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'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy
- octokatt 5y agoHeidi came out in 1881 [0], right around when the phone was invented and after Switzerland had a decade or so of political turmoil [1]. When things get complicated, nostalgia for the simplicity of rural life, without things like dirt or economic scarcity, tend to come to the fore [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi [1] http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/timeline-switzerlands-history.html http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/timeline-sw... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia#As_a_political_tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia#As_a_political_tool
- giantg2 5y agoSometimes the economic scarcity is relatively less scarce than in urban areas. For example, at least during the depression those with farms had to ability to grow their own food. To be fair, sometimes the government would allow urban households to garden in a 1/4 acre or so plot in designated areas as part of a program to help people be more self sufficient. Although my grandfather said not many people took advantage of that.
- barry-cotter 5y ago> For example, at least during the depression those with farms had to ability to grow their own food. Those without farms overwhelmingly didn't need to. The only place in North America to have widespread hunger during the Great Depression was Newfoundland. If most people didn't take advantage of allotments it was because it wasn't worth it. After the fall of the Soviet Union lots and lots of urban ex-Soviet citizens grew their own food. They needed to.
- giantg2 5y agoMy understanding is that while they didn't need to, it did help. Especially with variety and specific items, like meat, or grain for making beer. But in general it would help provide more than the bare minimum. My grandpa remembers many urban people during the depression complaining about food, but unwilling to work a garden on a government plot.
- kongin 5y agoHaving grown up during that period no one needed to. You could survive quite easily on whatever you could buy in the stores. The diet you could get from growing your own food was much better than what you get even in the west today. The one thing people who haven't experienced it can't understand is the taste of the food. I don't know what price I'd put on a breakfast made with fresh milk, eggs, home baked bread and salted pork but it would be at least a few hundred dollars. If I didn't live in a region where any rural property is expected to burn down once a decade I'd have bought a weekend farm a long time ago.
- 7thaccount 5y agoMy great grandmother lived on a farm during the great depression. They had plenty to eat, but she said that what hurt them the most was the city folks couldn't buy their produce or eggs, so they lost their ability to largely make additional cash for odds and ends.
- giantg2 5y agoTrue. My grandpa worked in the mines and a quarry to help make money in addition to the farm. I think some farmers were lucky enough to have the government pay for food (or even the destruction of food) so that they could distribute the food and drive up prices for the people who did have money.
- 7thaccount 5y agoI had no idea they were destroying food. Sounds so wrong to be doing that, but I believe you!
- KozmoNau7 5y agoThe works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath I think that sums it up better than I could ever do.
- aussiegreenie 5y agoLiving a more sustainable life is the key to human survival. If you can grown your own food and produce local cleaner energy, humanity MAY survive. The existing American-model life guarantees human civilisation will not live past 2040.
- hirundo 5y agoIn the year 1975 I was told the same thing about the year 2000.
- jtsiskin 5y agoWhy? Wouldn’t centralized larger farms be more efficient?
- AngryData 5y agoYou can't actually compare them very well because commercial food production uses fossil fuel derived fertilizer to feed its yields. Small subsidence farms often don't use any fossil fuel derived fertilizer, and is thus infinity sustainable, but also low yield. Big commercial farms rely almost entirely on fossil fuel derived fertilizer, which is unsustainable unless we pull ass tons of clean renewable energy out of our butts to replace it, but have extreme yields. We can make artificial fertilizer without fossil fuels, but the energy cost is atleast 10x what our current usage is for fertilizer and is already over 1% of global power. And we are still a ways off of producing an extra 10% of global energy output via completely clean power.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago> Small subsidence farms often don't use any fossil fuel derived fertilizer Where are you getting this from? I mean, chickenshit, etc., can be good fertilizer, but the stuff in a bag is far more predictable.
- giantg2 5y agoDepends on what efficiency your measuring and if you have any other factors to consider. Larger farms tend to be more economically efficient (at least for basic commodities, or because the margins are to low to support a farm under a specific size). But it's not a one to one comparison because the models and practices differ. You could say that a COFO is more efficient than a small ranch because they produce more beef on fewer acres and utilize brewer's grain from ethanol production. It's possible that a small farm raising organic wagyu might actually be more economically efficient since it's a higher margin product.
