Paper Short Abstract:

This paper considers various forms of "anti-modern media" in order to demonstrate the ways these media construct a sense of nostalgic access to the past, resistance to modernity, or both—a reconstruction of cultural “weight”—in large part through patterns of sensory experience and engagement.

Paper Abstract:

The release of Taylor Swift’s album Folklore in late July 2020 marked a significant mainstreaming of “cottagecore,” an internet-based aesthetic that stresses concepts such as “the rejection of modernity,” “agrarianism,” and “serenity.” Perhaps the best known, cottagecore is only one part of a much larger, though disparate, pattern of online media forms which engage with anti-modern ideologies. Other examples include media surrounding numerous similar aesthetics (termed “cores” or “waves”), ranging from “grandmacore” to “vikingcore.” Yet, in a larger sense, this coalescence of anti-modernist media could arguably include something like the sub-Reddit “Fairytale as Fuck,” to which users submit photographs of the actual world that capture “the true beauty of the world and all the magic that it still possesses,” while also allowing images that are “augmented, filtered, and beautified. After all, technology is just modern magic.” Along slightly different lines, anti-modern media could also include the large body of ambient sound and image videos, which situate viewers within visual/auditory environments such as “Ancient Library Room,” “Enchanted Forest,” or “Hogwarts Great Hall.” This paper elucidates the aesthetic practices and assumptions that underlie these forms in order to demonstrate the ways in which these media construct a folkloresque sense of “rootedness” or “weight,” in large part through the cultivation of patterns of sensory experience.