I also feel like a lot of us grew up to quick and this aesthetic is a strange gate way to kind of re-experience a time we’ve left behind far to quickly. But that just may be me
I've never thought about that. Maybe thats why they make me feel so comfortable? I think all of Gen Z has never had any time to really be a kid. I know too much for someone so young I can barely handle it sometimes
@@sillybilly_420 exactly! i grew up fast and have gone through a lot for a kid and these aesthetics always make me feel better and sometimes like a kid again
My personal take: I think pretty much everyone who was born in the late 90s/early 2000s who had unsupervised access to computers was traumatized by the internet in some way, whether they know it or not, myself included. I distinctly remember discovering adult content and other dark content by accident as a very young child, and was damaged by it as a result without realizing it for years. Thankfully I avoided the grooming of creepy strangers, others in my generation were not so lucky. It's difficult to blame parents when older generations just didn't understand how it all worked. Because there was so much good and fun to be had, for a long time I think we blanketed the trauma we experienced in favor of a sense of only joy and nostalgia for the early age of the internet. The weirdcore/dreamcore aesthetic of typically seemingly happy or peaceful places, with an additional subtle sense of darkness and danger really encapsulates how the internet was back then, bright and joyous with an underbelly of darkness we were too young at the time to fully understand. It feels like, over the pandemic and through this art form, at least a good segment of us in Gen Z is finally realizing/confronting that trauma and bringing it to the public consciousness/awareness, and it really defines the generation. Today, a lot of Gen X and Millenial parents are giving their Gen Alpha kids hours of time with devices or in front of television. Every other Gen Z kid I've spoken to has said that their kids will spend more time outside and won't have unsupervised access to technology until they are older, because we are now aware of our own trauma and the damaging effects of technology on childhood development, and refuse to expose our kids to it; while previous generations are now allowing technology to babysit their children out of sheer ignorance and/or laziness.... Only tangentially related, but PLEASE notify every parent of young children that you know that Cocomelon is horrible for kids. It's literal overstimulation with bright colors and images moving too fast for their developing brains to keep up with, and is being called "nicotine for kids" (Complete with literal documented withdrawal symptoms) by child psychologists.
I don't know enough millenial parents to comment on parenting styles but I know pretty much all of my friends and relatives of the same generation agree that the internet traumatized them in some way.
Wow your comment really unearthed the memory of just how dark and Wild West the internet was back when I was a child/tween. I am a late late 90’s kid and I remember surfing the internet unsupervised back in the day, I knew there were places and pages you should not visit, but sometimes you just stumble upon graphic or traumatizing things, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes by accident. It would leave me with a feeling of lost innocence, it would make me frightened, that I made a mistake, that I will never be able to unsee the thing I just saw
I have an ungodly fear of embarrassment because of this type of parenting and the older uncensored days of the internet. I wasn't really traumatized by the content I was exposed to, I was more traumatized by how awful and "cringe-worthy" I used to act in response to it. I struggle with opening up about anything to the people around me now, and I feel like there are tons of kids like me who've gone through this or worse. Parents should *not* let tech babysit their kids, it just ends up with them having horrific social issues! I'm lucky that my parents are wiser now, but I fear what the younger kids around me are going to become in the future, and I just hope that they don't end up with these issues. Your comment was written very well and helped shed some light onto the dangers of letting kids be free with tech at too young of an age, thanks a lot! :) (PS: I am baffled at how Cocomelon hasn't been shut down yet, but I shouldn't be too surprised because you can't really touch corporations these days.)
as someone who went through trauma serious enough for me to forget approximately 12yrs of my life, these kinds of aesthetics seriously resonate with me. the feeling of something being vaguely familiar but far away is something i feel almost every day as i try to regain the memories i lost. while i didn't grow up like a normal kid, i grew up adjacent to many that did, and especially with how things like dreamcore pull in a lot of religious elements sometimes, it helps me think through it all. baphometkun is a good creator of this kind of stuff, ive seen a lot of their shorts and it might be worth looking into if youre interested.
These aesthetics are like a fill im for me for my childhood cause so much of it is just forgotten cause of trauma and its also weirdly comforting to find people who feel rhe same way, reminds me that im not alone, its somehow powerful how so many people have used this art to express this.