- redis_mlc 5y agoI grew up in a farming area, and my family had a 30'x30' garden. Farming is a lot of work. It's a job, not a hobby. Even the garden was a fair amount of work, but more importantly, it's a lot of veggies to eat after harvest. I had tomato sandwiches daily for months. Plus insects to control. Doable, but not glamorous like the "cottagecore" photos. If I did a serious garden again, I'd focus on becoming a skilled grower of certain veggie strains over a period of decades, and not focus on quantity. Also, know your soil. If you're in an urban area (or downwind) that used to have steel or auto factories, then your soil is contaminated with heavy metals.
- zwieback 5y ago...and fighting off deer, literally sent by Satan to devour my tender green shoots
- dls2016 5y agoSix foot fence keeps the deer moving along... but those fat groundhogs climb right over.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoRun a wire around the perimeter near the top with a fence charger attached and you'll solve that one quickly.
- dls2016 5y agoI was thinking barb wire, too. I need to do something because I bought a lot of my fruit trees fall of 2019 and so they should be producing next year and they’re pruned low, not to mention I upped my berry game this year.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoNot barbed wire: high voltage electric fence wire. Run a single strand near the top with a charger (you can get solar powered ones if there's no AC nearby) and that will stop them in their tracks.
- slibhb 5y agoHaving escaped the necessity of living in certain ways, we find outselves voluntarily adopting older forms of human behavior. That's what exercising is. It's what gardening is. It's what having pets is. These are behaviors that mimic the surface characteristics of old ways of life (hunting, farming, animal husbandry).
- desertraven 5y agoInteresting. Are such behaviours necessary to feel content as a human?
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoSince farming and animal husbandry are only about 10000 years old, I’d say probably not. Being out in nature, possibly. It certainly feels good for a lot of people.
- mymythisisthis 5y agoThe ending of Don Quixote... Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherd Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate the shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino. Both were astounded at Don Quixote’s new craze; however, lest he should once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of his chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured, fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one, and offered to share the life with him. “And what’s more,” said Samson Carrasco, “I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I’ll bealways making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into my head, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall be roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choose the name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and that we should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up and carving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of love-smitten shepherds.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5946/5946-0.txt https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5946/5946-0.txt
- mymythisisthis 5y agoMarie Antoinette and her friends would dress up as young shepherdess or milkmaids and wander around the hamlet pretending to be peasants, while still surrounded by the comforts of a royal lifestyle. A team of real farmers appointed by the Queen looked after the farm and the animals, and produced fruits and vegetables consumed at the royal table. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/11/hameau-de-la-reine-marie-antoinettes.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/11/hameau-de-la-reine-mar...
- leokennis 5y agoI think this is not a lot different than Bezos types visiting Burning Man on a VIP package.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoYup, the time-honored tradition of the rich LARPing as the commoner is as alive as ever.
- mey 5y agoAnd I am reminded of Common People by Shatner https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cMXhWf0vE7c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cMXhWf0vE7c
- fineIllregister 5y agoShatner was covering the song, which was originally by the English band Pulp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People
- rahoulb 5y agoI was at university when that song was released and it used to amuse me greatly at the number of rich students singing along as if the song was some show of unity with “common people” - not taking a second to actually think about the lyrics.
- 0des 5y agoWhat does the -core suffix mean in this context? I get that it is a mix of words, like hardcore, nerdcore, etc.. but why? I figured that was reserved for fringe extreme genres. Does anybody have any info on this?
- boringg 5y agoI assumed it was moving away from the core of a city to making the cottage the 'new' core. Also like other comment about hardcore maybe being part of the etymology
- blakesterz 5y agohttps://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/what-exactly-is-cottagecore https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/what-exactly-is-co... ": Cottagecore, a movement hearkening back to agricultural life, skills, and crafts, is on the rise. “As a concept, it embraces a simpler, sustainable existence that is more harmonious with nature. Aesthetically, it’s a nod to the traditional English countryside style, romantic and nostalgic,” says Davina Ogilvie, founder of Wovn Home, a start-up that makes custom (but affordable and accessible) window treatments."
- levi-turner 5y agoIn hip fashion circles, I've seen it crop up regularly. Dadcore, Normcore and the like. I've always taken it to mean the synthesized essence of an aesthetic, or at least the adherents believe that to be the case.
- sprkwd 5y agoSuch a commentcore statement.
- danmcs 5y agoLike -punk, it has been suffixed onto other words to essentially mean "genre".
