Promised by who? I grew up in frutiger aero's peak and it definitely seemed like companies showing off what they could do with computer graphics, not any sort of promise
@@cohenkarnell7799Truth is, no one actually believed we'd have a world full of fish tanks and neon lights. But those Fish tanks and neon lights, as children, gave us wonder and hope for a better world at a young age. Yeah, no one promised it, but the idea of what could be was still put in our heads
@@cohenkarnell7799it was more of the distinct, optimistic nature-meets-technology aspect. It wasn’t verbally promised but boy did they lead us to believe technology would advance the lives we already have, and not consume them.
@@blackcaduto2768 Not only that, but there was clear push for environmentalism at the time, which is absolutely part of why Frutiger Aero was widespread, and why people associate the two. Like someone pointed out somewhere else, it was often used for greenwashing by corporations.
@@cohenkarnell7799 I think it's sort of 'What could've been' and in a lot of instances, true, it might seem too perfect of a world but as a kid that grew up with these; hopeful imagery of the future, it was what the youth were expecting the future will be
probably the best aesthetic name possible. frutiger aero not only sounds like exactly what it is but it's also just such a satisfying combination of sounds...............
One thing I haven't heard people mention a lot is that the name Frutiger Aero is very aviation-coded. The font Frutiger was commissioned in 1970 for Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport and it has since been strongly associated with airports, a futuristic cultural association which I think plays into why it became so common in the futuristic advertising material that we now call Frutiger Aero. The Aero component obviously comes from the Windows Aero UI theme, which also has that floaty and airy vibe. I remember seeing a lot of Frutiger Aero-esque advertising and general design in airports when I was a kid (in the early 2010s).
something i notice about a lot of frutiger aero stuff that might contribute to an unsettling feeling is they often depict a very advanced reality that looks almost alien, but with little to no people pictured in the scene. so it's perfect, but otherworldly and deserted, which probably makes it feel more like it belongs in the backrooms than it fits a hopeful image of the future
yeah this is exactly what it feels like to me… some of the older more 2000’s looking stuff that feels less polished has less of this effect on me but the “newer” it looks it reeeally invokes that weird feeling
That Windows XP "on" sound produced an absolutely Pavlovian response and suddenly I was back at my first ever laptop that my grandparents bought me as a high school graduation present in 2004.
On a more serious note, I love your take on why this aesthetic is popular again. It’s comforting to know so many of us have a shared fondness for the 2000s and the aesthetics associated with it. Growing up in the early 2000s things really did feel more hopeful and optimistic. We felt like we were gonna solve world problems. I personally wanted to be a part of the solution to the energy crisis. The bright green futuristic utopia inspired that too in the background. But as you said, things do feel bleak. There’s something oddly “liminal” about frutiger aero. It evokes that feeling of nostalgia with a bittersweet after taste because we know how things ended up 20 years later. BUT!! We can’t lose hope
I think the recent surge in the popularity of "solarpunk" is related to the aesthetic optimism of Frutiger Aero, and is a bit of 'collective radical optimism' that might lead to something good. I wanna be hopeful about this. We're not going to push back against the problems of today if we lose hope for a better future.
I feel you about the optimism... As a kid in the late 2000s who loved this kinda stuff (esp bc i also loved turtles, dolphins, and the ocean) & had that one aquarium lamp (& loved it to DEATH) I remember as a kid I was planning to become a scientist to invent advanced prosthetics for my dad whose hands are partially paralyzed. I also really struggle w/ the fact that I never got to properly say goodbye to those brighter, hopeful times & so feel really drawn to frutiger aero and liminal spaces and that kinda stuff
@@warmachine5835 I just yesterday decided to put a community garden in my yard. We might not be able to change the whole world, but enough of us doing small actions adds up over time, y'know?
"frutiger aero represents hope" is so real tho. Everytime I think about frutiger aero and it's subcategories/similar aesthetics I think of a world I all but wish I could live in, where humanity works together for a future with technology and nature co-exsisting peacefully. Its thoughts like that which genuinely keep me alive, the glimmer of hope that things might work out.
yeah I think that’s what corporations who used the aesthetic wanted people to think they were like. it’s a very nice aesthetic and much better than the soulless flat minimalist shit we get now but back then I felt the same way about it, it represented corporate consumption to me. it feels so cynical to miss an older form of corporate pandering because the new form is infinitely worse in every way and hides even worse skeletons in its closet
No, it is not. It represents the times where corporation rule was seen as natural, normal and completely justified. Times where labour unions were in demise, where left was in complete despair, where neoliberalism was THE ideology of the world. Left started to rebirth itself in the middle of 2010s, when this aesthetic was dumped in favor of much more humanistic flat design.
@L4mpy I have the same feeling about it too it does brings hope and also a great feeling of nostalgia and euphoria I think the closest we got for this robbed future is noticeable on a couple of cities like Dubai and also the cityscapes of Singapore , this Future probably might be closer than we think
I'm reminded of the rise of Vaporwave from 2011 to 2016, which part of it involves the romanizations of the aesthetics of consumer and business culture of the 90s. This reminds me of that but for a more recent timeframe that for many folks is what their childhood and teenagerhood looked like.
I used to be heavily creeped out by the aqua elements in frutiger aero when I was younger and I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because of the uncanny-ness, the kind of “empty” feeling you get from looking at some of these pictures. Maybe the lack of human traces, the feeling that it’s almost a little bit too perfect. And in some cases the ocean is just scary overall, you never know what you’ll find in there
This is a huge reason why I’ve not liked the style, bc as a kid and teen, I thought it felt very empty and plastic. I just got a very liminal vibe from the imagery and it still kinda puts me off of it haha.
I personally dislike the water in frutiger aero because it's usually so clear--like it's indistinguishable from air, or glass. It doesn't act like actual water. Fish underwater in this aesthetic don't disappear into the gloom; they're just as vibrant in the foreground as the background. They look like they're flying, or suspended in plexiglass. They're not *alive.*
I know right I thought I was the only one who felt like that, time sure does Flies I really do appreciate the aesthetic tho it gives me a sense of euphoria and nostalgia
I'd love to see you cover Blingeecore, another mid 2000s aesthetic I witnessed while it was happening in addition to this. I was a teen and young adult 1999-2007 and those poorly made sparkle gifs still haunt me.
Noooo it was so bad 😂 loading up someone's MySpace (or their Gaia online profile if you were on that site) and it's just a nightmare of clashing pixelated images constantly flashing.
There’s a big revival/archival effort of blingees and those kind of internet icons/gifs on tumblr I’ve been seeing recently in the past few years! Some of the thing we would make sparkle were wild lmao but it’s fun to look back on
The Blingeecore images look like the kind of images that came straight out of a cover of a school notebook. The sparkly filters with anime characters or a Bratz characters feels rather strange.
I was teen/YA from 2007 to 2014 and I remember seeing Blingeecore all the way up to 2012, which is what I recall as it’s true fall from grace. It was such an iconic 2000s aesthetic and it does feel a bit forgotten outside of being a bit of a meme now. Blingeecore MySpace really was something, damn.
Hi there! 💚 I'm a longtime admin for CARI, and Frutiger Aero specifically was an aesthetic I helped curate quite a bit of content for, so I was quite surprised to see you make a video on this after following you for quite some time now! I feel a pretty personal connection to this aesthetic so I was happy to see how much research you put into the subject. I do feel a need to mention, however, that Frutiger Aero was not quite as pure and devoid of cynicism as it may seem - a lot of major corporations hid behind the aesthetic in an attempt to greenwash themselves while continuing to do harm to the environment. I believe that BP is the most notorious example of this (they leaned very deeply into FA and tried to present a "clean" image even while devastating oil spills were destroying the ocean), though there are plenty of other examples as well. I think this aspect of FA needs to be spoken about more often - not that I mean to say that your video is incorrect or that people are wrong for enjoying the aesthetic, not at all! I love FA a lot, but it's important for us to realize these things and hold corporations accountable for their actions.
Damn, I remember the corporate greenwashing. It felt so cynical even then, but now nobody even cares enough to virtue signal while not actually doing anything.
This is a part of Frutiger Aero I'd love to hear more of, people also don't mention we had 9/11, hurricane Katrina and the recession in the 00s, things were never as optimistic as corporate propaganda make it out to be.
As much as I personally don't want people to like FA at all. I am so happy even you recognise the forced human veil that hid behind the aesthetic! I never thought of the term Greenwashing so I will be using that in future!
