Talk:Cottagecore/Archive 1

Archive 1

floated

Could only think of one category.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Animal Crossing

"the social simulation video game series Animal Crossing has gameplay centered on crafts like fishing, gardening, and carpentry, as well as cottage upkeep and the building of social relationships in small communities" -- would you consider this remotely "cottagecore" though? The game is hardly about crafting, or slow development of works using skill. It's more like capitalism where you just have to keep grinding repetitively to buy more stuff you don't actually need. Isn't it original research to claim that this has any links to cottagecore? 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:F87F:8B45:6370:56C8 (talk) 21:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

On first glance, I agreed with you, but poking deeper, the NY Times ref actually does mention Animal Crossing in connection to cottagecore (although it isn't cited there, I will fix that). I do think there's some original research in the article that needs to be cleaned out. Btw, thanks for adding "skils and..." to the article. Schazjmd (talk) 22:11, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

As does the Guardian and Teen Vogue...well, it's sourced now. Schazjmd (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Books and TV shows (WP:OR)

The article needs to summarize what reliable sources say about cottagecore, not what an editor believes is connected to the aesthetic. I removed content that I could not find sources for that mention it in connection to cottagecore, such as Winnie-the-Pooh and the Great British Baking Show. I think that all of the things that I removed are part of the larger nostalgic aesthetic, but we need a secondary source that makes those connections before including them in the article. Schazjmd (talk) 22:57, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Great article

I love this. Another antecedant to mention might be Laura Ashley in the 1970s - see this picture. - PKM (talk) 21:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Colonialism sources

A quote taken from the tumblr post was removed as it is not an appropriate source. The post in said tumblr post is referenced in the NYT article, which contains a link to the tumblr post, but does not contain any quotes. As notable and trustworthy sources on cottagecore have not generally been produced yet, with the criticism pertaining to colonialism as of yet not being written about extensively by such sources, what sort of citation is required to bolster this claim without necessitating the deletion of the paragraph or of removing quotation? Becsh (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

A peer reviewed Anthropology journal article? I don't know of one; you could look. It's trivial to find internet discourse about cottagecore by typing the word into a search engine. But to find scholarly commentary on the discourse, well you'd need to poke through appropriate journals. --Bvanevery (talk) 04:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

If quote removed again you could instead quote or summarise the relevant part of the NYT article. Dakinijones (talk) 17:57, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I did initially do so, however my concern with the article as a whole is that it overwhelmingly uses that article and the same sources multiple times, which is likely (as I've said previously) because at this point there just isn't much reliable content on cottagecore yet - unless if it's seen as a wolf in sheep's clothing of various antecedents. Becsh (talk) 18:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Time to remove editing template?

The editing template citing issues with citations and overall tone seem to me to be outdated now in March 2021. I think it's time to remove the editing templates. --SpiritedMichelle (talk) 02:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I removed further questionable materials. Nerd271 (talk) 15:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Political complaints

@NHCLS: Are you sure this topic should be politicized? I happened to have read some complaints, not just from one side but from the other as well. If we include one tribe, then we ought to include the other in the name of neutrality and balance. Are you sure we need that? How about no to both and keep this page non-political? Nerd271 (talk) 16:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This is supposed an encyclopedic article about the topic, and would hopefully cover it both in-depth and in all its aspects. And that means that the article should include more than just a definition of what the subculture is, but should also covers things like the history of the subculture, what influenced the subculture, its relationship to other subcultures, the demographic trends of the subculture, notable proponents of the subculture, studies and analyses done on the subculture, it's reception, its impact, etc... If you more information from reliable sources to add to the article and make it more in-depth, then I would encourage you to go ahead and add them. NHCLS (talk) 12:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Undue contents