- throwanem 5y agoIt reminds me of the "-gate" suffix denoting scandal, originally derived from the name of the Watergate Hotel, his B&E crew's actions at which ultimately brought Richard Nixon low. Wiktionary [1] describes the "-core" suffix as a similar backformation from the musical genre name "hardcore", and as with "-gate", it seems to have developed into a general-purpose inflection denoting a genre or subculture - to the extent, I suppose, that those two concepts can any longer be distinguished from one another, at least. [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-core https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-core
- tibbydudeza 5y agoDealing with septic tanks - rotting uneven floors , shitty no pun intended plumbing and electrics - broadband from the copper era. No thanks - much prefer my modern sterile IKEA isocube.
- cottager2 5y agoHaving just bought a cottage, here are some things that have changed recently. 1. P2P wireless means you can cheaply get a 50/10 internet connection in remote areas. This is plenty for most users. Also starlink is apparently pretty good. 2. Just pay someone to pump your septic. You don’t have to pay city taxes covering sewers so you probably come out ahead. 3. Plumbing and electrical is usually exposed, making it very easy to work on. For plumbing, shark bites and pex are way easier than soldering copper. One thing that does suck about owning a cottage is needing to worry about mice…
- tantalor 5y ago> worry about mice Get a cat or two.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoGot that covered - got 6 of them but probably only two of them are active mousers.
- nicwolff 5y agoI live in a cottage in the woods and my cat brings live shrews into the house to play with. Cats!
- tibbydudeza 5y agoFortunately we only had one cat who did that and she is now a pensioner and prefers less strenuous activities like sun bathing and sleeping. Trapping a mouse at 1am in the bedroom is not so endearing.
- tantalor 5y agoReally interesting twitter thread by @SarahTaber_bww breaking this down from yesterday: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1443225915073437698.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1443225915073437698.html
- newaccount2021 5y agonot really interesting - subliterate drivel/anger from someone who can't seem to handle the idea of people who are different than themselves
- frosted-flakes 5y agoNot to mention the overuse of the exclamation point, which is rather tiring to read.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoAll MLM's seems to come from Utah.
- smoldesu 5y agoBoy, videos like that are a testament to how awful Tiktok is for long-form, interesting content. You can tell how the platform is straining under the weight of her intelligence.
- theonlybutlet 5y agoA rant looking for a racist angle...
- theodric 5y ago"Leaving the city to own and operate a small poultry farm is racist, misogynist, colonialist, and CANCELLED: a thread." I wonder if I get a pass since mine is in Ireland. There needs to be a Rule 34 variant which states that for any given thing there is someone saying it violates progressive principles.
- dqpb 5y agoIt’s great until you realize everything has lead in it.
- mothsonasloth 5y agoJust another manifestation of people realising their life of metropolitan decadence is wrong, lacks meaning and is damaging to the human spirit.
- knownjorbist 5y ago...while ignoring the reasons people headed in that direction in the first place.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoheh. Truer words were never spoken.
- 3grdlurker 5y agoTo participate in consumerism and capitalism, correct?
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y agoLack of opportunity? Poverty? Disease? Broken homes? War? Sexual/physical/emotional/spiritual abuse? To make new connections? To find a partner? To explore the wider world? Surely not!
- 3grdlurker 5y agoYou can’t have lack of opportunity, poverty, diseases, broken homes, war, and domestic abuse in a city? I don’t get your point and the blind defensiveness. If I’m not being a hypocrite I certainly moved to the city for the comforts of the modern world, but I’ve learned a lot since to learn that consumerism is wrong and there’s much that needs to be changed about capitalism.
- asdff 5y agoWhich was to have labor close to the factory and then the office, which now exists on zoom.
- giantg2 5y agoI dream of quitting my job and living on some land. My wife refuses to "live in the middle of nowhere, where there's nothing to do". I guess I shall continue to work a job I hate in order to live in this expensive area.
- xnyan 5y agoIt takes some effort, but you can have it (mostly) both ways. I live in a little rural town (Hillsborough, NC) that has farms in the woods and a great tiny downtown with several really good restaurants, pubs, and even a tiny art scene and it's only 15 minutes away from Duke/Durham, NC with tons of great dining, shopping, events and so on. I'm sure there are plenty of other situations like this, nice semi-rural/rural towns on the edge of a metro and all it's services.