For sure. If you grew up during the 2000s/early 2010s it can be easy to look back at those times and think they were pure and simple, but that's of course only if you were a child who grew up in a well off family. The world as a whole was not by any means like that at the time for sure; 9/11, wars, Great Recession, and several other political events/natural disasters spring to mind. I also doubt thart people *genuinely* believed the world would become a Frutiger Aero/Eco utopia, it's logically impossible.
I remember someone commented that it seemed like they rushed the video to meet a sponsorship deadline but that take felt off to me, even at the time. This upload kinda confirms my suspicion that Izzyzzz just uploaded the wrong version earlier by mistake.
"Yesterday I had just started a new painting of my dog that passed recently, deciding to make it in a frutiger aero style without even realizing what it was because I wanted to envoke the feeling of calm and serenity. What a funny coincidence :)" was my comment on the original video, but now that I've rewatched it I realize how deeply the style connects to what I want to convey. I want to remember my boy in almost a utopia, running through a lush field under a bright blue sky, where nothing could hurt him. I initially thought the similarities were just funny coincidences, but now I feel like I started painting and this video came out so close together for a reason. It's comforting knowing others have similar feelings, even if in different forms
crazy that I'm already old enough to have my childhood be an aesthetic for me it always just our family windows 7 (that died only a few years ago) and dentist offices, but what a throwback for that floral stuff being all over things for kids lol
I think there is something strangely sinister about it because of the juxtaposition of this light bubbly style and the large all consuming corporations that utilised it. Its like looking at a picture of lush green grass and trees while knowing just out of frame is a massive coal based power plant belching out waste.
YES this is how i've always felt about this too! it's a beautiful style to look back on but i remember distinctly hating seeing it everywhere as a kid because it always screamed "corporate" to me. at the same time i think it's cool that people now are taking it back and putting their own spin on the aesthetic.
I find it to be an extremely sobering, empty and corporate aesthetic, the same companies that sold us products laced with this vain optimism where tech and nature were allowed to exist and flourish within each other were the same ones producing mountains and mountains of e-waste that were sure to end in a landfill or the ocean the second they were out of their shinny (and wasteful) packaging. We've known that the planet was fucked beyond repair for decades now and those same companies did nothing but keep finding more destructive ways to profit, in a way this isn't different from the current green washing companies are doing just less transparent on the whole not giving a shit part.
@@justaemptymall bro youre just like what that "Twitter is the only place where people misinterpret perfectly articulated sentences" pic is talking about. thats a completely different sentence.
it is. companies are starting to bring back skeuomorphism designs like the upcoming ios 18 and the iphones 15 wallpaper even soap brands and much more are starting to use more skeuomorphism in there logos frutiger aero will come back this yr trust me it will especially 2025 nintendo is gonna drop a new console that looks a bit like the 3ds in 2025 the future we worked for is coming back even 80s/90s designs are coming back to 2024
38 Year old Graphic designer here. I absolutely loved using some of this man's fonts for projects a few years ago. I'm a fashion illustration kid so yeah. A time. A vibe.
this brings so much joy to me. life was ultra harsh for last 15 years and i dont even want to start describing it, but now i am slowly recovering. and seeing this aesthetic makes me feel so nice, so cozy, hopeful. like i am a student again, listening to vocaloids while studying to get ready to pass exams in university. this is literally what my soul asks for right now
is anyone else fond of the "Curly Girly" aesthetic? its this specific aesthetic from the 2000-2008s, super girly and flowery, often using the Curlz MT font from Microsoft. it was specifically aimed for teens/tweens. it's often associated with the Groovival aesthetic! it focused mainly on bright pink, purple, yellow and light green colors. some examples that come to mind are the Polly Pocket dolls, the old Barbie website from 2008 and the brands Club Libby Lu, Bang on the door, etc! I hope someone else remembers this aesthetic lol it was everywhere when I was little and I love looking at it now as an adult
Man that end part... Made me genuinely a bit emotional. Both because of nostalgia but also like you said, the hopeful optimism of technology back in the 2000s.
I love Frutiger aero, but your video dug up a horrible memory that I had buried deep in there that just filled me with defeat lol. Once I worked at a vet hospital as an IT tech. It had three full buildings of at least 5 floors, research labs, x ray machines, all kinds of specific tools for farm animals AND was attached to a university. Long story short, the wrong e-mail was sent out to the entire staff list about a windows update and THE ENTIRE HOSPITAL WIPED THEIR COMPUTERS COMPLETELY BLANK. Our whole department of like 15 people were slammed for three straight days, walking around the hospital re-installing Windows XP on every single freaking computer because even though this happened in like 2013, all the special vet tech machines were old AF and their software only ran on XP. People were fighting over whose computer should be re-installed first, higher ups were pulling strings to get theirs done, and once XP was re-installed we had to re-install all the software and WORST OF ALL: PRINTER DRIVERS. They took HOOOOUUUURRRRS. It was horrible. I was enjoying your video up until you played that windows XP login sound and suddenly I was back to sitting in front of those damn computers, filled with despair lmaooo
I must add that not even a year later Microsoft discontinued windows XP and we had to wipe + reinstall windows vista on the SAME COMPUTERS ANYWAYS!!! good times
This is almost as bad as when my teacher told us about a time where their computer lab at library was flooded and as you know, way back then computers used punch cards and well, they all got destroyed. So the had to remake every punchcard.
as a millennial whose childhood primarily took place in the 90s and early 2000s, seeing the yooths rediscover and archive the aesthetic of my formative years is kind of wonderful. i think it's lovely that, instead of falling into further despair, we're rekindling the hope of a previous era. also, not to be "old man yells at cloud" but i have often lamented the loss of the more tactile aspects of technology--never thought i'd be nostalgic for a button or a switch lmao--but it makes me wonder if newer tech might bring back some of those satisfying embellishments that were replaced by the more streamlined aesthetic of touch screens and sensors.
i used to be on photoshop graphics design forums creating stuff with frutiger aesthetics. you know the kinds with kingdom hearts and final fantasy with somber quotes surrounded by premade brushes and swirls. sooo nostalgic.
Ahhhh this was me too! I used to have a anime graphics website and would make wallpapers and graphics with this style right with Photoshop! It feels wonderful to say we were contributing art to that amazing time!
Aestetics are to resresent time periods and the feelings assocuated with them, this aestetic is getting popular because the kids who grew up on windows 7 are becoming adults now, and want to feel those childhood memories again, so it might happen with the memphis whatever, because kids who grew up on it are familiar with it
i people will be nostalgic for it because it reminds them of the good things about current times but we don't know what the good things are until they are gone since nobody knows what is going to happen in the future .i like the vaporwave look because it reminds me of good music but the fruitier aero era had very bad music but i miss the video games and movies from the time but i couldn't know that these thins would become worse. back then i assumed they would get better or stay the same
i administrate the discord server and subreddit for this aesthetic, and my friend tokoni mods those along with running the frutiger aero daily twitter account. i had the pleasure of interviewing sofi about the name of the aesthetic on the server about a year ago. i love to see more coverage on it!!
even the sound effects are so comforting :') I remember logging onto school computers that looked like this. I miss when computers had square monitors and loud fans and took forever to load anything. I miss when technology felt alive, I feel like it's so taken for granted now
Omg thanks for including that bit in the end - I thought I was the only one who found this aesthetic weirdly unsettling! Less so now that I'm an adult, but as a kid I remember being really freaked out by those images because they seemed so... idk, I guess uncanny valley? I always felt unsettled about how devoid of human life they looked. You know that Ray Bradbury story There Will Come Soft Rains about that house that's in perfect working order but nobody's around to upkeep it? The perfectly-landscaped fields in Frutiger Aero pics gave me that vibe.
It's probably one of my favourite aesthetics, it's so calm and peaceful, even dream like too and yeah I think people yearn for the past more than ever because of how hopeful everything seem back then. We can only hope for things to get better for us and everyone.
We can`t lose hope but we have to take action every day. Little steps like walking instead of driving, eating less meat and milk, gardening and harvesting own food if possible, helping out living beings in need can be done by everyone.
Man, I'm a 90s baby but this video hit me with all kinds of nostalgia bombs. That Metalheart aesthetic? That shit was EVERYWHERE on gaming, anime and sports forums in the 2000s. If you were good at enough at Photoshop to make signatures with that aesthetic you were the coolest person in the entire memberbase and everyone wanted you to make stuff for them, lol. Damn now you've got my heart aching. Also it's interesting to me that the "drab and bulky" vintage Windows aesthetic has gone on to become quite warmly regarded in its own right. I definitely have a fondness for it myself. I'm very glad subsequent generations are keeping all these styles preserved in their own way. Hell I still see soap bottles at the store with the Frutiger Aero imagery on them, pretty sure I've got one in my house right now. Thanks for preserving the magic, gen z, I mean that. Thank you for this video, it did indeed help me love and appreciate the aesthetic and I'd love to see more videos like this. I do kinda wish you labelled the sources of all the images you used though!
