed like the right place for a farm. So dad bought 10 acres that looked green. Turned out to be marshland... a swamp... a very creepy swamp.

Us kids were pretty disappointed because it was very spooky and unsettling - there were thousands of caterpillars in most of the trees making weaving massive silk webs wrapped around every branch - so much silk webbing it looked like fake Halloween decorations on huge sections of our tree line. Maybe you can imagine *THAT IS PRETTY CREEPY WHEN YOU ARE A 5 YEAR OLD* but dad was completely unphased. My mom probably told us not to complain because we almost certainly did, but dad was determined to make the investment worth it. In case you don't know... marshland is not quite farmland. In most swamps there are extra frogs, mosquitos, way more spiders, fungus, moss, lichen, slimy green algae in our "pond", muck & clay in the lowlands, gravel in the highlands... very little fertile soil.

Dad got a tractor and plowed the higher elevation into a field and had to buy fertile soil from another farm to cover 5 acres. Then he built a goat pen, chicken coup & put up fences. We had two or three successful crop harvests before the family doctors warned my mom there was *way too much arsenic in our diets!* Mom was alarmed and got soil samples and did some research. Turns out our land was previously used for drilling for oil and was full of chemicals from all the rigs & drilling apparatus that were previously on the land. Nice. So we stopped growing normal crops since they couldn't be sold or eaten safely.

For us kids our family farm fantasy didn't really work out but my sister and I eventually lost our fear of frogs, snakes, spiders and genuinely enjoyed searching for the ugliest insects we could find. I still remember feeling disappointed that the idealized farm we had imagined from 'Little House' wasn't going ever happen- but we did learn over the years how to appreciate huge spiders, millipedes, crawfish, crayfish, caterpillars, and together with all the pumpkins, mushrooms, more spiders, bats and huge moths, our marshland version of "cottage core" is more like Halloween season any time there isn't snow on the ground. For that reason I am actually pretty happy how things turned out.

Halloween season is now my favorite and we get extra of that. I also love the spooky and profound things of nature and find real beauty in that now- that is very likely because of growing up in a place that is so rather profoundly spooky, even during the daytime. Thankfully the caterpillar webs in the trees were not as bad after first 3 years and now happens only occasionally. That was a bit much. Even though our picturesque farmland fantasy didn't exactly work out- it was still an extraordinary experience.

[aa-pjvz]

I remember a Pinterest comment on a cottagecore post that was like : yall bitches wannabe cottagecore so bad but hate insects, the weather, getting dirty and doing manual labor and having to deal with no electricity and strong odors 😭😭😭

[EmpressEveningGlow]

My idea of cottagecore was a pretty princess hidden away in a cottage with a lovely garden, Sleeping Beauty caused this mindset, and wishing for something like this

[sammagictv]

Small Correction: Marie Antoinettes Hamlet was not completely a fake village. One half was devoted to cottages for the Queen’s personal use. The second half was actually a working farm which supplied a lot of the food stuffs, particularly dairy products, for Versailles.

[wrckdd]

cottage core seems like a fantasy aesthetic. it is what every girl “wants” embodied into an aesthetic that strays from realism. it is a nice “natural” life, without any of the hard work or struggle, and all the while you get to look beautiful. this aesthetic almost feels like escapism.

[jennaguiterrez-yfuq]

Cottage life always left the feeling of escaping into a fairy tale, free from modern day and where everything will be Fine, even perfect and your vid explains a lot of that ❤

[lsthero]

In Europe we have a cycle on art of abandoning and returning to the ideal idyllic rural life…

[Wolf-rd]

I do not understand the need for a "core" for everything. Just do what you like. I live out in the country with chickens, goats, and a small garden. It is tough sometimes, cause I am also a full time college STEM student so I have a hard time getting out there sometimes. Another thing, is that its a lot of work and money. Plants die, animals get sick, you have to buy their food every 2 weeks or so. But I love it. The sun brighten my freckles and the animals follow me around everywhere.

Life is hard, its not aesthetic at all. So just do you, boo :)

[narutouzumaki-gulg]

the cottagecore fandom is dying comment if ur a true cottage

[eggday]

I feel like goblincore is the answer to all of cottagecore's problems. Same connection to nature without any of the beauty standards

[aleksandroskesidis]

Personally, I love Cottagecore. But not the dresses and outfits. I just love the idea of living in nature, being with animals and living in a nice, small, house.