I feel the same, I had a really traumatic experience with a family member and though I can remember parts of my childhood, I always felt like I was just watching everything pass me as opposed to being in that scenario.. like I remember that birthday table existing in a play centre near home for some kids party, but I don't remember eating anything, knowing the kid or even being in the room.. it's like a weird out of body experience
Another pandemic-driven aspect of it could be the isolation of public spaces. At the beginning of the pandemic especially, because of shutdowns a lot of places that were once packed with people emptied out. For a while, you could walk into the street or go to a mall and it would be completely empty in a way it never was and never should be. It felt unnatural, amplified by the fear of COVID itself and not knowing if things would ever go back to normal. It felt like you’d been abruptly displaced in a reality that looked like yours but is too empty, is slowly deteriorating, and has something very wrong inside of it that could come for you.
Yeah for sure I don't agree with all the rules with mask ect but yet everything has changed it is a very historical moment it seems so odd to us all but it's nothing new
Yeah should have been in NYC during the height of the lockdowns. Walking from Washington Square Park to Madison Square Center (essentially the entire lower half of Manhattan) and seeing almost no one at like 9pm during Pride Weekend was surreal. The parks were busy, but nowhere else. I counted 6 people that day on 5th Ave. I’ve always remember that.
Can we just appreciate how weird the internet is? Just think how many concepts like these simply wouldn’t exist without the internet. Weird core especially is so odd, and it’s very interesting how we are all collectively experiencing this really unique thing. From the good, to the bad, to the obscure, the internet is super weird.
Never before in history has humanity been able to access and easily contribute to this wide of a compendium of experiences and ideas and vague feelings. It's definitely exposing weird parts of the human psyche.
We are not all collectively experiencing this, although I would agree it's a unique thing. The architecture, interior design, locations, even the food in this video, and in most media dealing with this type of aesthetic are American. As a European, I do find some of the content nostalgia-inducing, but I wouldn't stop at calling it western. While I do share your fascination with the notion that the internet helped create such concepts, I'd take it even further and say the internet was a mere catalyst in the process of globalization which ingrained a sense of collective memory allowing many of us to relate to experiences we didn't genuinely live through.
The 90's was an optimistic and easy going time. The majority of the 2000s presented a more free and wild west form of the internet. I think we're consciously or subconsciously drawn to simpler, carefree times of our youth. I say this as an older millennial whose childhood and teen years was from the mid-80s to the year 2000. As an adult the post-9/11 world has become bleaker, and scarier with an uncertain and seemingly more dire future as the years go by. Starting with 9/11, then the great recession followed by Trumpism the growing climate crises and now a pandemic, we now see the cracks and flaws in what we once thought we knew and assumed about the world around us. For younger millennials and I think older Gen Zers the simpler and comforting era is the 90s and 2000s.
@@Traumaqueenamy - "trumpism" has nothing on the current situation that's being directly made worse by biden... just sayin, let's not demonize one entire side when the other is just as flawed
Weirdcore is a visual representation of how depersonalisation and derealisation feel. There's no threat, but something is "off", something is "wrong", but yet this is reality, apparently. Its so gut wrenchingly terrifying, and these images are exactly what these feelings look like. I couldnt find the words to describe derealisation/depersonalisation for such a long time. I still struggle! But the next time someone asks im gonna show them some liminal weirdcore and be like "this." I've been dealing with it for so long now that I'm actually comforted by the images now, they're close to my heart bc at least someone out there gets it 😂
i think it has to do with the fact that you see something that is real, but in a context that isnt, so, it isnt just abstract and unfamiliar or fully nonsensical, it does have real elements, but in a context that is outside of the normal one
Derealization has fucked me up for a long time now. Brought on by drug experiences, I remember being terrified at the fact that it's never gonna be normal again, that I'm never able to experience real reality. Honestly I still have it after 5 years, especially in summer, when the light makes everything seem off. Lighting is a really big factor in it for me. I learned to accept it tho, it's not so terrifying anymore, in some way it's even beautiful. Idk how to explain it, it's like you have the opportunity to experience nature and everything surrounding it as something new of sorts? So you notice every little detail, how gorgeous it really is instead of just looking at it passing by. Always gotta stay positive with the cards you are dealt with, everything is gonna be fine :)
This deserves more views than the 441 it currently has. Do NOT stop creating these because it feels pointless for lack of views. You are cataloging important internets history. This sequenced information will remain long after we have faded into collective memory.