Ahahah I did not finish watching the video yet, so idk if it was mentioned in it, but I knew EXACTLY what you meant once you brought up making forum signatures. EVERY forum had those people, and they were all making the same stuff.
As a 2000s kid, this aesthetic was definilety my favorite, just seeing everything about it made me feel extremely optimistic about the future and at the same time very safe. It's crazy to realize the youngest generation are now seeing it the same way mine used to see vaporwave or late 80s-early 90s aesthetics back when we were teenagers or just entering puberty
You nailed the reason why this aesthetic is popular now, or at least why I love it. It's pretty to look at but it also allows me to escape back to my childhood in the 2000s. Time has gone by so quickly and the world feels terrible now, along with the personal issues I deal with now as an adult. The new flat, bleak, and gray corporate aesthetic seems to reflect this collective cynicism and depression our generation is feeling. It feels good to forget about everything and let myself pretend to be a carefree kid again before I knew how corrupt the world is.
You just put what I was feeling into words. Frutiger Aero was the aesthetic of my middle and high school years, and watching everything go from glossy, vibrant, and round to flat, dull, and sharp made me so sad. Of course we should question the corporate marketing behind it, but NOW, since companies care more about minimalism we can take the aesthetic and really make it ours. Frutiger Aero and it's subgenres counter the clinical and boring corporate aesthetic we see now and we shouldn't discount that. Like how corporate Co ops things we like and ruins them, we should take this and run wild with it and make it thrive.
@@growingsageexactly! i find frutiger aero cringe, but in a good way. that might sound a little confusing, but it's just so silly and so outdated that i love it! it really reminds me of my childhood.
If I had to guess at the prevelance of fish in the aesthetic, maybe it's because a real fish tank is a physical object doing that "bringing the outdoors to the indoors" thing
The thing that I love about frutiger aero and specially frutiger eco is the same core ideas i love about solarpunk: We NEED to believe that change is possible, we desperately need to be able to imagine a better future. The main difference between those two aesthetics is that frutiger aero is inevitably looked at from a nostalgic perspective, creating a complacent zone of self-pity. I understand that it makes us feel good, but thats at a price. The price of looking at the past is turning your back to the future.
One thing i love about frutiger aero and other design aesthetics of the early 2000s like global village coffee house isnjust how worldly it all felt. Its reminiscent of the feeling of opening a textbook or watching a documentary in elementary school and realizing that the world is much bigger than the life you have known. Idk if its just because we have so much more access to everyone else through social media that we know about other peoples' lives more than ever that it just doesnt feel novel anymore. Its weird that despite having more access to each other, we feel more disconnected than ever and maybe thats why this aesthetic has appealed to more people now.
I really wish we could try this again. I don't like how "puffy" it was, and how often it had just random stuff, but I absolutely love love love a UI that has "real" glass" or matte glass, or plastics. With the much higher resolution we have today, I feel like we could take a much better shot at using realistic materials in UI design.
We, as in the public could try. Now that corporate entities are more focused on being as minimalist and clinical (read: boring), maybe we could d something like that.
I loove frutiger aero sooo much and I'm so happy it's becoming more popular 💕💕 One other nostalgic aesthetic I've also come to love lately is "Global villge coffeehouse". Would love to see a video about that aesthetic too 💕
I was in elementary school in the early 2000's (im almost 27) and the best way to describe the feeling of it is summer time back then, we were all forced to play outside but at the same time we played inside on our computers with new technology like gameboys/DS's. Playing inside and outside I loved equally as much. And the aesthetic perfectly encapsulates that with how we mixed the rise of technology and the appreciation of nature, going to the pool, beach etc. Everything was so new and bright back then and it captures it so well.
This aesthetic always reminds me of my grandpas old pc and how he used to let me watch him play solitaire. I miss him very much, it was nice to remember him like this
i heart frutiger aero🌊🌱🌍🐟🐬 another little subgenre i always thought was really cool as a kid and just now learned the name is "bright tertiaries".. it's like totally what i thought adulthood would look like as a little kid
This is by far my most favorite episode by Izzzyzzz, especially that last bit. I find comfort in the aesthetic because yeah! It brings me back to a time where I would sign into RuneScape and escape from this world. So it brings back those feelings. The statements about the world we live in today are so spot on.
I'm sort of 50/50 on Frutiger Aero. On the one hand, it is quite nostalgic to look at, especially since this is an aesthetic I grew up on. But at the same time, I've always hated it, even back then as a child. I'm more so ambivalent to it now, but it does bring back this gross feeling of "fakeness", you know? I suppose you could make the same argument about Y2K, an aesthetic that I love, but idk, Aero is just so in your face about how perfect it is, and I've always had a distain for it. Frutiger Metro on the other hand, that's an aesthetic I can get down with, very funky I love it. It was also nice to discover other sub-aesthetics mentioned in this video, Metal Heart rocks so hard.
While I don't miss a lot of the aesthetic, what I do miss is the Aero, physical aspect of UI. I love the glass, frosted glass, plastic in the UI look. I wish we could take another crack at that. We have better processors, we have higher resolution screens. We could do real-time reflections, light refractions to really make it look like stuff is PHYSICAL in our computers. I don't want the neon, and I don't miss the bobbly plastic, but I truly miss trying to make digital feels more digital and 3D.
I have hella deep memories of some kind of art program from like 05 where you created pictures that looked exactly like 16:46. every brush was just super glossy stamps of bubbles, starfish, pebbles and everything else frutiger aero I spent hours making my lil masterpieces on there lmao
love the video. took me back to when i would spend the night at my grandma’s. she would start a crime drama series and crochet or knit and i would play on the clunky computer in her craft room with my little sister. sometimes she’d even make cookies and even make extra so we could bring some home to our parents. those were the good days.
This gave me an idea for a video game; an open world survival crafter set in a Frutiger Aero-like world with rolling hills, glossy tech building options, and lots of happy wildlife to tame as pets; but as the player ventures into the recesses of the map they uncover underground areas that are like corrupted code, and part of winning the game is cleansing the viruses and bugs from the world.
I've been obsessed with the Frutiger Aero resurgence for months now and was ECSTATIC to see this video pop up on my TH-cam recommended. I had been hungering for a video essay for this topic and you did NOT disappoint 🙏
To be honest, I am actually watching this on my Windows 7 Laptop and even though its pretty old and outdated (14 years old) I still want to use t because of the whole Frutiger Aero aesthetic and I'd rather keep using it with all the slow downloads and stuff instead of buying a new laptop or changing it to a Macbook, I just cant get myself to do it. Also I loved this video and was hoping someone would do a vid on it!! Love your videos and commentary!🥰🥰
it’s crazy seeing so many people love this aesthetic as someone who always assumed the discomfort was universal- but also so cool to see everyone’s perspectives! i had no idea i was in the minority here. the fish floating around used to give me nightmares as a kid for some reason.
i saw a frutiger aero playlist yesterday and was like "oh shit that exists!" a day later and you are up to educate me on why it popped up in the first place a fun aesthetic to get lost in and imagine a different world, aside from the nostalgic value
Beautiful analysis Izzy, really enjoyed this video and made me see what’s special about Frutiger Aero having spent the last 10-15 years thinking it was garish and artificial
You hit the nail on the head with the resurgence reason. The reason I love your channel so much is it brings me back to the days of 2007 DeviantART where life was just better, my Frutiger Izzo if you will
As a man that uses most stuff in a black and white aesthetic this video made me cry. The frutiger aero style is a window to when i wasn't so cynical, bitter and old. I cannot explain it but the nostalgia is hitting hard in this tiring times. I was happy and didn't knew it, a very beautiful memory izzy, thank you.
I know right it's like a promised future that was taken way all the colors and a Sense of life and mother nature it brought a sense of euphoria and nostalgia to me as well infact I liked the aesthetic so much right now that I literally just customize my phone's Xmb menu with the wallpapers and icon and it feels real now but maybe soon we might be closer to this Future than we known
Wow, the conclusion of this video was so well said. Thanks for taking such an interesting and nuanced look at frutiger aero and aesthetics as a whole, it really opened my eyes even more to how much I love this design trend. Also, I desperately want my computer to look like windows vista again PLZ I WANNA GO BACK
I remember booting up our windows XP computer, we still have it, but I was super young so I would run to my mom and ask for the password every time I turned the thing on. She eventually made me my own profile so I could watch my VHS tapes of zaboomafoo without bugging her. 😂
I COMPLETELY FORGOT THIS STYLE HAD A NAME!! i always tried to explain it as the aesthetic that makes the back of your throat cold from the early 2000s!! Thank you for the video deep diving it!!