- giantg2 5y agoYeah, most places I was looking at would be 30-60 minutes outside of large city, and only a short 10 or so minute drive to the local town. She told me one day that she never wanted to leave the current county (her home county). Now she is also determined to move into her old school district (much more expensive and more developed), even though the school scores aren't much higher than the current one and just with the money that we save in property taxes we could send a kid to a private school. Needless to say, this issue doesn't come down to having a rational discussion to find solutions that fit both of our criteria. I'm wrong, she's right, always.
- schnevets 5y agoI love my backyard garden (even though my Brussels Sprout experiment this year proved to be a huge waste of time). I also love the aesthetic that cottagecore is revitalizing. I love drinking at local wineries, buying stuff at my local farmer's market, brewing beer and swapping bottles with homebrew friends, etc... But holy shit am I repulsed by the influencer aspect that is growing with this "movement". Ways of Seeing taught that publicity (aka marketing) is tied to envy. There is such a deep schism between the Web 2.0 communities that exchange ideas on a forum and the vapid glamour shots posted on Instagram and Tik Tok. I think the takeaway is "Don't trust anyone in your hobby who is making money off their social media account." Maybe this is why I like homebrewing: everyone is a bearded, chubby 35 year old nerd and there no way to make a 5 gallon carboy of bubbling alcoholic liquid into something "glamourous"
- dpeck 5y ago| "Don't trust anyone in your hobby who is making money off their social media account." That is a remarkably accurate, but sad observation. There’s always been folks trying to hustle in various hobbies and interest groups, but these days they seem to take up all the oxygen in a space. The glossy image/clip video nature of things seem unavoidable and make many people with humbler aspirations more reluctant to share their works, thoughts, and perspectives if they aren’t able to be turned into the visual equivalent of a sound bite.
- ioseph 5y agoI feel the same way about woodwork, sure there's gimmicky creators but the reality of the hobby is nobody is getting rich or famous, selling pieces will barely cover material costs and having the fanciest gear won't necessarily give you a better finished piece. Although epoxy river tables make me cringe everytime I see one...
- JKCalhoun 5y ago> Although epoxy river tables make me cringe everytime I see one... More-so even than walnut-stained construction-grade plywood gaming tables? ;-) Hey, I shouldn't poke fun, you got to start somewhere.
- krapp 5y agoI'd recommend this video essay by Rowan Ellis on cottagecore and the LGBT community, and some of the more problematic aspects of the community[0]. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5odKiL7jRW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5odKiL7jRW0
- wonderwonder 5y agoIts the result of complete burnout of a large portion of society. So many people feel they work too much and dream of just getting away to something simpler. I think its a reflection of so much going wrong currently with society and the way we live in general. But I'm just some guy on the internet; I am probably projecting :) Edit: I often think about buying a cheap old isolated house on a couple acres in Italy, fixing it up and just putting the world at arms length. Kids and wife make it impractical so I will continue to trudge :)
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago> So many people feel they work too much and dream of just getting away to something simpler. I agree that this the popular sentiment, but I think work is a smaller part of it than we like to think. I think people are simply overwhelmed with the always-on, always-connected lifestyles that fill our every waking moment with outrage-bait headlines and more entertainment media than we could possibly ever consume. Anyone with a phone is always seconds away from piping stress and bad news and drama and conflict and ragebait straight into their eyes for hours at a time. And many do! Wage stagnation is one thing, but I think the actual amount of work we’re doing gets less and less each decade. When I was young I remember my parents making fun of me for working “bankers’ hours” because my job was 9-6. For them, 10-12 hour days were the norm. Before that, my grandfathers on both sides had to work two full-time jobs simultaneously at different points to support their families. Before that, my great-grandparents started with a homestead where every day was filled with hard labor just to survive when winter rolled around. Cottagecore aesthetic encapsulates a romanticized version of the laborious homesteading lifestyle but in a way that assumes all of the modern amenities and none of the labor. It sells because most people are so far removed from the idea of how much labor it takes to survive and be self-sufficient that the idea seems downright romantic. The notion that things would be easier if we simply rolled back the clock to simpler times is demonstrably not true, but the idea of “born in the wrong era” is a common result of romanticizing the past.
- wonderwonder 5y ago"I think people are simply overwhelmed with the always-on, always-connected lifestyles that fill our every waking moment with outrage-bait headlines and more entertainment media than we could possibly ever consume" I completely agree with you. I think the worst thing that happened to modern societal culture was the invention of the pay per click model. Everything changed at that moment; politics, consumerism, even they way we form opinions and gather information. All for the worse.
