• poVoq@slrpnk.net
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    3 months ago

    It’s the “back to the good old simpler times” trope, where the “good old times” never actually existed and are only a mix of nostalgia and active political manipulation by conservatives or worse.

    • Alice@beehaw.org
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      3 months ago

      I see, thanks. I always thought of rustic aesthetics as a practical thing— like you only have access to thrift finds and grandma’s hand-me-downs, but you still want to tie it together into something beautiful. What I’ve gathered from this thread is that it’s been spun into more rich racist bullshit.

      • roadsidewildflower@midwest.social
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        3 months ago

        What I’ve gathered from this thread is that it’s been spun into more rich racist bullshit.

        i do think this is a mischaracterization that some people are pushing because it’s easy, though fundamentally untrue. imo, most of the people who originally cultivated and belonged to the idea were women (a lot of them queer) who were looking for way to find authenticity in a very artificial and consumerist world. it was people thrifting and gardening and baking, etc. i’m thinking back to tumblr like ten years ago when it was actually relevant and that’s what i can remember of it at least, that and a whole bunch of moodboards with pretty art and landscapes lol

        but obviously, any time there’s money to be made, monied interests are going to come along and try to co-opt something. it’s why any hobby space is now filled with people posting about all the crap they buy for their hobby, instead of actually doing it. anyway, like i wrote in a much longer comment (which tbh feels like a futile use of time, as i forgot how fruitless arguing an idea on the internet actually is/feels), i don’t think it’s worthy of disdain, etc.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          3 months ago

          While I also find the blanket “cryptofascist” moniker a bit oversimplifying, cottage-core as an online phenomenon seems to lack a lets call it “natural immune response” to far-right people infiltrating their spaces and and appropriating the aesthetics. The Esoterics community (in Europe at least) has a very similar problem with right-wing people infiltrating online and offline communities via vaccine skepticism and then slowly move things towards the “sovereign citizen” movement or similar.

          If I would draw a parallel to Solarpunk, it would be corporate green-washing attempts, which are happening, but the same time are widely discussed and actively fought against.

          Maybe it lies in the very nature of the people typically drawn to Cottagecore and similar ideas, but I have not seen much of an similar active rejection of right-wing appropriation attempts, but rather some people retreating into their private spaces. Ultimately this has lead to the cottagecore to tradwife propaganda pipeline that sadly seems to exist these days.