i was born in 03 and i feel like these aesthetics are how ive always seen/felt the world to be. i think even if the pandemic and other stuff didnt happen, if no one else was making this art, i would have found a way to express myself similar to this. i used to try and describe it to my friends, saying "ive never told anyone this before bc i dont know how to describe it, but have you ever seen something that looks. perfect? like something that just fits, like a streetlamp lined street at night, or an empty field with the sun shining directly above it, or the feeling of being in a strangers house, or midnight in the school hallways, or a snowy land in the late afternoon, or your room after you take all the items out of it" and they wouldnt quite understand how those settings were significant, and when i told them "i, like, hurt when i see those things. its like theyre too perfect and i get so many chills that it hurts" they would legitimately look at me like i was insane. my "aesthetic" has changed a lot over the years bc nothing was ever the right one. i went from pastel, to vintage, to 80s, to vaporwave, and i thought i had found something amazing when i looked at vaporwave and heard its music. it felt perfect, almost. there were a lot of vaporwave things that hit, but it was too broad in its style. when i found dreamcore/weirdcore i felt complete. there was a name for my perfect feelings. they were my liminal senses being triggered without knowing that liminal was a thing.
Born in 2003 lmao its still hard to understand that there are people now adults(or at least with nostalgia and memories of their own) that were not yet born in the same time that i was already at that point in my own life.
Bruh I know EXACTLY what you mean about vaporwave. I think since it was one of the earlier ones it was good for it’s time, but just didn’t quite feel complete. Didn’t quite make you feel that type of way. (Also shout out to my ‘03 twins)
Personally I think weirdcore is post postmodernism. The idea that after you break down all things into their base components and try to rebuild them back together from memory. From a broken and hazy memory. It's not quite the same. It never can be again. Post Modernism had killed the essence of the art and media of the past, the very soul, and matter how we Frankenstein's Monster it back together, we can never bring back the soul of it. Which is why it's eery
Western-Liberalism caused this. White-western Culture is so woke it is quite literally tearing itself apart trying to reeducate other nations with the woke nonsense. Nations around the world are to finally saying goodbye to Western-Liberalism and it's nihilistic beliefs. They are joining the Russians in the BRICS.
TW: mentions of abuse and trauma i have a complicated relationship with traumacore. i fully believe for some people making this content can indeed help someone in their proccess of recovering from their trauma. as long as they warn people that possibly triggering content is present, i feel it can be productive. personally i find traumacore content extremely validating, and comforting knowing that im not alone in my experiences and thoughts. however, ive occasionally ended up spending hours scrolling through images like this and sending myself into a mini depression spiral where all of what im thinking about is past abuse ive gone through. its almost like it can be a form of self sabatoge for me. like i feel as if i shouldnt be allowed to be happy and recover and i need to feel bad and remind myself of past trauma. almost like emotional self harm? i definitely think the traumacore community should have discussions about personally reflecting on if it is productive and helpful for you as an individual, or if its really holding you back or even keeping you in a bad headspace.