@NHCLS: Please refrain from including WP:UNDUE contents. Thank you. People say a lot of things. That does not mean we should care. Besides, this page is about aesthetics, not politics. People who subscribe to this come from all walks of life, as the article explains. There is no need to politicize everything under the Sun. Nerd271 (talk) 15:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Just because you don't like the criticism and you don't want to see it doesn't mean that it's not being made (esp. when reliable sources are reporting on them) or that it's not relevant to the topic. NHCLS (talk) 16:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• The New York Times: "Both minimalism and cottagecore are wholly unrealistic depictions of life: so filtered by perfection that they’re not possible to reproduce in real life. (Relatedly, other critics of cottagecore resist its nostalgia, based on colonialism’s original, and continuing, sins.)"
• Vox: "“It’s a recall of the medieval era, this idealization of nature and Arthurianism — it’s a nostalgia for someone else’s past. There’s a notion that life was better back then, even though it wasn’t. They’re places you wouldn’t want to live because there’s no internet access.” ... “The thing about the English countryside is so many people are desperate to leave it but also so many people are being priced out of it, because people are buying second homes there,” explains Quinn, the director of the Chichester fairy tale center. Indeed, cottagecore ignores the fact that rural areas have always been unattainable for some and inescapable for others."
• Vox: "Both [dark academia and cottagecore] take historical aesthetics that evoke conservative values and gender roles (Eurocentrism and heteronormativity, respectively)"
• i-D: "The whiteness of the aesthetic is increasingly drawing criticism, particularly in response to the way in which certain images conjure a romanticised notion of western history."
• Glamour: "On its surface, cottagecore would seem to be a largely cis white trend when you think of its standard imagery: from Pride and Prejudice to Little Women, delicate white heroines are at the center of these feminist period pieces. This inspiration conveniently overlooks a troubled reality of indigenous people removed from their homelands in the name of manifest destiny, and an era in which there were no acres of land to picnic on for Black people, who were denied access to the Homestead Act. Fashion trends that romanticize historic moments are frequently problematic because by nature they exclude those who were disenfranchised during the period of inspiration. There’s a reason you don’t often see people of color in time travel movies."
• Wired: "Ideologically, cottagecore encompasses multitudes, but its basic themes are living in harmony with nature, taking time to participate in overlooked arts like weaving and home cooking, and being either extremely gay or extremely straight. Seriously, the two poles are cottagecore lesbians creating manless idylls with their girlfriends or conservative “trad wives” homeschooling their children and deferring to their beardy husbands in all things."
• Grist Magazine: "Online commentators point out that cottagecore is far from a “natural” aesthetic; it’s often showcased as a vision of a settled wilderness, a legacy of European agriculture and expansion."
• Autostraddle: "Iridessence isn’t alone in noting that white cottagecore fans can’t “reclaim” stolen land. Critiques of cottagecore are increasingly widespread on platforms like Tumblr, where writers point out that cottagecore romanticizes a period in which white colonizers stole land from indigenous people for their homesteads. While the cottagecore community attempts to reckon with the colonial past, the role of existing indigenous people in the cottagecore movement seems limited... Cottagecore’s “return to nature” ethos also echos the isolationist narratives of white cis men from Henry David Thoreau to Christopher McCandless, whose socioeconomic privilege allowed them to leave the perils of the “real world” behind."
• Bitch Media: "“When you look up aesthetics on Pinterest, they’re always white girls,” Douglas wrote. “White girls are always showcased, and no other race is showcased [in the same way]. You don’t see Black women in soft and dainty aesthetics. They aren’t showcased like that.” ... Although cottagecore has become popular with Black people, there are also detractors who question just how radical it is for Black people to carve out space in such a heavily whitewashed lifestyle. In tweets and Tumblr posts alike, some have criticized the aesthetic for promoting colonization, referring to cottagecore as “plantationcore” for its relation to Antebellum period aesthetics. The frilly dresses and bright flowers are symbolic of an era built upon white-supremacist ideology that glamorizes pastoral and settler living. It’s difficult to deny the concern of trends, fashion or otherwise, that look constantly to the past as a source of inspiration—even more so considering the way the past has been so violent to Black people."
• The Daily Dot: "But while critics see it as a conservative, repressive trend, fuelled by recent attacks on women’s bodily autonomy and sexual freedom, others think it’s really not that deep—and moreover that framing it as such is typical white feminist nonsense... Drawing on idealized European peasant and American colonizer aesthetics its roots lie in sustainability, DIY, and a celebration of aspects of femininity, often derided as silly or trivial, for the pleasure of women and femmes instead of men. While justifiably criticized for its overwhelming whiteness, as well as the idealization through its Little House on the Prairie elements of a violently racist and colonial time, one thing it’s not about is a sublimation to patriarchal whims—despite the tradwives‘ aesthetic attraction to it."
• The Spectator: "Arguably the first pioneer of cottagecore was the original Antoinette, Marie: a queen who wanted to be a milkmaid... Not everybody has the whimsy gene, and pretending to be a peasant has traditionally been a good way of winding up peasants. There’s nothing quaint about the guillotine."
• MEL Magazine: "Criticism from within the community reckons with whether cottagecore has become dominated by a certain kind of white person — “a lot of the criticism I see is that the aesthetic is primarily skinny white women showing off their ‘humble’ lifestyles when that isn’t the full story of their material conditions,” Jessica says — and whether the aspiration to retreat to rural life encourages gentrification and romanticizes Western agriculture, with its history of throwing indigenous people off their land and exploiting immigrant labor. There are also internal debates about whether cottagecore dabbles in eco-fascism, or excludes fat women, or promotes an ideal of domesticity and femininity prized by white supremacists."
• The Courtauld Institute of Art: "A third problem with the cottagecore aesthetic is the exclusion of BIPOC – if you look under the hashtags for Gunne Sax, almost every photo is of a thin white woman. Indeed, many of the touchpoints of the aesthetic are of colonial Western Europe... the white supremacist possibilities and the traditionally patriarchal values espoused by the aesthetic have drawn interest from alt-right circles, particularly through the figure of the tradwife"
• Utrecht University:" As 'cottagecore' is often coded as queer, this analysis explores the trend as a re-imagining of a rural life free of heteropatriarchal oppression, as well as reification of systems of white supremacy through the production of settler colonial pastoral fantasy."
• The Michigan Daily: "A quick search of cottagecore shows mostly similar images: white women in impractical dresses standing in fields. There is a lack of visible people of color, along with a lack of discussion around the implications of land ownership. The few POC creators that embrace the trend are buried under the Eurocentric images that social media tends to favor due to biased censorship. The line between reclaiming countryside life and a history of racism, sexism and colonialism is at times uncomfortably thin."
• Reporter Magazine: "Cottagecore has drawn some criticism, primarily because it does evoke a time where political beliefs and cultural norms were backwards from the ones we hold today. “There’s a lot of conversations about romanticizing colonialism and owning land and all that stuff,” Buchman said. Many of the popular aspects of cottagecore can be traced to the colonial time period where peasantry, serfdom, misogyny and even slavery were normal aspects of everyday life. Furthermore, some have even speculated that cottagecore could be weaponized as a platform to once again popularize the idea of gender roles, racism and fascist beliefs."
• Honi Soit: "A common criticism of cottagecore not only as an aesthetic but as a practice is that people’s attempts to live out the fantasy are connected to the legacy of homesteading and farming on stolen Indigenous land... the nostalgic romanticisation of an agrarian lifestyle also has historic associations with fascism. The parallels between the Nazi ‘Blood and soil’ idealisation of rural values and the aesthetics of cottagecore has led to some startling cross-overs in online spaces."