Hi! Just wanted to say you’re quite literally my favourite TH-camr. Your videos are on topics I find super interesting and they’re always so in depth, well-structured, funny, and it’s clear you’ve done heaps of research with all the examples you have to back up the points you make. As a fellow Kiwi, it’s cool to finally see all these trends etc from the late ‘90s/early 2000s portrayed in a more relatable way, i.e. watching cool stuff from afar on our slow ass internet but never really experiencing it fully (or at the same time as everyone else) because little old Aotearoa is so far away from the rest of the world! It’s also awesome to see a fellow Kiwi do so well and put out content of this calibre. You do us proud 👍 Frutiger Aero will forever remind me of being taken to work with my mum over the school holidays because we couldn’t afford a babysitter. She’d let me play Fish Tycoon, Neopets, Petz 5 and The Sims on one of the work computers all day. She’s said she feels guilty about not engaging with me but it’s legitimately one of my fondest childhood memories lol Anyway, I hope you’re doing well. You’re awesome 💖💖
ur channel embodies us being like "hey what is/happened to ___?" getting lost in a rabbit hole for hrs then finding someone who also finds the 💚 in that random topic. (i was also v high watching the original vid, saw it all in my brain and felt it deeply hahaha)
All this fish imagery reminds me of how much I loved Endless Ocean on the Wii, and they just announced the other day they're making a new one for the switch. I'm so excited
Izzy, I enjoy your videos. Most videos I watch very late, after many beers, and enjoy that way. But I have a professional interest in the topic of this video. So on this occasion, I have taken the time to watch this sensibly and seriously and have taken some notes. Thanks so much for your content!
I had no idea this had a name! I remember the transition over to this aesthetic and low key hated it at first. But it really is nostalgic to look at these images with that small pang of knowing that tech and nature harmony wont happen in my lifetime. Thank you for this neat nostalgia trip :)
i think one of my favorite aesthetics is olderbrothercore. i didnt even grow up in the 2000s (was more like 2010s) but i did have an older brother and all the images relating to that remind me of what it was like being in his room and watching him play minecraft or something else that was interesting to me... 2012 was my prime (i was 4) also!! ive never heard of cybercore and metalheart before but i am absolutely OBSESSED with it, it has something so unique and beautiful to it. this was a great video! keep up with the great work :D
There is one game that perfectly captures the feeling I get from frutiger aero aestethic and that's Steins Gate. The VN that the popular anime was based off. I can't speak on how the aesthetics of that game relate to the one being discussed (outside of the game being released in 2009) but the music is what I think makes me feel this way. OST for Steins Gate was made by Takeshi Abo whose music is often included in those frutiger aero playlists (specifically "Lease").
Don't forget Windows XP Media Center Edition's "Royale" theme, which was essentially a precursor to Windows Aero. It sorta looked like a mix of Luna and Aero. Royale was my go-to theme as a teen ever since I found it, and I was giddy when I realized that Windows Vista's default theme was essentially an upgraded Royale.
This aesthetic is so calm and soothing. Windows Vista was the 2nd operating system I was introduced to, and I feel like I’m the only one who actually liked it for what it was. The boot-up sound was iconic, and it takes me back to Spring/Summer ‘07 😭
i grew up in this era, i remember the transition from windows xp to vista then to 7. My first handheld was a pink DS lite that i cleaned up recently and she still works! I had an ipod 4th gen and let me just say, a lot of the UI from back then was so straight forward. When things started to flatten and simplify, things got incredibly confusing to visually process. I still open up things like google calendar when i'm trying to open maps on my phone. Actually the google pixel phones are so hard to understand how to use because many of its functions have you making vague swipes at the screen. I miss when everything had a button or scroll or whatever, and i miss when i didn't confuse apps with one another.
10:35 i have this exact fish lamp. It hasn’t been used in years, but i remember how the pictures of fish would move across the background. It made a very light but still noticable machine noise so it wasn’t really my favorite nightlight, but it’s still cool. Crazy to see it in a video
I used to be a moderator for the aesthetics wikis official discord server, super cool to see my old buddies writing be the inspiration for one of these videos!! (: It’s an incredible experience getting to see something you spent so much time next to be talked about by one of your favorite TH-camrs :3
As someone who was a child of the 2000s this was so fun to look around google images 😁 I've got the rotating fish tank lamp, literally the few things my dad left when he left😅
Idk what to call my favorite aesthetic. It's like a mix of gyaru accessories, late 2000 tamagotchis, hyper customized devices such as 3ds with perfect aesthetics, the vibe and gameplay of style savvy, and generally like pink tinted 2000 girly collectables? Like idk how to explain it. Because alone I would not say monster high or lala loopies are part of the aesthetic. But I would say they can if they're used in a way to accessories a space that gives it that vibe?! Example, rements and bedazzled flip phones with vintage gachapon food charms. WHAT IS THIS AESTHETIC?
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You are definitely right the zipper was neat. Lol Your room has prison cell vibes.😅
I'd love to get some cool shirtz but the shipping costs are killing me :(
a sponsor other than casetify?
@@haz0816 pretty sure casetify was in hot water right after the last time they sponsored her
these colors really gives off the energy of like "the last days of school before summer"
Mario Sunshine vibes.
Lol like sports day at school,
Capri sun's, trips to the beach or zoo during summer or backyard pool parties
Totally get what you mean
@ville__ i'm gonna die if i don't sub to you? rip me
I felt that too, but I got "The last days of school before summer but you're a senior and these are your last days of school forever."
@ville__ dude fr screw u
I once heard Frutiger Aero described as "the future we were promised", and that really stuck with me.
Promised by who? I grew up in frutiger aero's peak and it definitely seemed like companies showing off what they could do with computer graphics, not any sort of promise
@@cohenkarnell7799Truth is, no one actually believed we'd have a world full of fish tanks and neon lights. But those Fish tanks and neon lights, as children, gave us wonder and hope for a better world at a young age. Yeah, no one promised it, but the idea of what could be was still put in our heads
@@cohenkarnell7799it was more of the distinct, optimistic nature-meets-technology aspect. It wasn’t verbally promised but boy did they lead us to believe technology would advance the lives we already have, and not consume them.
@@blackcaduto2768 Not only that, but there was clear push for environmentalism at the time, which is absolutely part of why Frutiger Aero was widespread, and why people associate the two. Like someone pointed out somewhere else, it was often used for greenwashing by corporations.
@@cohenkarnell7799 I think it's sort of 'What could've been' and in a lot of instances, true, it might seem too perfect of a world but as a kid that grew up with these; hopeful imagery of the future, it was what the youth were expecting the future will be
The Frutiger Aero is like an aesthetic equivalent to drinking a glass of iced water after eating a mint candy.
REFRESHING....
not at all?
All that while In ThE fUtUre
or after brushing your teeth
Specifically out of a plastic cup from a water cooler
probably the best aesthetic name possible. frutiger aero not only sounds like exactly what it is but it's also just such a satisfying combination of sounds...............
sounds like an absolutely delightful refreshing drink with a splash of fruit
It sounds like candy you'd buy in airport in a foreign country
a nice glossly sunny day with grass fields and a cold class of water🌍
One thing I haven't heard people mention a lot is that the name Frutiger Aero is very aviation-coded. The font Frutiger was commissioned in 1970 for Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport and it has since been strongly associated with airports, a futuristic cultural association which I think plays into why it became so common in the futuristic advertising material that we now call Frutiger Aero. The Aero component obviously comes from the Windows Aero UI theme, which also has that floaty and airy vibe. I remember seeing a lot of Frutiger Aero-esque advertising and general design in airports when I was a kid (in the early 2010s).
it feels better with a soft g
something i notice about a lot of frutiger aero stuff that might contribute to an unsettling feeling is they often depict a very advanced reality that looks almost alien, but with little to no people pictured in the scene. so it's perfect, but otherworldly and deserted, which probably makes it feel more like it belongs in the backrooms than it fits a hopeful image of the future
yeah this is exactly what it feels like to me… some of the older more 2000’s looking stuff that feels less polished has less of this effect on me but the “newer” it looks it reeeally invokes that weird feeling
I feel so special to be apart of the “I saw the first version” club
Meee
the purple screen
Me too LMAO😊
Real
Same
That Windows XP "on" sound produced an absolutely Pavlovian response and suddenly I was back at my first ever laptop that my grandparents bought me as a high school graduation present in 2004.
