Admittedly, I’ve spent a lot of this pandemic suffering the slings and arrows of social media in an attempt to offer myself some escapism. As it’s my resident time-waster, I’ve spent a lot of the past eight months scrolling endlessly through Tiktok. With the way the black hole of an algorithm is designed to suck you in, it’s not too odd that alongside the usual dance videos and app-wide inside jokes, my For You Page is littered with different aesthetics— dark academia, goth, soft girl, grandmacore, and least specifically, cottagecore.
As an indecisive and generally self-unaware person, the clear divide between all of these aesthetics is startling to me. How are people so easily putting themselves into boxes when I can’t even pick a favorite color? How easy is it to exist so surely within the realm of cottagecore without ever yearning for the beige dullness of academia, or falling victim to the engulfing darkness of a gothic aesthetic?
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long shared the desire to live in a cottage in the woods one day, and it’s hardly a new concept, but I first noticed the influx of posts at the beginning of quarantine. It was during what I like to call the “Sourdough” era of the pandemic, when we were all stuck inside for an estimated couple of months and there was a national yeast shortage because everyone decided they were going to make the sourdough “mother” that their families would be using for generations. I noticed it even more with the fairly recent rise of the fashion piece, the strawberry dress, which seems to feed even further into this idea of “cottagecore.”
The videos on Tiktok range from videos of people baking and showing off their gardens to videos of people restoring literal cottages. I once saw a video of someone heating up a piece of cake (yes, I have questions, too) in a frying pan because they’d gotten rid of their microwave for not fitting their cottagecore aesthetic.
It isn’t just Tiktok, either. A simple search for “cottagecore” on Tumblr leads to an entire rainbow of cottagecore moods, with blog titles such as @cottagecore, @eyeheartfarms, and @blueberriesandhoney.
The problem is, I can never quite tell what Cottagecore means. While scrolling through aesthetic Minecraft screengrabs and charming photographs of cows in flowers, I can’t help but wonder: Does it encompass my Pinterest board, which is cluttered with pictures of houses tucked away into the quiet heart of the woods? Does it only mean videos of people baking their own bread and running through meadows? Would I be excluded from Cottagecore for being unable to bake bread due to the previously mentioned quarantine yeast shortage? Where did this aesthetic even come from other than, possibly, the collective unconscious? Where is the line between Grandmacore and Cottagecore, and how do you know if you’ve crossed it?
It’s time to get to the bottom of this.
Essentially, when it comes down to it, it is probably easiest to describe Cottagecore as living a farm life in a cottage. Living simply, baking, being one with nature, living relatively sustainably, perhaps even raising some animals. Flowers, flowy dresses, house plants, and a soft, earthy color palette tend to be associated with this specific aesthetic. The first time the word Cottagecore was used as a hashtag was on Tumblr in early 2014, however it did not gain traction until almost exactly 6 years after this hashtag began.
Despite this, the origins of completely uprooting and living the Frog and Toad lifestyle could be traced back to Marie Antoinette. The Museum of English Rural Life on their Twitter account describes her as liking to “dress up as a milkmaid and shepherdess” and had her favorite architect build her her very own farm, Hameau de la Reine.
Now, when describing her lifestyle as Cottagecore trendsetter sounds pretty parallel to what modern internet users may want out of that lifestyle. However, in the modern Cottagecore scene, a common viewpoint of those looking to run off to a cottage in the middle of nowhere is a certain dislike of capitalism and the seeming looming threat of an all powerful government—so Marie Antoinette is probably not the best mascot for the Cottagecore aesthetic. Cottagecore has served as escapism for a lot of people who feel rejected by society—specifically members of the LGBTQ+ community—and also for those needing an escape from the doom and gloom of the news that seems to only get worse by the day.
I mean, what could be better escapism than the wholesome idea of just living among the mushrooms and trees, growing and making your own food, and just feeling pure bliss in the middle of the woods? Frankly, I can’t think of anything better than that right now.
Cottagecore comes with its own subcultures, of course. One of the most prominent subcultures comes with many names. Cottagegore, Goth Cottagecore, or Dark Cottagecore is essentially exactly what it means—Cottagecore, but make it darker. This specific aesthetic focuses on the darker parts of nature, like storms, fog, or poisonous mushrooms. It is likely that this specific aesthetic began with the new Cottagecore trend. As the idea of Cottagecore began to attract new people from different alternative subcultures, it seemed like it was time for Cottagecore 2.0 or just Cottagecore in dark mode.
In 1959, author and artist Tove Jansson published books that I think sum up the idea of “cottagecore” entirely well. The Moomin books are about a cast of characters who live in a small village in the woods disconnected from outside life and ideals. While there are aspects of it that feel comfortable, like being surrounded by people you love, there’s an underlying loneliness to it.
Cottagecore attracts a lot of LGBT people. In fact, Jansson herself was a sapphic woman, which means that she, more likely than not, understood that there’s something very alienating about being LGBT, even with the most supportive friends and family.
Cottagecore is, at least, a cherry-picked form of alienation. I am choosing to be alone. I am choosing for it to be cozy, and set back, and away from a society I don’t quite fit into. I will rely on myself, and my garden, and the small village of people I choose to wall myself in with.
Despite the loneliness, the appeal of such a lifestyle is very obvious right now. When the world is falling apart around us, we can all use a little escapist fantasy. And we sure as hell, more than anything else, need that cherry-picked isolation.
So, if you find that cottagecore suits you, check out some of the blogs we’ve linked, or tiktok accounts. Maybe learn to bake bread, or sew, or invest in planting a garden. If you can, stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy.
Other sources:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cottagecore-trend-quarantine-diy_l_5ecd875ec5b6e3f6739dbdfc
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Cottagegore