Vox, the NYT, and the Spectator can be included. (Also see WP:RSPS. But the bits I removed were not from these.) The other ones are not usable because they are either written by activists or students.

It is a mistake on your part to think I only write things I support. Just because I write about something does not mean I endorse it. I try to be a journalist and this is Wikipedia. We have to be selective or the quality will decline. Just because somebody wrote or said something does not mean we should include it here. Nerd271 (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

i-D, Glamour, Wired, The Daily Dot, Bitch Media, Grist Magazine, and MEL Magazine aren't activist publications - they're still independent sources - and there's nothing I can see in any of those articles that indicate that they were written by activists. The Utrecht University source is a master's thesis, and so comes with a degree of academic reliability. The other four sources (out of 17) can still be used to elaborate per WP:RSSM, since there is evidence of wider coverage (such as the other 13 sources). Like, you may not want "to politicize everything under the Sun," but discussions about colonialism, nostalgia, racism, and what not are happening within the aesthetic and form a non-trivial part of the reception of the aesthetic.

And I can easily find more sources, such as "Critics argue that Cottagecore skews white, female, and cis gender and celebrates a past synonymous with patriarchy, racism, colonialism, and white supremacy that shares a similar aesthetic to the TradWives movement" or "But it is mostly represented by white, cis, able-bodied women. It’s not that people of color, trans, or disabled people don’t partake of this aesthetic – it’s that bigotry, both in consumers and in social media algorithms, make sure that their content is too often buried" or "A quick Google search of “women of color in cottagecore” proves that I am not the only one trying to unpack my position within the genre" or "For many, the endless images of slim white women holding wicker baskets filled with farm-fresh eggs and linen towels wrapped around freshly baked bread feel like a problematic, overly nostalgic yearning for bygone times when, let’s be honest, life was not so rosy-colored (read: oppressive and unjust) for people of color and women" or "Though, others have adopted cottagecore as something of a return to “traditional” (read: conservative) values. The aesthetic has been criticized for its inherent whiteness" or "With some calling out the trend for romanticising a period in history which saw land taken from indigenous people by white homesteaders, though much of the subculture’s appeal lies in its undeniable escapism, cottagecorers are keen not to gloss over the problems of the era much of their inspiration comes from – when violence against people of colour and LGBTQ+ people was rife" or "The cottagecore aesthetic has its faults, and has been criticized for romanticizing a colonialst mindset of homesteading" or "The lifestyle is beautiful but the times also had a lot of problems and discrimination that I would never want to be a part of. A lot of the cottagecore community can get lumped in with the tradlife/tradwife community because of this" or "cottagecore’s appeal among queer people may also be traced to adjacent elements such as the ‘tradwife’ phenomenon", etc... And here's one more source that makes the Marie-Antoinette comparison which would be worth including. NHCLS (talk) 17:14, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, dear! More political whining. Some people like being urban feminists; others prefer being rural traditional housewives. No biggie. No need to drag the cultural conflict over here. Moreover, many of the sources I read include plenty of pictures of colorful people in cottagecore fashion or furniture. Like I said, people who adopt this come from all walks of life. I remember a Singaporean magazine talking about it as well. In any case, I will not allow this article to be turned into a political hit piece, with more sanctimonious contents then factual reporting. Nerd271 (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Wired looks good. That quote you included seems balanced. People on both sides of the political spectrum like this stuff. As for the other ones you listed, some of them have Wikipedia articles explicitly mentioning in the introduction they are environmentalist or feminist publications. That's a red flag right there. They have an axe to grind. Perhaps we could include them in other places, but not here. Let's keep this article as informative and politics-free as possible.