To me it sounds like some of my earliest childhood memories, lol
I’m about as old as XP though
Reminds me of getting on to play Webkinz after a hard day of school 🥹
Same lmao that sound unlocked something in me
@@vglycorpse yes 🥹🥹
the play station 2 startup sound does this to me
On a more serious note, I love your take on why this aesthetic is popular again. It’s comforting to know so many of us have a shared fondness for the 2000s and the aesthetics associated with it. Growing up in the early 2000s things really did feel more hopeful and optimistic. We felt like we were gonna solve world problems. I personally wanted to be a part of the solution to the energy crisis. The bright green futuristic utopia inspired that too in the background. But as you said, things do feel bleak. There’s something oddly “liminal” about frutiger aero. It evokes that feeling of nostalgia with a bittersweet after taste because we know how things ended up 20 years later. BUT!! We can’t lose hope
I think the recent surge in the popularity of "solarpunk" is related to the aesthetic optimism of Frutiger Aero, and is a bit of 'collective radical optimism' that might lead to something good. I wanna be hopeful about this. We're not going to push back against the problems of today if we lose hope for a better future.
it's so sad but i think you're right about how much more hopeful things felt back then...
I feel you about the optimism... As a kid in the late 2000s who loved this kinda stuff (esp bc i also loved turtles, dolphins, and the ocean) & had that one aquarium lamp (& loved it to DEATH) I remember as a kid I was planning to become a scientist to invent advanced prosthetics for my dad whose hands are partially paralyzed. I also really struggle w/ the fact that I never got to properly say goodbye to those brighter, hopeful times & so feel really drawn to frutiger aero and liminal spaces and that kinda stuff
@@warmachine5835 I just yesterday decided to put a community garden in my yard. We might not be able to change the whole world, but enough of us doing small actions adds up over time, y'know?
@@warmachine5835i was waiting for someone to point out the similarities to solarpunk!!
"frutiger aero represents hope" is so real tho. Everytime I think about frutiger aero and it's subcategories/similar aesthetics I think of a world I all but wish I could live in, where humanity works together for a future with technology and nature co-exsisting peacefully. Its thoughts like that which genuinely keep me alive, the glimmer of hope that things might work out.
yeah I think that’s what corporations who used the aesthetic wanted people to think they were like. it’s a very nice aesthetic and much better than the soulless flat minimalist shit we get now but back then I felt the same way about it, it represented corporate consumption to me. it feels so cynical to miss an older form of corporate pandering because the new form is infinitely worse in every way and hides even worse skeletons in its closet
No, it is not. It represents the times where corporation rule was seen as natural, normal and completely justified. Times where labour unions were in demise, where left was in complete despair, where neoliberalism was THE ideology of the world.
Left started to rebirth itself in the middle of 2010s, when this aesthetic was dumped in favor of much more humanistic flat design.
LOL no it's not, that's one of the most overly-pretentious pieces of bullshit I've heard in a long time
@L4mpy I have the same feeling about it too it does brings hope and also a great feeling of nostalgia and euphoria I think the closest we got for this robbed future is noticeable on a couple of cities like Dubai and also the cityscapes of Singapore , this Future probably might be closer than we think
@@zepperfox7669 Dubai is not bright future, it's horrible and idiotic project that is just against any rational use of earth resources.
I'm reminded of the rise of Vaporwave from 2011 to 2016, which part of it involves the romanizations of the aesthetics of consumer and business culture of the 90s. This reminds me of that but for a more recent timeframe that for many folks is what their childhood and teenagerhood looked like.
I used to be heavily creeped out by the aqua elements in frutiger aero when I was younger and I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because of the uncanny-ness, the kind of “empty” feeling you get from looking at some of these pictures. Maybe the lack of human traces, the feeling that it’s almost a little bit too perfect. And in some cases the ocean is just scary overall, you never know what you’ll find in there
Yes frutiger is super liminal.
The water can feel suffocating maybe
It is unsettling
This is a huge reason why I’ve not liked the style, bc as a kid and teen, I thought it felt very empty and plastic. I just got a very liminal vibe from the imagery and it still kinda puts me off of it haha.
I personally dislike the water in frutiger aero because it's usually so clear--like it's indistinguishable from air, or glass. It doesn't act like actual water. Fish underwater in this aesthetic don't disappear into the gloom; they're just as vibrant in the foreground as the background. They look like they're flying, or suspended in plexiglass. They're not *alive.*
I feel so old, having been there for Frutiger Aero’s rise, fall, and rise again.
I know right I thought I was the only one who felt like that, time sure does Flies I really do appreciate the aesthetic tho it gives me a sense of euphoria and nostalgia
shoutout to everyone who saw the other vid
lmao i have it saved for absolutely no reason
edit: she took it down 💔💔
WOOOO
Thanks❤🙏
What happened?
The movie star planet video ?
Frutiger Aero is the reason why I bought the “Fish” Softsoap. This Aesthetic truly is my fav.
i know exactly what soap you're talking about omg
I JUST DID TOO!!
I have an embarrassingly big collection of those soap bottles 😭
I'd love to see you cover Blingeecore, another mid 2000s aesthetic I witnessed while it was happening in addition to this. I was a teen and young adult 1999-2007 and those poorly made sparkle gifs still haunt me.
Noooo it was so bad 😂 loading up someone's MySpace (or their Gaia online profile if you were on that site) and it's just a nightmare of clashing pixelated images constantly flashing.
There’s a big revival/archival effort of blingees and those kind of internet icons/gifs on tumblr I’ve been seeing recently in the past few years! Some of the thing we would make sparkle were wild lmao but it’s fun to look back on
I started using a website to make blingee's again for my SpaceHey page
The Blingeecore images look like the kind of images that came straight out of a cover of a school notebook. The sparkly filters with anime characters or a Bratz characters feels rather strange.
I was teen/YA from 2007 to 2014 and I remember seeing Blingeecore all the way up to 2012, which is what I recall as it’s true fall from grace. It was such an iconic 2000s aesthetic and it does feel a bit forgotten outside of being a bit of a meme now. Blingeecore MySpace really was something, damn.
Hi there! 💚 I'm a longtime admin for CARI, and Frutiger Aero specifically was an aesthetic I helped curate quite a bit of content for, so I was quite surprised to see you make a video on this after following you for quite some time now! I feel a pretty personal connection to this aesthetic so I was happy to see how much research you put into the subject.
I do feel a need to mention, however, that Frutiger Aero was not quite as pure and devoid of cynicism as it may seem - a lot of major corporations hid behind the aesthetic in an attempt to greenwash themselves while continuing to do harm to the environment. I believe that BP is the most notorious example of this (they leaned very deeply into FA and tried to present a "clean" image even while devastating oil spills were destroying the ocean), though there are plenty of other examples as well. I think this aspect of FA needs to be spoken about more often - not that I mean to say that your video is incorrect or that people are wrong for enjoying the aesthetic, not at all! I love FA a lot, but it's important for us to realize these things and hold corporations accountable for their actions.
Damn, I remember the corporate greenwashing. It felt so cynical even then, but now nobody even cares enough to virtue signal while not actually doing anything.
This is a part of Frutiger Aero I'd love to hear more of, people also don't mention we had 9/11, hurricane Katrina and the recession in the 00s, things were never as optimistic as corporate propaganda make it out to be.
@ville__ jesus, you again? get a goddamn life
As much as I personally don't want people to like FA at all. I am so happy even you recognise the forced human veil that hid behind the aesthetic! I never thought of the term Greenwashing so I will be using that in future!
For sure. If you grew up during the 2000s/early 2010s it can be easy to look back at those times and think they were pure and simple, but that's of course only if you were a child who grew up in a well off family. The world as a whole was not by any means like that at the time for sure; 9/11, wars, Great Recession, and several other political events/natural disasters spring to mind. I also doubt thart people *genuinely* believed the world would become a Frutiger Aero/Eco utopia, it's logically impossible.
Nowadays, you gotta download DLC to watch an Izzzyzzz video essay as it was meant to be, what has this world come to xD
Day one patch bru
I remember someone commented that it seemed like they rushed the video to meet a sponsorship deadline but that take felt off to me, even at the time. This upload kinda confirms my suspicion that Izzyzzz just uploaded the wrong version earlier by mistake.
??
inb4 she somehow implements a live service system into her videos 💀💀💀
But I mean this analogy doesn’t work because you didn’t have to download or buy anything?