THIS!! While I didn't go through the same trauma that's often referenced in the aesthetic, I've known others who did that are very close to me. And I always felt so pathetic I could never help them or take away what happened. Making me feel I could only have value if I could be a sort of therapist to these people. And making me feel I shouldn't have the RIGHT to speak about my own, while less severe, trauma because "others have had it worse". And I've always struggled w having a smaller voice and not feeling useful to anyone for my own personal reasons relating to how I was raised. It was especially bad because this was just at the time I was realizing a lot of stuff about my family and friends that made me upset, so I used sanrio and other kids media as a comfort. But whenever I'd look up kidcore aesthetics on Tumblr, I'd be bombarded w/ traumacore. And it would always bring back my guilt and just ruin my whole day, or even week. It got so much I eventually just blocked the tag altogether. Reasons why I also fear ever watching Jack Stauber's Opal again. Not only does it RADIATE traumacore,, but I related way to much to the titular main character for comfort :(
Online self harm is most definitely a thing. There's been some conversation in social media, I can't remember the exact term used though. The same goes with self degrading, belittling and romanticizing depression/ED/anxiety/etc. memes and alike. Even just general social media scrolling can be defined as such when it plays into harmful behavior like body checking and drastic lifestyle changes as well as hurtful thoughts compering yourself to other people, almost searching for prove of being lesser than, not being good enough and not being able to accomplish what "others" can. Absolutely a topic worth covering more widely. _(personal anecdote about depression related dissociation and harmful internet habits below)_ For a while for me it was consuming a specific type of internet commentary content covering some vaguely unsettling ARGs and other "creepy" things like some series that I knew were affecting my sense of reality and safety but still kept watching for some weird curiosity. Bit of context: I'm sensitive to atmospheric changes, environmental details and tones to the point that my memory isn't great since the details take much more space in my cognitive processing than the "full story" the memories involve. Though it's more of an anxiety/high sensitivity thing than an actual issue of consciousness, I tend to be worried about my sense of reality and often feel disconnected or fragmented. There was something so triggering about the "mysteries" in the niche internet art projects analyzed in a video essay, the way they'd go from general information step by step towards the hidden details and the "blink and you miss it" aspects of some of those things. The general esthetic and vibe specifically created to strike disturbing feelings coupled with the implicit messages and hidden interpretation keys - something about that just kicked off dissociation possibly for multiple days at a time. It feels embarrassing and stupid and it's hard to explain. But at that point there were still too many unstable factors going on like paranoia, feeling out of control in everyday routine and numb fear reaction episodes, and this void of meaning in my life situation, a kind of out of place experience that was further activated by that stuff. I fully knew it was the furthest from "real", I was totally fine with true crime type of content (debatable maybe) whereas these interactive investigative stories were triggering to me especially because of the uncanny, unreal and out of place feeling they induced. So the things presented, even in the meta narration of the commentary, affected me the way they did _because_ they were so far from real yet somehow real enough, explained and revealed like a real thing worth discussing in such seriousness. The found footage and surveillance videos as well as related "realistic" websites were the kinds of formats most disturbing to me for that exact reason. All and all, at some point I realized to give it up for now completely and while I'm still drawn to that stuff and find the artistic aspects highly interesting, I know I would only be choosingly causing harm to my mental state by ending up diving too deep. Just like before this form of harmful self induced behavior in other ways, I was reaching to feel something and ending up actually hurting my still unstable wellbeing. It's good to be conscious about *how* we are using the tools we're given. Just like the physical objects commonly associated, most things are safe per se until they're used in dangerous self sabotaging ways.
Absolutely!! With any kind of catharsis and relatable content like this, you have to take a step back and make sure that you're consuming it in a healthy way, because purposefully triggering yourself is 100% self-harm. Like, for myself, I'm super happy I learned about traumacore, but I know I have to be super careful about how I consume it because traumacore and weirdcore can either help me feel comfort over shared experiences/feelings being put into something more tangible than a thought, or it can send me into a depressive spiral and even have me begin to dissociate. Be safe guys, and take some time to reflect on how you deal with things and how you cope. You deserve to grow, you deserve to be happy.
@@moonj0ck I find it comforting and represents my inner mind the best. Like the quote says, "Art should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable" I think that people's reaction to this type of aesthetic could divide people into the common, shallow people from the emotionally complex people. It feels like most people are these NPCs that have no depth in their character or inner worlds (if they even have one)
I accidentally had a very negative out of body experience and if it wasn't for all the weird core stuff I consumed I never would've caught on that I was having a problem. It made me question my brain and stopped me from fully getting lost. I might be a little too old of a section of the fandom but all of this has helped me feel less alone. Modern day times has purposely made us more isolated, purely because of money and that alienation of self really comes through in these genres. I very much f heavy with this.
i feel like one of the most important aspects of these aesthetics is the unity it can bring us, and the feeling that our experiences are shared. it can help us acknowledge our experiences and even make seeking help/coping personally feel less shameful.
Same!! Due to weirdcore/dreamcore, I wouldn't find out that I experience depersonalisation/derealisation, and that wouldn't make me go seek help and actually find out what the source of the problem was!!