While I am certainly impressed that you have read a lot (I like reading, too), but I think you should be more careful about what you are willing to accept. Nerd271 (talk) 17:32, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Reflist

References

Undue contents

@NHCLS: Please refrain from including WP:UNDUE contents. Thank you. People say a lot of things. That does not mean we should care. Besides, this page is about aesthetics, not politics. People who subscribe to this come from all walks of life, as the article explains. There is no need to politicize everything under the Sun. Nerd271 (talk) 15:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Just because you don't like the criticism and you don't want to see it doesn't mean that it's not being made (esp. when reliable sources are reporting on them) or that it's not relevant to the topic. NHCLS (talk) 16:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• The New York Times: "Both minimalism and cottagecore are wholly unrealistic depictions of life: so filtered by perfection that they’re not possible to reproduce in real life. (Relatedly, other critics of cottagecore resist its nostalgia, based on colonialism’s original, and continuing, sins.)"
• Vox: "“It’s a recall of the medieval era, this idealization of nature and Arthurianism — it’s a nostalgia for someone else’s past. There’s a notion that life was better back then, even though it wasn’t. They’re places you wouldn’t want to live because there’s no internet access.” ... “The thing about the English countryside is so many people are desperate to leave it but also so many people are being priced out of it, because people are buying second homes there,” explains Quinn, the director of the Chichester fairy tale center. Indeed, cottagecore ignores the fact that rural areas have always been unattainable for some and inescapable for others."
• Vox: "Both [dark academia and cottagecore] take historical aesthetics that evoke conservative values and gender roles (Eurocentrism and heteronormativity, respectively)"
• i-D: "The whiteness of the aesthetic is increasingly drawing criticism, particularly in response to the way in which certain images conjure a romanticised notion of western history."
• Glamour: "On its surface, cottagecore would seem to be a largely cis white trend when you think of its standard imagery: from Pride and Prejudice to Little Women, delicate white heroines are at the center of these feminist period pieces. This inspiration conveniently overlooks a troubled reality of indigenous people removed from their homelands in the name of manifest destiny, and an era in which there were no acres of land to picnic on for Black people, who were denied access to the Homestead Act. Fashion trends that romanticize historic moments are frequently problematic because by nature they exclude those who were disenfranchised during the period of inspiration. There’s a reason you don’t often see people of color in time travel movies."
• Wired: "Ideologically, cottagecore encompasses multitudes, but its basic themes are living in harmony with nature, taking time to participate in overlooked arts like weaving and home cooking, and being either extremely gay or extremely straight. Seriously, the two poles are cottagecore lesbians creating manless idylls with their girlfriends or conservative “trad wives” homeschooling their children and deferring to their beardy husbands in all things."
• Grist Magazine: "Online commentators point out that cottagecore is far from a “natural” aesthetic; it’s often showcased as a vision of a settled wilderness, a legacy of European agriculture and expansion."
• Autostraddle: "Iridessence isn’t alone in noting that white cottagecore fans can’t “reclaim” stolen land. Critiques of cottagecore are increasingly widespread on platforms like Tumblr, where writers point out that cottagecore romanticizes a period in which white colonizers stole land from indigenous people for their homesteads. While the cottagecore community attempts to reckon with the colonial past, the role of existing indigenous people in the cottagecore movement seems limited... Cottagecore’s “return to nature” ethos also echos the isolationist narratives of white cis men from Henry David Thoreau to Christopher McCandless, whose socioeconomic privilege allowed them to leave the perils of the “real world” behind."
• Bitch Media: "“When you look up aesthetics on Pinterest, they’re always white girls,” Douglas wrote. “White girls are always showcased, and no other race is showcased [in the same way]. You don’t see Black women in soft and dainty aesthetics. They aren’t showcased like that.” ... Although cottagecore has become popular with Black people, there are also detractors who question just how radical it is for Black people to carve out space in such a heavily whitewashed lifestyle. In tweets and Tumblr posts alike, some have criticized the aesthetic for promoting colonization, referring to cottagecore as “plantationcore” for its relation to Antebellum period aesthetics. The frilly dresses and bright flowers are symbolic of an era built upon white-supremacist ideology that glamorizes pastoral and settler living. It’s difficult to deny the concern of trends, fashion or otherwise, that look constantly to the past as a source of inspiration—even more so considering the way the past has been so violent to Black people."
• The Daily Dot: "But while critics see it as a conservative, repressive trend, fuelled by recent attacks on women’s bodily autonomy and sexual freedom, others think it’s really not that deep—and moreover that framing it as such is typical white feminist nonsense... Drawing on idealized European peasant and American colonizer aesthetics its roots lie in sustainability, DIY, and a celebration of aspects of femininity, often derided as silly or trivial, for the pleasure of women and femmes instead of men. While justifiably criticized for its overwhelming whiteness, as well as the idealization through its Little House on the Prairie elements of a violently racist and colonial time, one thing it’s not about is a sublimation to patriarchal whims—despite the tradwives‘ aesthetic attraction to it."
• The Spectator: "Arguably the first pioneer of cottagecore was the original Antoinette, Marie: a queen who wanted to be a milkmaid... Not everybody has the whimsy gene, and pretending to be a peasant has traditionally been a good way of winding up peasants. There’s nothing quaint about the guillotine."
• MEL Magazine: "Criticism from within the community reckons with whether cottagecore has become dominated by a certain kind of white person — “a lot of the criticism I see is that the aesthetic is primarily skinny white women showing off their ‘humble’ lifestyles when that isn’t the full story of their material conditions,” Jessica says — and whether the aspiration to retreat to rural life encourages gentrification and romanticizes Western agriculture, with its history of throwing indigenous people off their land and exploiting immigrant labor. There are also internal debates about whether cottagecore dabbles in eco-fascism, or excludes fat women, or promotes an ideal of domesticity and femininity prized by white supremacists."
• The Courtauld Institute of Art: "A third problem with the cottagecore aesthetic is the exclusion of BIPOC – if you look under the hashtags for Gunne Sax, almost every photo is of a thin white woman. Indeed, many of the touchpoints of the aesthetic are of colonial Western Europe... the white supremacist possibilities and the traditionally patriarchal values espoused by the aesthetic have drawn interest from alt-right circles, particularly through the figure of the tradwife"
• Utrecht University:" As 'cottagecore' is often coded as queer, this analysis explores the trend as a re-imagining of a rural life free of heteropatriarchal oppression, as well as reification of systems of white supremacy through the production of settler colonial pastoral fantasy."
• The Michigan Daily: "A quick search of cottagecore shows mostly similar images: white women in impractical dresses standing in fields. There is a lack of visible people of color, along with a lack of discussion around the implications of land ownership. The few POC creators that embrace the trend are buried under the Eurocentric images that social media tends to favor due to biased censorship. The line between reclaiming countryside life and a history of racism, sexism and colonialism is at times uncomfortably thin."
• Reporter Magazine: "Cottagecore has drawn some criticism, primarily because it does evoke a time where political beliefs and cultural norms were backwards from the ones we hold today. “There’s a lot of conversations about romanticizing colonialism and owning land and all that stuff,” Buchman said. Many of the popular aspects of cottagecore can be traced to the colonial time period where peasantry, serfdom, misogyny and even slavery were normal aspects of everyday life. Furthermore, some have even speculated that cottagecore could be weaponized as a platform to once again popularize the idea of gender roles, racism and fascist beliefs."
• Honi Soit: "A common criticism of cottagecore not only as an aesthetic but as a practice is that people’s attempts to live out the fantasy are connected to the legacy of homesteading and farming on stolen Indigenous land... the nostalgic romanticisation of an agrarian lifestyle also has historic associations with fascism. The parallels between the Nazi ‘Blood and soil’ idealisation of rural values and the aesthetics of cottagecore has led to some startling cross-overs in online spaces."