- dweez 5y ago"The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race" but make it instagramable
- davidw 5y agoThis is, in reality, probably less 'green' than living in a city. Multi-family homes tend to require less energy to heat and cool, because you share walls. You can also walk to many things, bike, or take transit. My bet is that most of the people living in these rural places aren't so into the 'rural lifestyle' that they don't own a couple of cars that they use for ... pretty much everything in life.
- asdff 5y agoOne of the worst things we did in the past century is paint the idea of an apartment high rise full of decent sized family apartments overlooking a green shady courtyard as some communist evil, to be actively outlawed. We haven't gotten past that sentiment towards apartment living to this day. Even what we do build in terms of apartments is only really studios or 1 or 2 bedroom units. If you want to have a family, there's nothing like that on the market like there is in other countries with dense family housing.
- ramesh31 5y ago>One of the worst things we did in the past century is paint the idea of an apartment high rise full of decent sized family apartments overlooking a green shady courtyard as some communist evil, to be actively outlawed. How many large apartment blocs have you lived in? It's not a very enjoyable way to live, particularly with a family. People want houses, garages, yards, and cars. Don't try to paint the selfish reality of human nature as being corrupted by some propagandistic force against collectivism.
- jchanimal 5y agoHow many are constructed to be desirable? Would a nice apartment complex be legal in most jurisdictions? Luckily, the First Nations in Vancouver don't have to worry about NIMBYs, so they can show us a good example: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-senakw-in-vancouver-the-squamish-nation-shapes-a-sustainable-village/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-senakw-in-van...
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoMy grandparents and great grandparents all lived on 4+ acre properties in rural Louisiana. Not quite cottages, but a similar concept. They had 1100 - 1300sq foot homes but lived along the river and you could get to all of their houses without ever leaving River Road. They lived about 1 hour from the nearest city and were about halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and had a gigantic community social group. They knew everyone in town and my folks knew everyone in their town through them. Hell, I know a lot of people in their hometown through them. My parents own a 1600 sq foot house but live on a quarter acre lot and my dad has always regretted not purchasing an additional lot back when he purchased the land to build their house. They live in a suburb of New Orleans. They knew the neighbors and some of the people in the community who were from their hometowns. I live in a 2400 sq foot house on a 1/5th of an acre lot and I am within a short drive from all the amenities of city life near Dallas. Can't say I know a whole lot of my neighbors. Everyone keeps to themselves. Any time before second day shipping, if you had asked me if I wanted to live out on the land like my grandparents, I'd have looked at you like you had 3 heads. Now though? I'd take it in a heartbeat. They had a garden that was over an acre. Trees filled with figs and oranges and pecans. A trellis built with railroad ties that was covered with grapes and blackberries and chayote depending on the time of the year. They always had enough root vegetables, cabbage, etc. to last through the winter months. No HOA to worry about, no zoning ordinances to mess with, you just live your life on your property.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoMost of the people on this site have plenty of resources to buy into a lifestyle like the one you are describing. But for some reason they don't. To me, it seems likely that there are some serious drawbacks to that lifestyle that you're leaving our, which if further probed would change the equation.
- codezero 5y agoIf I were to guess, it's the choice of community HNers want to engage with on a regular basis. It's not other people who live in the country, it's other nerds who live in the country, which once you leave a city starts to have very low density!
- wly_cdgr 5y agoThis was 2+ years out of date when it was published a year ago
- wly_cdgr 5y agoThis was 2+ years out of date when it was published a year ago, nobody cares about cottagecore anymore
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- qualudeheart 5y agoIf people are fixed and not transferred, people will not think of outside things. Not thinking of outside things, the people will turn cottage inhabitants. Cottagecore will succeed, and the country will be rich. Cottagecore succeeding, and the country being rich, the army will be strong.
- theonlybutlet 5y agoGrandmacore seems a bit NSFW
- FearNotDaniel 5y agoThis form of lifestyle pornography is not remotely new, just moved online like everything else. For decades the UK has had a successful newsstand magazine, "Country Living", which panders to the rural fantasies of bourgeois urban/surburbanites. Not to be confused with its counterpart "Country Life", which is published for the real village-dwellers and leans more towards aristocratic interests.