[wafflesthearttoad]

Just now realizing my definition of cottagecore is much different from most…
I always imagined it to mean dressing in whimsical dresses and natural colors of course, but the rest to me was just the idea of living AWAY from people. Just being around nature in general, little to no light pollution making the night sky more visible etc. Maybe it’s just because I personally really like nature and exploring and digging in the mud and don’t really like people that much. I mean my most enjoyable college memory so far is going to a park with my friends and taking off our shoes to look for fossils and tadpoles in the river. It reminds me of elementary school when we would go to a creek to catch teeny fish and little crawdads. Those memories are what I associated with cottagecore, I think it was really just me wanting to be a kid again… to have more free time to explore and discover new things, be more concerned about learning flower names than chemical reactions.

I always saw the other stuff, the livestock and farming as more of a farm thing, not cottage thing. I suppose it could be because I grew up hearing my grandma always talk about growing up on her farm, she told me about how she’d have to wake up early to help, she rode a horse to school everyday, also told me a few traumatic stories too regarding some kittens. Probably was to young to hear that story tbh. Honestly I have most of the stories my grandma told me memorized. I believe my grandpa might’ve also been a farm boy? He died of melanoma before I was born and grew up incredibly poor, oranges were rare and basically his dessert if he ever got one and spent his days picking cotton without sunscreen which is most likely the cause of his melanoma later in life. :/

I guess I had a weird childhood, I grew up near some woods that I’d always explore with my brother, but we weren’t farmers or anything, but also we’re too far away from our neighbors to actually know them. My school also rented out a church to hold our classes before we had bought an actual building and the church was surrounded by woods that the teachers would let us play in and explore occasionally. I’ve also always been weirdly obsessed with space since childhood, and as soon as I discovered that you could see more without light pollution it’s something I’ve always wanted to see, I never knew there were more stars than what I could see.

Sorry I got reaaaallly personal, I tend to ramble when I type anything out since my mind is always going a million miles an hour.

[BondraDoll]

I've always viewed cottagecore as a princess-y fantasy detached from actual farm life or rural living (think Sleeping Beauty as Briar Rose). I don't really think that's a bad thing, as long as people are aware of what actual rural living entails. Fantasy is part of how we get by in a world that is very hard on many of us. (Though I, myself, enjoy "forest-y, fairy-like" cottagecore more than farm cottagecore, which I suppose is more detached in many ways because it's inherently based in fantasy and fairytales.)

But it's true that the conservative homesteaders and trad-wives trampled the fantasy in many ways, and it is extremely unfortunate.

[_BubblGum_]

cottagecore was completely ruined by the modern internet!
i remember when it used to be called ‘bambi’ and was about being anti-capitalist and not supporting big businesses and living a wonderful independent lifestyle in the forest and now it’s just “oh, to be a little bunny living in a mushroom… ooh, mushroom earrings by a popular brand for 14.99! ooh, this perfume by capitalist brand is 25 dollars but it’s called cottagecore so its a MUST! can’t wait for my cottagecore clothes to come in from SHEIN!” the internet ruins everything.

[KHAKU_]

As a Cottagecore Tomboy Latina, I still find my place in the aesthetic. I wear looser pinafores with graphic tees, baggy linen pants and boots. I decorate my small apartment with the seasons, focusing on seasonal foliage and yes many flowers, willow baskets, and wooden furniture. I do wear the occasional casual dress, but the floral cottagecore dresses are special occasion only. I love caring for my plants, even though the ones I place on my small balcony tend to die lol I try. I drink tea on my floral couch cuddling next to my Cavachon. I love to bake and cook following the seasonal foods in my area. Whenever we can, my family goes on a hike in our local park and enjoy walking through the rough paths.

This is my part of Cottagecore. I don’t live in the country, I don’t wear fancy corseted clothes, I don’t have chickens though I’d love some, I don’t even have a yard to call my own. I still find my chunk of the aesthetic.

[furetto]

As the og cottagecore gal (born and raise in rural Poland) I love this aesthetic because it reminds me of home.. of field trips with my friends as a kids, swimming in the lake, dates in a meadows in the middle of nowhere. Now that I live in the city, I feel overwhelmed by the hustle and people. I know to damn well the labour of working class in small village and fact that in winter is almost always living hellhole but still.. It's where my heart belong and I think it's beautiful :')

[sentientfern]

As a cottage core person, this video was a huge help to me! thank you so much for pointing out the flaws in the daydream. I do want to keep dreaming, but I'll now go into the dreams acknowledging the horrific implications, and doing my best to make room for all the people who were kicked out (either literally or figuratively) by this aesthetic :>