Vox, the NYT, and the Spectator can be included. (Also see WP:RSPS. But the bits I removed were not from these.) The other ones are not usable because they are either written by activists or students.

It is a mistake on your part to think I only write things I support. Just because I write about something does not mean I endorse it. I try to be a journalist and this is Wikipedia. We have to be selective or the quality will decline. Just because somebody wrote or said something does not mean we should include it here. Nerd271 (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

i-D, Glamour, Wired, The Daily Dot, Bitch Media, Grist Magazine, and MEL Magazine aren't activist publications - they're still independent sources - and there's nothing I can see in any of those articles that indicate that they were written by activists. The Utrecht University source is a master's thesis, and so comes with a degree of academic reliability. The other four sources (out of 17) can still be used to elaborate per WP:RSSM, since there is evidence of wider coverage (such as the other 13 sources). Like, you may not want "to politicize everything under the Sun," but discussions about colonialism, nostalgia, racism, and what not are happening within the aesthetic and form a non-trivial part of the reception of the aesthetic.

And I can easily find more sources, such as "Critics argue that Cottagecore skews white, female, and cis gender and celebrates a past synonymous with patriarchy, racism, colonialism, and white supremacy that shares a similar aesthetic to the TradWives movement" or "But it is mostly represented by white, cis, able-bodied women. It’s not that people of color, trans, or disabled people don’t partake of this aesthetic – it’s that bigotry, both in consumers and in social media algorithms, make sure that their content is too often buried" or "A quick Google search of “women of color in cottagecore” proves that I am not the only one trying to unpack my position within the genre" or "For many, the endless images of slim white women holding wicker baskets filled with farm-fresh eggs and linen towels wrapped around freshly baked bread feel like a problematic, overly nostalgic yearning for bygone times when, let’s be honest, life was not so rosy-colored (read: oppressive and unjust) for people of color and women" or "Though, others have adopted cottagecore as something of a return to “traditional” (read: conservative) values. The aesthetic has been criticized for its inherent whiteness" or "With some calling out the trend for romanticising a period in history which saw land taken from indigenous people by white homesteaders, though much of the subculture’s appeal lies in its undeniable escapism, cottagecorers are keen not to gloss over the problems of the era much of their inspiration comes from – when violence against people of colour and LGBTQ+ people was rife" or "The cottagecore aesthetic has its faults, and has been criticized for romanticizing a colonialst mindset of homesteading" or "The lifestyle is beautiful but the times also had a lot of problems and discrimination that I would never want to be a part of. A lot of the cottagecore community can get lumped in with the tradlife/tradwife community because of this" or "cottagecore’s appeal among queer people may also be traced to adjacent elements such as the ‘tradwife’ phenomenon", etc... And here's one more source that makes the Marie-Antoinette comparison which would be worth including. NHCLS (talk) 17:14, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, dear! More political whining. Some people like being urban feminists; others prefer being rural traditional housewives. No biggie. No need to drag the cultural conflict over here. Moreover, many of the sources I read include plenty of pictures of colorful people in cottagecore fashion or furniture. Like I said, people who adopt this come from all walks of life. I remember a Singaporean magazine talking about it as well. In any case, I will not allow this article to be turned into a political hit piece, with more sanctimonious contents then factual reporting. Nerd271 (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Wired looks good. That quote you included seems balanced. People on both sides of the political spectrum like this stuff. As for the other ones you listed, some of them have Wikipedia articles explicitly mentioning in the introduction they are environmentalist or feminist publications. That's a red flag right there. They have an axe to grind. Perhaps we could include them in other places, but not here. Let's keep this article as informative and politics-free as possible.

