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'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

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Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#21

Post by zhynn »

redis_mlc wrote: post #4

I 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…

My focus is on "lazy gardening" -- or how much can I get nature to automate things. How much can I use waste biomass as a resource. Etc. I end up with a lot of failures, but the successes are really satisfying. The main challenge is that the feedback loop is ~1yr which means that it's not a hobby for the impatient. :)

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#22

Post by newaccount2021 »

tantalor wrote: post #16

Really interesting twitter thread by @SarahTaber_bww breaking this down from yesterday: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1443225915073437698.html

not really interesting - subliterate drivel/anger from someone who can't seem to handle the idea of people who are different than themselves

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#23

Post by hirundo »

aussiegreenie wrote: post #3

Living 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.

In the year 1975 I was told the same thing about the year 2000.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#24

Post by zhynn »

madaxe_again wrote: post #18
redis_mlc wrote: post #4

I 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…

Eh, you can do it the hard way, or the fantastically lazy way. We just grow tangles - basic trellis of offcut branches, and then seed with a variety of complementary species, a few sacrificial pest magnets, and a few pest repellers. Irrigation is all automated drip, no feed - river (lovely and clean - there’s very little upstream of us, no industry) floods our garden each winter, does the job nicely. What grows, grow…

I like your description of "pest magnets", I have been referring to them as plant tanks. My overgrown raspberries tank the japanese beetles for the blueberries. Plus the yield of the raspberries isn't significantly dented by the japanese beetles.

My favorite piece of equipment is my wood chipper: I can turn all of the delivery boxes into mulch. And yard waste. And... basically any other biomass that will turn to dirt in 6-12 months.

We are not off-grid (dude, that's so much work). But I build most of my projects out of found materials (raised beds out of old fencing, etc). I tried my hand at making a basket out of grape vine, but grape vines are really "shreddy" and the basket is no fun to use. I was going to try coppicing some willow next -- baskets are really useful.

It's a fun hobby, but I am lazy. And I still end up with too much produce (though I have a lot of space, so that makes it easier).

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#26

Post by pdabbadabba »

0des wrote: post #7

What 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?

I don't consider myself an authority on this, but I take it to be a gentle bit of comedic irony, used to describe aesthetics that are generally the opposite what people associate with "hardcore," the best known earlier use of the suffix. Compare hardcore with, for example, prairiecore, cottagecore, dadcore, nerdcore.

All of these terms describe an aesthetic that references the stereotyped essence of a way of life. But these new uses reference a way of life typically stereotyped to be approximately the opposite of "hardcore."

All of them put a little smile on my face, but prairiecore is my favorite: https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Prairiecore

Edit: Language is fun. There are eight replies to the parent comment so far, and almost as many interpretations of "core," with different connotations. We're all sitting here understanding the word "cottagecore" perfectly well, but having subtlety--yet importantly--different subjective experiences while doing so.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#27

Post by jtsiskin »

aussiegreenie wrote: post #3

Living 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.

Why? Wouldn’t centralized larger farms be more efficient?

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#28

Post by leokennis »

mymythisisthis wrote: post #6

Marie 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-mar...

I think this is not a lot different than Bezos types visiting Burning Man on a VIP package.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#29

Post by dageshi »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #15
tibbydudeza wrote: post #8

Dealing 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.

Same, if I were to move I'd go for something modern. That said, it's an idealized lifestyle, everyone's guilty of some of that - "I'd love to live in a van" but where do you shit? "I'd love to become a digital nomad and live in a cheap 5-star resort" but where do you keep your stuff? What about family and friends? "I'd love to retire to a cabin in the woods" but what about all the amenities you're used to, like elect…

With DN'ing most just get rid of the majority of their stuff before they go. That one really isn't that difficult.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#30

Post by JohnWhigham »

leokennis wrote: post #28
mymythisisthis wrote: post #6

Marie 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-mar...

I think this is not a lot different than Bezos types visiting Burning Man on a VIP package.

Yup, the time-honored tradition of the rich LARPing as the commoner is as alive as ever.
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