"Yesterday I had just started a new painting of my dog that passed recently, deciding to make it in a frutiger aero style without even realizing what it was because I wanted to envoke the feeling of calm and serenity. What a funny coincidence :)" was my comment on the original video, but now that I've rewatched it I realize how deeply the style connects to what I want to convey. I want to remember my boy in almost a utopia, running through a lush field under a bright blue sky, where nothing could hurt him. I initially thought the similarities were just funny coincidences, but now I feel like I started painting and this video came out so close together for a reason. It's comforting knowing others have similar feelings, even if in different forms
@faye5159,… Im
So sorry for your loss!!!… 🐾🐾❤️🩹❤️🩹✨
i hope the painting turns out great! your pup sounds like a good boy
crazy that I'm already old enough to have my childhood be an aesthetic
for me it always just our family windows 7 (that died only a few years ago) and dentist offices, but what a throwback for that floral stuff being all over things for kids lol
Same those are the exact same things i associated it with, how old are you? Im 2005
@@bobjimbobjim9006 2003! Still a youngin' but apparently old for esthetics
I think there is something strangely sinister about it because of the juxtaposition of this light bubbly style and the large all consuming corporations that utilised it. Its like looking at a picture of lush green grass and trees while knowing just out of frame is a massive coal based power plant belching out waste.
Damm...
YES this is how i've always felt about this too! it's a beautiful style to look back on but i remember distinctly hating seeing it everywhere as a kid because it always screamed "corporate" to me. at the same time i think it's cool that people now are taking it back and putting their own spin on the aesthetic.
I find it to be an extremely sobering, empty and corporate aesthetic, the same companies that sold us products laced with this vain optimism where tech and nature were allowed to exist and flourish within each other were the same ones producing mountains and mountains of e-waste that were sure to end in a landfill or the ocean the second they were out of their shinny (and wasteful) packaging.
We've known that the planet was fucked beyond repair for decades now and those same companies did nothing but keep finding more destructive ways to profit, in a way this isn't different from the current green washing companies are doing just less transparent on the whole not giving a shit part.
Cuz it's when apple started to suck. Just pulling blatent anti consumer bullshit
Oh god…the Lorax feel of it all frfr
Fruitiger makes me feel so refreshed and nostalgic, it's like a future robbed from us. I want frutiger aero to grow :(
So you want corporate to grow even more than they already did?
@@justaemptymall bro youre just like what that "Twitter is the only place where people misinterpret perfectly articulated sentences" pic is talking about. thats a completely different sentence.
@@justaemptymallWho said that?
@@justaemptymallcould you take a minute to read the sentence again? That’s totally not what they meant 😂
it is. companies are starting to bring back skeuomorphism designs like the upcoming ios 18 and the iphones 15 wallpaper even soap brands and much more are starting to use more skeuomorphism in there logos frutiger aero will come back this yr trust me it will especially 2025 nintendo is gonna drop a new console that looks a bit like the 3ds in 2025 the future we worked for is coming back even 80s/90s designs are coming back to 2024
38 Year old Graphic designer here. I absolutely loved using some of this man's fonts for projects a few years ago. I'm a fashion illustration kid so yeah. A time. A vibe.
this brings so much joy to me. life was ultra harsh for last 15 years and i dont even want to start describing it, but now i am slowly recovering. and seeing this aesthetic makes me feel so nice, so cozy, hopeful. like i am a student again, listening to vocaloids while studying to get ready to pass exams in university. this is literally what my soul asks for right now
is anyone else fond of the "Curly Girly" aesthetic? its this specific aesthetic from the 2000-2008s, super girly and flowery, often using the Curlz MT font from Microsoft. it was specifically aimed for teens/tweens. it's often associated with the Groovival aesthetic!
it focused mainly on bright pink, purple, yellow and light green colors. some examples that come to mind are the Polly Pocket dolls, the old Barbie website from 2008 and the brands Club Libby Lu, Bang on the door, etc!
I hope someone else remembers this aesthetic lol it was everywhere when I was little and I love looking at it now as an adult
Yesssss I love that aesthetic! I have memories of seeing it around when I was little, usually on toy packaging and stuff.
Thankfully there's no more Frutiger errors now
This one deserves to be pinned imo
@ville__don't wast your time translating this it's just a spam bot begging for youtube subscribers.
@ville__ thank gob tbh
@@RoryRose_ thank you pookie 🙏🙏
also they're homophobic
Man that end part... Made me genuinely a bit emotional. Both because of nostalgia but also like you said, the hopeful optimism of technology back in the 2000s.
I love Frutiger aero, but your video dug up a horrible memory that I had buried deep in there that just filled me with defeat lol. Once I worked at a vet hospital as an IT tech. It had three full buildings of at least 5 floors, research labs, x ray machines, all kinds of specific tools for farm animals AND was attached to a university. Long story short, the wrong e-mail was sent out to the entire staff list about a windows update and THE ENTIRE HOSPITAL WIPED THEIR COMPUTERS COMPLETELY BLANK. Our whole department of like 15 people were slammed for three straight days, walking around the hospital re-installing Windows XP on every single freaking computer because even though this happened in like 2013, all the special vet tech machines were old AF and their software only ran on XP. People were fighting over whose computer should be re-installed first, higher ups were pulling strings to get theirs done, and once XP was re-installed we had to re-install all the software and WORST OF ALL: PRINTER DRIVERS. They took HOOOOUUUURRRRS. It was horrible. I was enjoying your video up until you played that windows XP login sound and suddenly I was back to sitting in front of those damn computers, filled with despair lmaooo
I must add that not even a year later Microsoft discontinued windows XP and we had to wipe + reinstall windows vista on the SAME COMPUTERS ANYWAYS!!! good times
This is almost as bad as when my teacher told us about a time where their computer lab at library was flooded and as you know, way back then computers used punch cards and well, they all got destroyed. So the had to remake every punchcard.
@@KOTEBANAROT my soul left my body in response to that
as a millennial whose childhood primarily took place in the 90s and early 2000s, seeing the yooths rediscover and archive the aesthetic of my formative years is kind of wonderful. i think it's lovely that, instead of falling into further despair, we're rekindling the hope of a previous era.
also, not to be "old man yells at cloud" but i have often lamented the loss of the more tactile aspects of technology--never thought i'd be nostalgic for a button or a switch lmao--but it makes me wonder if newer tech might bring back some of those satisfying embellishments that were replaced by the more streamlined aesthetic of touch screens and sensors.
Why is every dentist office so aggressively this aesthetic
Because this aesthetic looks incredibly clean and that is what you would want your teeth to be as well.
Poor Izzy had to re-upload two videos in a row 😭lol
i used to be on photoshop graphics design forums creating stuff with frutiger aesthetics. you know the kinds with kingdom hearts and final fantasy with somber quotes surrounded by premade brushes and swirls. sooo nostalgic.
Ahhhh this was me too! I used to have a anime graphics website and would make wallpapers and graphics with this style right with Photoshop! It feels wonderful to say we were contributing art to that amazing time!
I'm more of a y2k enby; but frutiger aero is such a chill aesthetic
what's your fav aesthetic gender? mine is webcore:)
@@SillytheSkrunklylilfella Japanese cybercore ^_^
If people become nostalgic for Corporate Memphis in ten years I will delete the internet this is a threat
Hopefully by then CM would be out of style for corporations and people who want to appreciate its aesthetics without associating it with them can. 👍
Aestetics are to resresent time periods and the feelings assocuated with them, this aestetic is getting popular because the kids who grew up on windows 7 are becoming adults now, and want to feel those childhood memories again, so it might happen with the memphis whatever, because kids who grew up on it are familiar with it
i people will be nostalgic for it because it reminds them of the good things about current times but we don't know what the good things are until they are gone since nobody knows what is going to happen in the future .i like the vaporwave look because it reminds me of good music but the fruitier aero era had very bad music but i miss the video games and movies from the time but i couldn't know that these thins would become worse. back then i assumed they would get better or stay the same
i get very strong childhood nostalgia from this, it reminds me of being allowed to use the computers in primary school in the late ‘00s - early ‘10s
The first thing I thought of was that greasy soap in elementary school bathrooms. 😂
i administrate the discord server and subreddit for this aesthetic, and my friend tokoni mods those along with running the frutiger aero daily twitter account. i had the pleasure of interviewing sofi about the name of the aesthetic on the server about a year ago. i love to see more coverage on it!!
even the sound effects are so comforting :') I remember logging onto school computers that looked like this. I miss when computers had square monitors and loud fans and took forever to load anything. I miss when technology felt alive, I feel like it's so taken for granted now
Omg thanks for including that bit in the end - I thought I was the only one who found this aesthetic weirdly unsettling! Less so now that I'm an adult, but as a kid I remember being really freaked out by those images because they seemed so... idk, I guess uncanny valley? I always felt unsettled about how devoid of human life they looked. You know that Ray Bradbury story There Will Come Soft Rains about that house that's in perfect working order but nobody's around to upkeep it? The perfectly-landscaped fields in Frutiger Aero pics gave me that vibe.