Their’s a focus on how more “normal” people see these, but I’d love to hear from someone with a deep psychosis that involves hallucinations. These all strike me as the vibe the world might have if you are powerfully hallucinating.
I don't really hallucinate anymore, because it only happens if I stop sleeping properly. But these cores do invoke some of what I experienced back when I did. Most of it was shadows out of the corner of my eye (interpreted in the moment as birds, cats, rats, giant spiders, people) and disembodied voices. Though the shadows look like they'd have the strongest core resemblance on the surface, since there's this running theme with shadows blotting things out in the core images, my shadows stopped existing if I tried to look directly at them. So the images actually remind me more of the voices I heard? Nonsense conversations I couldn't parse, sentences that sounded almost normal on the surface, almost like someone was talking in the other room, but which turned into word salad if I actually paid attention to what I thought I was hearing. It made reality feel like what those images look like.
i mostly have delusions rather than hallucinations, but i’d still like to add my input. i feel like i relate to some of these. ‘don’t wake up yet.’ ‘there’s someone here’ and similar phrases often in these are similar to thoughts i have when having delusions. the feeling of someone being there but a black square over it, being unable to see it but knowing there is something there. feeling as if everything around me is unreal, and believing it but not wanting to wake up afraid of what the ‘real reality’ is like. black blurs on the edges feel like hallucinations for me. mine aren’t often whole objects, detailed figures or something else. mine are more figures that i’m unable to make out, shapes that make themself twist and change every time i blink. i relate heavily to weird core and similar aesthetics, it’s kind of similar to how my daily world feels like.
For me who has auditory hallucinations, definitely. I hear old video game music or strange weird core like- music late at night where it shouldent be there. It's terrifying and definitely has the weird core/dreamcore vibe even if it's not visual.
i don’t really have hallucinations, but i do have issues with derealization and depersonalization, so i guess that kinda applies. weirdcore/dreamcore gives a VERY SIMILAR vibe as to what general reality feels to me sometimes. half the time i feel like a numb shell walking through a video game or another reality that isn’t really a reality at all. it’s like nothing is actually real, i’m just perceiving it in a certain way that’s to make me think that it is and i’m not buying it anymore. even though i know this isn’t true (usually, at least) i still just feel… not there, and weirdcore/dreamcore is pretty much the exact way the world feels for me. i very rarely feel 100% real, only when i’m in nature do things feel fine, and i hardly ever feel 100% human or like a real, flesh and blood person. it’s not great, but these sort of aesthetics actually help me a lot and make me feel a lot better. i guess it’s nice to see that other people may understand what i experience? plus, i always adored strange, odd, weird, and creepy stuff even at a young age, so i think it’s a mix of both. hope this gave you a bit of insight lol, have a good day 👍
0:00 Kero Kero Bonito - I'd Rather Sleep (slowed+reverb) 0:36 Xori- Warm Nights 1:28 Ricky Eat Acid - Outside Your House 2:34 Ricky Eat Acid- Inside Someone Else's House 3:18 Yume Nikki OST - Snow World 7:07 Yume Nikki OST - Dark World (slowed+reverb) 12:28 Yves Tumor - Limerence 13:57Ricky Eat Acid - Inside My House; Some Place I Keep Dreaming About 16:05 this was the only song I couldn't identify 18:44 Toby Fox - Fallen Down (slowed, Farizky version) 21:33 VHS Logos - Sony
I honestly can’t put it into words how much I hate how fast time goes. I honestly just think about it every second, and it’s scary. Like those vague childhood minutes that linger in my mind and the random dreams I remember from when I was 7. Even a year ago, that foggy memory of riding home from track and field. Of course new memories are coming, but soon it’ll all just stop, and I hate how I don’t know when, I don’t know when my memories and I will all just abruptly disappear. It’s a terrifying thought. Anyways, this video is truly amazing and you did some amazing work here, I’m definitely subscribing
I agree, it scares me to think about how the life I'm living now will just be a hazy memory someday the same way my early childhood seems to me now when I try to remember it, honestly even just a few weeks from now I'll probably forget writing this comment
I'm Italian and I've lived in Italy for all my life, so a lot of images used in weirdcore and dreamcore aren't that familiar to me, but that doesn't stop me from still feeling nostalgic when I see them, for some reason. I love especially the ones that use American suburbia, as they both represent to me a sight that I've never seen in person and something that still feels extremely nostalgic. I loved the video a whole lot, it explained really well the details I love so much in weirdcore🤗 great job!