While I am certainly impressed that you have read a lot (I like reading, too), but I think you should be more careful about what you are willing to accept. Nerd271 (talk) 17:32, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Reflist

References

"An early inspiration for cottagecore fashion is mori girl"

The source doesn't say this, it just points the similarities between the fashion. And to be fair there were western women wearing cottagecore-like clothes since autunm exists, obviously not as a "movement" but still. The philosophy seems quite different too, more based on nostalgia in the west while kinda cosplayer-ish in the east, westerners emulating their grandmas and the japanese emulating medieval europe inspired jrpgs characters. Mirad1000 (talk) 15:37, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but the cottagecore aesthetic has taken a lot of inspiration from mori girl fashion. SpiritedMichelle (talk) 21:46, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Antecedents section

The end of the section currently reads as follows:

The Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century was an approach to art, architecture, and design that embraced 'folk' styles and techniques as a critique of industrial production.

The counterculture of the 1960s provides perhaps the most significant source of influence for the contemporary cottagecore movement. Many of the subcategories of cottagecore directly invoke the aesthetic of environmentally conscious architectural projects and communes of the era such as Drop City, and embody the radically sustainable, hands-on ethos of publications such as the Whole Earth Catalog. Thrifted furniture and art pieces from the 1960s and '70s are often used to create a comforting, cozy interior space, as are patterns of the era such as paisley and mushroom prints.

If this is true, why is there so much focus given to pastoral poetry from ancient Greece to the Renaissance? I think an issue with this section is the implication that cottagecore is directly sourced from pastoralism, which it doesn't appear to be (though if anybody has notable sources *seperate from previously sourced material* it would be useful to drop them here!). I think the Arts and Crafts paragraph needs some real fleshing out, as it provides an obvious and (in my opinion) very significant source for cottagecore. I am going to begin doing this but if anyone has any sources discussing both Arts&Crafts and cottagecore it would be very helpful.

Finally, is there anything that suggests in the source cited that suggests paisley and mushroom prints are determinedly 60s/70s? Paisley, of course, was fashionable in the mid-Victorian period and the causal relationship could easily be described as belonging to the Preraphaelites or Arts and Crafts movements. Becsh (talk) 15:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Paisley actually has it's origins in ancient Persia, from where it was imported to modern-day India. Paisley was not introduced to Europe until the 18th century. SpiritedMichelle (talk) 00:08, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm aware, but the article suggests paisley is involved in the aesthetic because of 60s fashion (even calling paisley a pattern 'of the era'), rather than because of its long tradition in the Arts and Crafts movement and as a popular Victorian pattern. Either statement needs a source.Becsh (talk) 11:18, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Critiques section

Given that the disputed content is not extraneous to the subject, and secondary sources on cottagecore highlight the influence of conservative values on the aesthetic, there is no valid reason not to include the paragraph. It is not a matter of 'politicising' cottagecore - just as pastoralism and the Arts and Crafts movement are political, so is cottagecore. Nor am I 'politicising' cottagecore by presenting secondary sources that describe cottagecore as Eurocentric; I am acting in the interests of Wikipedia.

I'd like to avoid an edit war on this, but I'm unsure if flagging this for debate will be effective with so niche a subject. I'll come back after having done some reading on policy for this. Becsh (talk) 02:19, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Becsh: Conservative values or just nostalgia and openness to novelty? (Most people in the countries where this is popular are likely not from rural areas.) They might be political, but not overtly or aggressively so. It is a style of life or a way of personal expression. Political activists, left- or right-wing, will always have something to say. That does not mean we should care. Please see WP:UNDUE.

Complaints that this movement is "Eurocentric" make no sense because it is a Western cultural phenomenon. You might as well call the Lunar New Year festivals "Sinocentric." You see how silly that is?

This movement can hardly be described as promoting "heteronormal" behavior, since many young women, some of whom lesbians, find this appealing because it helps them express their femininity. As before, this is a personal choice taken by some people. It is not political by nature.

I will add that the critiques should be limited to practical or economic concerns. If it is perceived as a left-wing movement, right-wing people will complain. If it is a right-wing movement, left-wing people will complain. One group might like something for a given reason; another might dislike it for the exact same reason. There is no need for Wikipedia to go down this rabbit hole. It is best to report on what it is as best we can and let people think for themselves. Recognizing the diversity of viewpoints does not mean becoming bogged down. Nerd271 (talk) 02:33, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nerd271: It is not up to us as editors to determine whether these are conservative values or nostalgia. Our job is to record secondary sources. I will point out, however, that you just changed 'nostalgic' to 'realistic' in the article, which are not semantically equivalent. Regarding undue weight, the article is overwhelmingly neutral and the critiques section does not take a stance on the sourced content. It is also the shortest and last section, which means it has less weight per wiki guidelines.