It's probably one of my favourite aesthetics, it's so calm and peaceful, even dream like too and yeah I think people yearn for the past more than ever because of how hopeful everything seem back then.
We can only hope for things to get better for us and everyone.
We can`t lose hope but we have to take action every day. Little steps like walking instead of driving, eating less meat and milk, gardening and harvesting own food if possible, helping out living beings in need can be done by everyone.
Man, I'm a 90s baby but this video hit me with all kinds of nostalgia bombs. That Metalheart aesthetic? That shit was EVERYWHERE on gaming, anime and sports forums in the 2000s. If you were good at enough at Photoshop to make signatures with that aesthetic you were the coolest person in the entire memberbase and everyone wanted you to make stuff for them, lol. Damn now you've got my heart aching.
Also it's interesting to me that the "drab and bulky" vintage Windows aesthetic has gone on to become quite warmly regarded in its own right. I definitely have a fondness for it myself. I'm very glad subsequent generations are keeping all these styles preserved in their own way. Hell I still see soap bottles at the store with the Frutiger Aero imagery on them, pretty sure I've got one in my house right now. Thanks for preserving the magic, gen z, I mean that.
Thank you for this video, it did indeed help me love and appreciate the aesthetic and I'd love to see more videos like this. I do kinda wish you labelled the sources of all the images you used though!
Ahahah I did not finish watching the video yet, so idk if it was mentioned in it, but I knew EXACTLY what you meant once you brought up making forum signatures. EVERY forum had those people, and they were all making the same stuff.
To be fair that windows XP background was genuinely calming and held a sense of excitement for the future of technology 😅
As a 2000s kid, this aesthetic was definilety my favorite, just seeing everything about it made me feel extremely optimistic about the future and at the same time very safe. It's crazy to realize the youngest generation are now seeing it the same way mine used to see vaporwave or late 80s-early 90s aesthetics back when we were teenagers or just entering puberty
You nailed the reason why this aesthetic is popular now, or at least why I love it. It's pretty to look at but it also allows me to escape back to my childhood in the 2000s. Time has gone by so quickly and the world feels terrible now, along with the personal issues I deal with now as an adult. The new flat, bleak, and gray corporate aesthetic seems to reflect this collective cynicism and depression our generation is feeling. It feels good to forget about everything and let myself pretend to be a carefree kid again before I knew how corrupt the world is.
You just put what I was feeling into words. Frutiger Aero was the aesthetic of my middle and high school years, and watching everything go from glossy, vibrant, and round to flat, dull, and sharp made me so sad. Of course we should question the corporate marketing behind it, but NOW, since companies care more about minimalism we can take the aesthetic and really make it ours. Frutiger Aero and it's subgenres counter the clinical and boring corporate aesthetic we see now and we shouldn't discount that. Like how corporate Co ops things we like and ruins them, we should take this and run wild with it and make it thrive.
@@growingsageexactly! i find frutiger aero cringe, but in a good way. that might sound a little confusing, but it's just so silly and so outdated that i love it! it really reminds me of my childhood.
World in 2000s was in much worse place. Neoliberalism, Iraq war, right wing dominance in latin america, US, Europe.
If I had to guess at the prevelance of fish in the aesthetic, maybe it's because a real fish tank is a physical object doing that "bringing the outdoors to the indoors" thing
The thing that I love about frutiger aero and specially frutiger eco is the same core ideas i love about solarpunk: We NEED to believe that change is possible, we desperately need to be able to imagine a better future.
The main difference between those two aesthetics is that frutiger aero is inevitably looked at from a nostalgic perspective, creating a complacent zone of self-pity. I understand that it makes us feel good, but thats at a price. The price of looking at the past is turning your back to the future.
One thing i love about frutiger aero and other design aesthetics of the early 2000s like global village coffee house isnjust how worldly it all felt. Its reminiscent of the feeling of opening a textbook or watching a documentary in elementary school and realizing that the world is much bigger than the life you have known. Idk if its just because we have so much more access to everyone else through social media that we know about other peoples' lives more than ever that it just doesnt feel novel anymore. Its weird that despite having more access to each other, we feel more disconnected than ever and maybe thats why this aesthetic has appealed to more people now.
I really agree w this
Also nice username lol
I really wish we could try this again. I don't like how "puffy" it was, and how often it had just random stuff, but I absolutely love love love a UI that has "real" glass" or matte glass, or plastics. With the much higher resolution we have today, I feel like we could take a much better shot at using realistic materials in UI design.
We, as in the public could try. Now that corporate entities are more focused on being as minimalist and clinical (read: boring), maybe we could d something like that.
oh my god?? i was literally JUST on a deep dive about frutiger aero bro😭‼️
Same!! I saw a video by ExtraMint and fell down a rabbit hole!
been missing this aesthetic recently. it really is interesting how the mood and state of culture can be pinned down through aesthetics.
I loove frutiger aero sooo much and I'm so happy it's becoming more popular 💕💕 One other nostalgic aesthetic I've also come to love lately is "Global villge coffeehouse". Would love to see a video about that aesthetic too 💕
I was in elementary school in the early 2000's (im almost 27) and the best way to describe the feeling of it is summer time back then, we were all forced to play outside but at the same time we played inside on our computers with new technology like gameboys/DS's. Playing inside and outside I loved equally as much. And the aesthetic perfectly encapsulates that with how we mixed the rise of technology and the appreciation of nature, going to the pool, beach etc. Everything was so new and bright back then and it captures it so well.
This aesthetic always reminds me of my grandpas old pc and how he used to let me watch him play solitaire. I miss him very much, it was nice to remember him like this
I was literally JUST thinking about how much I missed this kind of glassy blue 2000s aesthetic, izzy truly is the best youtuber ever
i heart frutiger aero🌊🌱🌍🐟🐬
another little subgenre i always thought was really cool as a kid and just now learned the name is "bright tertiaries".. it's like totally what i thought adulthood would look like as a little kid
As someone born in 2003 and has adequate memory of 2000s-early 2010s, this takes me back home
This is by far my most favorite episode by Izzzyzzz, especially that last bit. I find comfort in the aesthetic because yeah! It brings me back to a time where I would sign into RuneScape and escape from this world. So it brings back those feelings. The statements about the world we live in today are so spot on.
I'm sort of 50/50 on Frutiger Aero. On the one hand, it is quite nostalgic to look at, especially since this is an aesthetic I grew up on. But at the same time, I've always hated it, even back then as a child. I'm more so ambivalent to it now, but it does bring back this gross feeling of "fakeness", you know? I suppose you could make the same argument about Y2K, an aesthetic that I love, but idk, Aero is just so in your face about how perfect it is, and I've always had a distain for it. Frutiger Metro on the other hand, that's an aesthetic I can get down with, very funky I love it. It was also nice to discover other sub-aesthetics mentioned in this video, Metal Heart rocks so hard.
While I don't miss a lot of the aesthetic, what I do miss is the Aero, physical aspect of UI. I love the glass, frosted glass, plastic in the UI look. I wish we could take another crack at that. We have better processors, we have higher resolution screens. We could do real-time reflections, light refractions to really make it look like stuff is PHYSICAL in our computers.
I don't want the neon, and I don't miss the bobbly plastic, but I truly miss trying to make digital feels more digital and 3D.
I have hella deep memories of some kind of art program from like 05 where you created pictures that looked exactly like 16:46. every brush was just super glossy stamps of bubbles, starfish, pebbles and everything else frutiger aero I spent hours making my lil masterpieces on there lmao
love the video. took me back to when i would spend the night at my grandma’s. she would start a crime drama series and crochet or knit and i would play on the clunky computer in her craft room with my little sister. sometimes she’d even make cookies and even make extra so we could bring some home to our parents. those were the good days.
This gave me an idea for a video game; an open world survival crafter set in a Frutiger Aero-like world with rolling hills, glossy tech building options, and lots of happy wildlife to tame as pets; but as the player ventures into the recesses of the map they uncover underground areas that are like corrupted code, and part of winning the game is cleansing the viruses and bugs from the world.
If you ever release it, I'd want to play it.
As someone who adores fish and loves using them as a motif for hope and the future, I love this aesthetic!