I feel the same, I am Portuguese but the reason of why its so nostalgic at least for me even though I have never been to the US is because of tv (american movies/shows).
same, I always found it interesting that so many of us non americans can still feel nostalgia when looking at those pics even though our own countries look nothing like it. my theory is that bc we grew up with so much american media we feel a connection to it even though we've never been there. it's hard to explain this to non americans lol they just can't understand what it's like, it's a very unique situation and I can't think of any other instance of this happening
@@Vapormoon Yo I just wanna let you know, this comment reflects some of my most complex thoughts about my relationship with the internet aesthetic perfectly, so thanks for writing it lol. I'm an italo-american born in the late 90s, so I have a veeery weird relationship with the internet and these aesthetics, especially related to the "americans vs europe" thing. This tiny thread has made me feel strangely at home, with all the strangeness around us. Crazy
Traumacore gave me a sense that someone else understood a deep dysfunction that took root in my childhood. The gift of rot, rage, and loss from those who were supposed to nurture, love, and protect me.
I was born in '95 and feel a very distinct attraction to dreamcore specifically. There's something very powerful about the balance between the intent to comfort and unsettle in equal measure. It can make you feel like the experiences you have and things you feel, the ones most difficult to put into words, are being respected instead of brushed aside as anomalies.
Dude same, I'm from the US, born in '97, and dreamcore resonates with me on an almost existential, ontological level. I have really blurry, abstract early memories, either waking or in dreams (it's hard to differentiate), of these types of bygone locations, textures, color palettes, and it's comforting if not a little freaky to discover how universal some of these experiences are
These aesthetics comfort me because I have a lot of mental illness due to bad childhood trauma and they feel familiar to me because they remind me of myself but in a comforting way, like a lullaby from my subconscious. My ideal aesthetic would be one based on mental illness/insanity and this is the closest I can get to that as far as I know. It really captures the essence of being so broken that you don’t even recognize yourself anymore. The surrealism is basically a tangible way to describe how I feel, especially during episodes of delirium when nothing makes sense outside of my own head.
I make traumacore art! The analysis you gave was sooooo good. It’s a form of art therapy that I do in addition to my primary forms of mental health care. It allows me to explore and become more comfortable with the disorienting nature of my childhood experience. So many things were lovely, so many things scarred me for life. And so much isolation. My memory has been impacted in distressing ways but the act of creating the art helps me process. Making traumacore art is a way to reclaim my agency using something I love.
I really like how you explained traumacore and how the imagery relates to specific experiences that come with things like ptsd, dissociation, etc. I also greatly appreciate the tw's. It's a small, but important detail that I wish more content creator's would use. This is a wonderful video, keep up the good work!
I distinctly remember seeing places like these in my dreams. Especially as a kid during the late 2000s to early 2010s. Random houses with no furniture with weird pink or purple tints. A green infinite field with clouds and small hills. Maybe it was just my child brain trying to understand the concepts of our world resulting in these disturbing yet comforting images.
This was actually insanely interesting. I have very light trauma, and kinda bonded with the dream core stuff, and it's interesting to see who else agrees. Thank you for making this :)
Just wanted to share that I absolutely loved how you were able to dissect, link and successfully explain weirdcore, traumacore and dreamcore. I’ve seen a lot of videos covering these aesthetics but this one just gets it right. By the end of the video I thought I had watched something from a really big popular channel because of how well put together and presented everything was. This video is a hidden gem and ty for creating it!
10:00 For anyone wondering what that place is, I believe it’s called Eastern Shore Lanes, it’s a bowling alley and arcade in Alabama. I’ve been there multiple times. I think this place looks like it, I haven’t been there in a while because I moved so I may be remembering it wrong though. Either that or it’s this roller skating area I went to. The floor looks like that place. Sorry if I accidentally spread wrong information.