The movement has been described as promoting heteronormative behaviour, so regardless of your opinions on the matter it should be included in the article, unless if you find or publish a notable source on the matter disputing this in a way that makes even mentioning the contention irrelevant. Expressing traditional domestic femininity is inclusive of heteronormativity: there are many people who engage with the aesthetic to promote traditional values, just as there are people who enjoy it as a reclamation of femininity.

You also do not get to decide whether critiques are limited to practical and economic concerns: you are but one editor, and there are sources detailing cottagecore's engagement with colonialism and conservatism. You do not have the right to exclude sourced information because you disagree with it. It is actively disallowing people to 'think for themselves' by excluding info from the page, and I will acknowledge that you do not seem concerned with 'recognizing the diversity of viewpoints' given you seem insistent on removing any mention of cottagecore's association with imperialism. Becsh (talk) 14:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Becsh: (Edited to correct typo) No, "realistic" and "nostalgic" are not equivalent. But I made that change in order to accommodate the NYT article. Nostalgia is not necessarily realistic. I made that change in order to be more precise.

And? We might as well complain that an LGBT club promotes sexual deviancy. It is a cultural movement, so don't expect it to include everyone from all walks of life. This is not a train, which anybody can ride.

See, this is precisely what concerns me: the politicization of a non-political topic. Vox is well-known to be a left-wing outlet, which means that care should be taken whenever we quote or paraphrase their opinions. Vox is just the left-wing version of Fox. Frankly, Wikipedia already has a reputation of being left-wing. We do not need to go down that rabbit hole. Like I said, this is not a political topic! Nerd271 (talk) 18:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I've requested a Wikipedia:Third opinion. Becsh (talk) 17:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Dismissing something as "liberal" or "conservative" does not constitute a valid argument, unless you are preaching to the choir, which is not what Wikipedia is about. This is an encyclopedia, not a political club. Moreover, one person might disapprove of something because it is "liberal" or "conservative," but another might support it for the exact same reason. Why not avoid the whole shebang and cut it all out?

Let's see what other people have to say. Nerd271 (talk) 18:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I will also point out that there is a trend on this article of editors incorporating documented criticism and you deleting it, arguing that being 'non-political' is more important than representing how the topic has been covered, and saying that editors are "whining" by including it (your word). See Talk:Cottagecore/Archive 1. Becsh (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

As I mentioned, Wikipedia should not include absolutely everything said about the topic. It is for factual coverage; it is not a depository of opinions. I stand by my position of refusing to allow this article to be politicized. Nerd271 (talk) 22:44, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

This is a third opinion, a non-binding casual alternative form of dispute resolution. Neither of you is required to agree with me, and there are further ways to resolve disputes if this opinion doesn't do so. I would go with Becsh's preferred version; although I don't love the Vox source, I think it's good enough for inclusion at the end of the day. WP:DUE is fundamentally about ensuring that weight is proportional to coverage in the reliable sources; here we have two such sources doing cottagecore critique, and no other viewpoints (at least as far as I can tell) that this would obscure or falsely balance. I also don't see this as politicizing the article, or hijacking it with tangential minority viewpoints, or shovelling it full of indiscriminate information. We have reliable sources here that make these precise critical points, and that's exactly what we want to source in articles. (To digress briefly, it's not surprising to see reliable sources talk politics when they cover aesthetic topics; in general you'll be hard-pressed to find art or aesthetics that are totally divorced from political context.) NYT is reliable here. Vox is generally seen as reliable per WP:RSP although this particular piece is opinion / "explanatory journalism" and so we should attribute it. That said, the source doesn't go into much detail, and it's a little hard to parse—part of me is wondering whether the author actually meant that dark academia evokes Eurocentricism, not cottagecore. For these reasons I probably wouldn't rely on this source for more than a couple of sentences. Finally, if we are talking about the NYT source, I think "nostalgic", not "realistic", is the better descriptor. In fact the NYT source says that cottagecore is "wholly unrealistic" and "not possible to reproduce in real life". /wiae /tlk 23:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Wiae: That was a typo. It should read "unrealistic" even though I originally typed "realistic." I fixed it. Not sure if criticizing it as nostalgia makes a lot of sense because this movement is motivated by nostalgia. It is far more sensible to specify that they are criticizing it for being unrealistic. Vox's "explanatory journalism" is considered partisan by this community, even if the factual reporting might be usable. I'd say exclude it from this section completely.

As for the NYT, the opinions it typically publishes, by its own admissions, are mostly liberal. However, it is less partisan than Vox. Moreover, the part which cites it is not political. So I do not have a problem with using it. Nerd271 (talk) 23:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Your correction around "unrealistic" makes sense Nerd271; thanks for that. In that case calling it "unrealistic" indeed sounds to me like a fair summary of the NYT source. (I can't access the WaPost article so I didn't check what it says.) /wiae /tlk 23:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Wiae: There is the archived link for the WaPo article. Nerd271 (talk) 23:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Wrong origination date

Not sure why the article cited got this wrong as well, but the term 'cottagecore' appeared on tumblr as early as 2015-2016, generally in tandem with other "-core" suffixes like "farmcore" or "grandmacore". Unfortunately, due to tumblr's dogwater search system, finding evidence of such is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

See: - Blog from 2015 using the term https://www.lizzieinlace.com/free-romance/

- tweet from 2016 using it appropriately: https://twitter.com/paraicodonnell/status/743733530287472640

I feel like I'm going crazy, because I distinctly remember term being more tied to the term "cottage witch" originally. 208.53.109.62 (talk) 22:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

If you can find a non-blog or non-twitter source for it, add it in. Just make sure to avoid WP:ORIGINAL research toobigtokale (talk) 17:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Long see also section

Hi,

Sorry for undoing adding back info into the See also. The section is currently just way too long; it needs to give somewhere, and imo the connection isn't as strong as it is to other items currently in the list.