I've been obsessed with the Frutiger Aero resurgence for months now and was ECSTATIC to see this video pop up on my TH-cam recommended. I had been hungering for a video essay for this topic and you did NOT disappoint 🙏
To be honest, I am actually watching this on my Windows 7 Laptop and even though its pretty old and outdated (14 years old) I still want to use t because of the whole Frutiger Aero aesthetic and I'd rather keep using it with all the slow downloads and stuff instead of buying a new laptop or changing it to a Macbook, I just cant get myself to do it. Also I loved this video and was hoping someone would do a vid on it!! Love your videos and commentary!🥰🥰
Spore is totally a close approximation of a Frutiger Aero game
My god I was obsessed with that game. Now I wanna play it again.
it’s crazy seeing so many people love this aesthetic as someone who always assumed the discomfort was universal- but also so cool to see everyone’s perspectives! i had no idea i was in the minority here. the fish floating around used to give me nightmares as a kid for some reason.
Do you like vaporwave? Because I don't vibe with frutiger aero but i like vaporwave
MY FAVOURITE TH-camR, COVERING MY FAVOURITE AESTHETIC??? NO WAYYYYY
I FEEL BLESSED THANK YOU SO MUCH IZZZYIZZZ!!!!
i saw a frutiger aero playlist yesterday and was like "oh shit that exists!"
a day later and you are up to educate me on why it popped up in the first place
a fun aesthetic to get lost in and imagine a different world, aside from the nostalgic value
Beautiful analysis Izzy, really enjoyed this video and made me see what’s special about Frutiger Aero having spent the last 10-15 years thinking it was garish and artificial
You hit the nail on the head with the resurgence reason. The reason I love your channel so much is it brings me back to the days of 2007 DeviantART where life was just better, my Frutiger Izzo if you will
As a man that uses most stuff in a black and white aesthetic this video made me cry. The frutiger aero style is a window to when i wasn't so cynical, bitter and old. I cannot explain it but the nostalgia is hitting hard in this tiring times. I was happy and didn't knew it, a very beautiful memory izzy, thank you.
I know right it's like a promised future that was taken way all the colors and a Sense of life and mother nature it brought a sense of euphoria and nostalgia to me as well infact I liked the aesthetic so much right now that I literally just customize my phone's Xmb menu with the wallpapers and icon and it feels real now but maybe soon we might be closer to this Future than we known
Oh this is fascinating! I love finding out Things actually have Names
Time to spend just under half an hour watching an excellent video on a topic I have neither heard nor cared about before :)
Seeing all these pictures of the aesthetic really took me back to my childhood. To a calmer, happier time. I miss it honestly. Thanks for the video!
Wow, the conclusion of this video was so well said. Thanks for taking such an interesting and nuanced look at frutiger aero and aesthetics as a whole, it really opened my eyes even more to how much I love this design trend. Also, I desperately want my computer to look like windows vista again PLZ I WANNA GO BACK
What is pongon doing here 😱
I remember booting up our windows XP computer, we still have it, but I was super young so I would run to my mom and ask for the password every time I turned the thing on. She eventually made me my own profile so I could watch my VHS tapes of zaboomafoo without bugging her. 😂
I COMPLETELY FORGOT THIS STYLE HAD A NAME!! i always tried to explain it as the aesthetic that makes the back of your throat cold from the early 2000s!! Thank you for the video deep diving it!!
Hi! Just wanted to say you’re quite literally my favourite TH-camr. Your videos are on topics I find super interesting and they’re always so in depth, well-structured, funny, and it’s clear you’ve done heaps of research with all the examples you have to back up the points you make.
As a fellow Kiwi, it’s cool to finally see all these trends etc from the late ‘90s/early 2000s portrayed in a more relatable way, i.e. watching cool stuff from afar on our slow ass internet but never really experiencing it fully (or at the same time as everyone else) because little old Aotearoa is so far away from the rest of the world! It’s also awesome to see a fellow Kiwi do so well and put out content of this calibre. You do us proud 👍
Frutiger Aero will forever remind me of being taken to work with my mum over the school holidays because we couldn’t afford a babysitter. She’d let me play Fish Tycoon, Neopets, Petz 5 and The Sims on one of the work computers all day. She’s said she feels guilty about not engaging with me but it’s legitimately one of my fondest childhood memories lol
Anyway, I hope you’re doing well. You’re awesome 💖💖
ur channel embodies us being like "hey what is/happened to ___?" getting lost in a rabbit hole for hrs then finding someone who also finds the 💚 in that random topic.
(i was also v high watching the original vid, saw it all in my brain and felt it deeply hahaha)
All this fish imagery reminds me of how much I loved Endless Ocean on the Wii, and they just announced the other day they're making a new one for the switch. I'm so excited
my mum did marketing when frutiger aero was popular and I remember her designs being exactly like this
To me Frutiger Aero just looks corporate, I feel a little nostalgic looking at it, but not too much. Cool that y’all are enjoying it though
All i think of when hearing frutiger aero is the soap with the phise
Izzy, I enjoy your videos. Most videos I watch very late, after many beers, and enjoy that way. But I have a professional interest in the topic of this video. So on this occasion, I have taken the time to watch this sensibly and seriously and have taken some notes. Thanks so much for your content!
I had no idea this had a name! I remember the transition over to this aesthetic and low key hated it at first. But it really is nostalgic to look at these images with that small pang of knowing that tech and nature harmony wont happen in my lifetime. Thank you for this neat nostalgia trip :)
I CANT IMAGINE WHAT “what do you feel when you look at this image” MUST HAVE FELT LIKE IN THE FIRST VERSION
i think one of my favorite aesthetics is olderbrothercore. i didnt even grow up in the 2000s (was more like 2010s) but i did have an older brother and all the images relating to that remind me of what it was like being in his room and watching him play minecraft or something else that was interesting to me... 2012 was my prime (i was 4)
also!! ive never heard of cybercore and metalheart before but i am absolutely OBSESSED with it, it has something so unique and beautiful to it. this was a great video! keep up with the great work :D
Same story here!
For some reason frutiger aero makes me feel a dull sense of dread and melancholy and I don't know why 💀
I didn’t know that corporate stock art was an aesthetic now
Nobody tell them about vaporwave
There is one game that perfectly captures the feeling I get from frutiger aero aestethic and that's Steins Gate. The VN that the popular anime was based off. I can't speak on how the aesthetics of that game relate to the one being discussed (outside of the game being released in 2009) but the music is what I think makes me feel this way. OST for Steins Gate was made by Takeshi Abo whose music is often included in those frutiger aero playlists (specifically "Lease").
Don't forget Windows XP Media Center Edition's "Royale" theme, which was essentially a precursor to Windows Aero. It sorta looked like a mix of Luna and Aero.
Royale was my go-to theme as a teen ever since I found it, and I was giddy when I realized that Windows Vista's default theme was essentially an upgraded Royale.
Do you not think people will be nostalgic for the current times? They will.
I really did “forget to remember” this
Love your topics, izzzyzzz❤
I love this channel because a lot of videos feel like a trip back to the 2000 - 2012 era
This aesthetic is so calm and soothing. Windows Vista was the 2nd operating system I was introduced to, and I feel like I’m the only one who actually liked it for what it was. The boot-up sound was iconic, and it takes me back to Spring/Summer ‘07 😭
i grew up in this era, i remember the transition from windows xp to vista then to 7. My first handheld was a pink DS lite that i cleaned up recently and she still works! I had an ipod 4th gen and let me just say, a lot of the UI from back then was so straight forward. When things started to flatten and simplify, things got incredibly confusing to visually process. I still open up things like google calendar when i'm trying to open maps on my phone. Actually the google pixel phones are so hard to understand how to use because many of its functions have you making vague swipes at the screen.
I miss when everything had a button or scroll or whatever, and i miss when i didn't confuse apps with one another.
10:35 i have this exact fish lamp. It hasn’t been used in years, but i remember how the pictures of fish would move across the background. It made a very light but still noticable machine noise so it wasn’t really my favorite nightlight, but it’s still cool. Crazy to see it in a video
I used to be a moderator for the aesthetics wikis official discord server, super cool to see my old buddies writing be the inspiration for one of these videos!! (:
It’s an incredible experience getting to see something you spent so much time next to be talked about by one of your favorite TH-camrs :3
As someone who was a child of the 2000s this was so fun to look around google images 😁 I've got the rotating fish tank lamp, literally the few things my dad left when he left😅
Idk what to call my favorite aesthetic. It's like a mix of gyaru accessories, late 2000 tamagotchis, hyper customized devices such as 3ds with perfect aesthetics, the vibe and gameplay of style savvy, and generally like pink tinted 2000 girly collectables? Like idk how to explain it. Because alone I would not say monster high or lala loopies are part of the aesthetic. But I would say they can if they're used in a way to accessories a space that gives it that vibe?! Example, rements and bedazzled flip phones with vintage gachapon food charms. WHAT IS THIS AESTHETIC?