I'm in love with this video. Weirdcore is my favorite aesthetic and I love watching videos like this and wow! Everything is explained in such a good way! Good job, friend! 👏
I have commented about this a few times on other "weirdcore" videos. but I do love that a lot of this "weird" aesthetic or look are so super close to the vibe/feeling Roblox horror/myth games of 2015-2018. Big "myths" such as AloneTraveler and G0Z and RUST_010 have a lot of these "weird" elements (ex: watching eyes, liminal, spaces, paranoia.) And as someone that was so invested in this community I love to see this genre of "almost horror" make a comeback. edit: I just remember that the image with the very round hills and fences and a yellow house is actually just a roblox game.
Weirdcore is the sort of thing I struggle to describe or explain, and given that it resonates with me so much, I think that's the point. This was an amazing video. I'd be interested to see if you do another video on traumacore
TW: mentions of abuse, e/d, s/h I’ve been using traumacore to cope recently. My memory is blurry until about the age of 12. When I was younger, I had unsupervised internet access, leading me to see some things. My dad never was around, and when he was the things I can slightly remember are just being uncomfortable the whole time, but thinking it was normal. Then I started to get heavily bullied for my weight and genetic disorder. Leading me to almost develop anorexia in 3rd grade. Switched schools then, things didn’t get better since I’m LGBT+ and now in a Catholic school. To this day, I constantly get called slurs by both my dad and by kids in school. The absolute worst thing I remember is my cousin touching me inappropriately. I asked him to stop but he didn’t, he followed me around just so he could touch. People keep saying “oh that’s a dream, they would’ve never done that” I also get r@pe nightmares A LOT and they feel so real. Like, I’ve been there before. I feel like something happened but my brain decided to turn off so I wouldn’t have to remember. It told me things like “cut yourself b/tch, you don’t deserve anything” so I did. Currently recovering, at 80 days
i feel like another reason people like this aesthetic so much is because they had to grow up very quickly. sometimes i feel like i stopped being a kid way too soon, i left behind a piece of me. looking at weirdcore, traumacore, dreamcore and childcore, makes me think of things i tried to forget or things i left behind. it's comforting and unsettling, it makes me sad and it makes me want more.
Holy man you did an OUTSTANDING job with this video! Videos like this deserve more attention, it's always my nightmare to see a youtuber like this not get the appropriate attention it deserves!!1!1, keep it up tho!!!1!
I remember discovering Traumacore through TH-cam Shorts. It was odd at first but after watching for a bit, i started to cry a little. I don't know if i suffer from PTSD but it definitely did help me realize that the physical and mental abuse ive experienced. I've always loved the disturbing art/worlds people can create. I don't fully understand why but I'm glad I discovered that side of the internet and I want to explore more of it. I think I partially want to delve deeper into the community for my own curiosity but also because it brings comfort to me. I find dreampools relaxing to look at and fantasize just wading through the waters, letting the sounds echo endlessly. I want to create art that's both confusing and comprehendible such as liminal spaces. My thoughts are strange, i fully dont understand them or myself but these cores and aesthetics have helped me connect to myself in an odd way. Sorry for the ramble, just wanted to contribute something using my brain juices and slightly disturbed mind
aesthetics are kind of hard to talk about because they allways focus on some sort off feeling, but theres still a lot of things to say, i think its probablly that you feel a very specific kind of happyness while viewing these pictures, and its sometimes hard to describe, if you do, then i honestly can really relate, even if these arent really the kinds of aesthetics i like
I remember I used to really enjoy watching videos about phobias, listening to horror stories read aloud, things like that. There was something comforting about the twisted and unsettling. Maybe it was for a distraction from my own life, or maybe to serve as metaphor for my own life-- I think a bit of both, something that resonates from a distance if that makes sense. Now I see creations like weirdcore and traumacore and I feel much less alone. Apparently people everywhere are doing the same thing-- taking the bizarre and unreal and using it to explain their own realities. Perhaps if human language could describe such things, we would not need art so much-- but as it is, I'm grateful to art of all kinds for showing me that I am not as alone as I thought.