While I think you're probably right that the fashion trends inspired cottagecore, I think maybe you should either include that info in the body with reliable citations or you can put it back into the see also and move other see also items to the body. Maybe even both.

Also make sure you cite the claim about their relation; no original research. toobigtokale (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Critiques section

I'm bringing this topic back up so we can discuss the section here, rather than by making repeated edits. I'd like to reiterate that, in order to avoid an edit war, I sought a third opinion, and they agreed that the Vox source was suitable if not perfect. @Nerd271 I'm not sure why you have started removing cited content from the critiques section.

On another note, I don't think the introductory section should include content reiterated in the critiques section; it would be better to keep it all in one place. Becsh (talk) 10:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Also adding that, to assuage previous discussion of undue personal opinion/bias, we should avoid phrases like 'some critics' and 'a critic'; make it clear that the source is an opinion piece if applicable. Becsh (talk) 10:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Becsh: It seems that we now have more than just a third opinion. On Vox, we do have a some notes on them at WP:RSPVOX. See WP:RSPS for a good list of what the Wikipedian community considers to be perennial sources and reliable sources. Anyway, let's invite Mightymagyar, Toobigtokale, and any other interested parties over for a chat. Specifying "a critic" sounds good to me.

@Toobigtokale: Please remember that we should stick to reliable sources, which do not include student newspapers or partisan publications. Nerd271 (talk) 14:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I didn't add in the Vox source, it was already there.

Also why not include the critique in the lead as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section? toobigtokale (talk) 16:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Reading over the article and The Michigan Daily page indicate that it is certainly a reputable source. Remember that the point of a critiques section is not to try and offer conclusions but to provide an overview of critiques, which is why I encourage highlighting that these sources are generally opinion pieces. Becsh (talk) 16:09, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

With regards to the Vox piece, the page linked states that it is reliable.Becsh (talk) 16:11, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Please read carefully.

Some editors say that Vox does not always delineate reporting and opinion content or that it is a partisan source in the field of politics.

I do not have a problem with briefly mentioning the criticisms. But there is no need to reiterate everything. It is the introduction. I will repeat. The Michigan Daily is a student newspaper, not a mainstream publication. We should avoid such sources, unless it pertains to something involving university students, a niche group. Nerd271 (talk) 16:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

More or less agreed with @Nerd271. I agree the student publication and partisan paper aren't reliable; my mistake on not scoping them out further. As long as the info isn't removed from the lead altogether I'm fine. toobigtokale (talk) 16:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Toobigtokale: There is a brief line at the end of the introduction. I think as far as the "criticisms" are concerns, the page is alright as it is. We specify who says what and leave it as that. Nerd271 (talk) 16:39, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Yup saw, seems fine toobigtokale (talk) 16:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Nazi flag

I do not edit in Wikipedia as I am unsure how, but someone has vandalized this page with a giant Nazi flag at the top. Can someone please edit this off of the page and report the vandal? 2601:8C1:C100:52F0:38A7:2FBF:BD3:5554 (talk) 02:45, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Taylor Swift photo is the least folklore-like cottagecore-like image of her that exists

Slightly hyperbolic title, but it's an image of her from the 2012 Speak Now tour with a banjo. folklore is a 2020 album recorded in the midst of quarantine. I don't really know how to do wikipedia image stuff, but if someone could swap that image out it'd be nice? Maybe the cover of folklore would work well. 104.10.252.162 (talk) 03:18, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think the cover of Folklore would be allowed as it’s a fair use image. How about File:Taylor Swift Eras Tour - Arlington, TX - Folklore act 2.jpg? Full disclosure that I just grabbed this from the Folklore page after about 30 seconds of looking through the image, so this isn’t exactly detailed research on alternate image possibilities! Best, ^user:A smart kitten_meow 19:02, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Countrycore and Farmcore as alternative names

I’m opening this discussion as I’d like to try and gain consensus to include Countrycore and Farmcore in the opening sentence as alternative names for Cottagecore. My bold edits adding them were reverted in Special:Diff/1177597669 by @Becsh, so per BRD, I’m starting this discussion here.

From my point of view, both names are sourced to RSes - both the Irish Independent [1] and Country Living [2]. Prior to adding the Country Living citation, I got feedback here from an uninvolved editor at WP:RSN.

I’m also confused by the statement that only one source mentions the names, as both definitely do — the Irish Independent article is paywalled but can be accessed here — Countrycore and Farmcore are mentioned in the second paragraph.

All the best, ^user:A smart kitten_meow 11:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)