Last July, I made an animated traumacore series as an abreaction to remembering how I felt about traumatic events from my childhood. It was basically like vomiting trauma into a cursed creation. The protagonist was an angel who was stranded in Purgatory and represented me. The antagonist was based on my various abusers throughout childhood and was a demon who had escaped from Hell. It was too triggering for me to make the characters look humanoid, so I made them look like children’s stick figure paintings instead, sort of like the redacted people you mentioned. But, even with doing that, I couldn’t even watch my own videos after making them due to them being so heavy for me. Despite that, I uploaded 3 episodes to my channel, but, unfortunately, most people didn’t take them seriously. Instead, they just treated them like shitposts with no deeper meaning. Only two people even considered a deeper meaning, one of them being a fellow abuse victim who was still in the abusive situation and found comfort in my videos. I eventually ended up unlisting the videos, but here is a link to a video made by the fan I mentioned earlier containing a speedpaint of the protagonist: th-cam.com/video/DgRkIxXI758/w-d-xo.html and here is a link to another animation I made that is still up on my channel and contains said character: th-cam.com/video/3qT2ROrLgCk/w-d-xo.html Lastly, if you read this far, here is a link to the series itself, which was discontinued shortly after I started it. Maybe, if the creator of this video puts it in the description of this video or even looks at it in another video or something, it can get more proper recognition than just shitposty comments from people who don’t look deeper: th-cam.com/play/PLcrJASsd9vvmn0JmUcd9QEv-wcBP8RujX.html
I clicked on this video thinking its a playlist lol great video tho + ur voice sounds like a kids show narrator from the 90s -00s its so nostalgic and cozy, love it
It’s all very comforting and kinda gives me a glimpse into a world that once existed… I was born in 89, and got to experience my whole childhood in the 90s, and then my early young adult years in the early 2000s… as an adult in this day and age it’s easy to get lost in these aesthetics…
These images seem to pick at my fight or flight instinct. My mind turns a little different, I can feel small changes in environments but sometimes I can't fully tell what's different and it freaks me out. I also am deeply uncomfortable with large and empty spaces. People thing a beautiful open field is relaxing when all I feel is an existential dread. When no one's around and there's no visible activity it gives me apocalypse vibes. I hate the emptiness, hate feeling alone with nowhere to hide. The wonder and fear of being alone and what if I'm not alone and something's hiding. Watching from a distance. I also get deja Vu a lot, just in general. I often feel I've already said or done something but have no clear memory. And these images that are meant to be familiar remind me of that. Places I recognize but am unsure if I've been to or where I've seen it before. Some people are saying this stuff is comforting, and while I find fascination in it all I find zero comfort in any of it. In fact if I linger on this stuff too long I'll find myself on the verge of panic, especially if it's night time. I'll be unable to sleep in fear of nightmares, nightmares that may be too similar to this music and pictures. The psychology of it all is fascinating. And how it effects people similarly but also different. I'd love a professionals observation about it all and why it has these effects on the mind.
i think part of the reason why these images feel like something familiar, is that we have been in our childhood in quite aesthetic places which were made sort of accidentally aesthetic, and our parents really didnt tell us about aesthetics and couldnt describe them, like, ive allways looked at various places and things that make me feel a specific way, and my familly as well, but they could really describe them, and now that i can, it feels nostalgic
You grew up in Italy and for you experiencing this images takes you back to your childhood. You remember most of the time you grew up. The friends you had. 5 years after graduation you decided to leave for UK.
For me this aesthetic is a representation of the world we left behind as we were forced to grow up, everything is molding over and dusty, and as if that world was alive, it’s become angry with us for abandoning it so abruptly, So eventually those sweet memories of the past start to haunt us, never letting us move on. Ever.
I had a lot of mental health issues as a young child. The greatest symptom was probably derealization, or the feeling of being unreal and/or living in a dream. I think, for me, enjoying this kind of aesthetic gives me back control of the things I felt as a child. I can choose to see these things, and when I turn off the computer they go away. “Choose” is the key word… I am no longer trapped with this feeling, and encountering it from time to time gives me the control to deal with what happened to me.
For lots of people who like weird core or dream core there is this place in Las Vegas called area 15 and, it’s just really fun I think lots of people would like it!
I thought this was just ganna be a playlist of these type of music. But no, right now I'm leaning. Really loved the video! Expected of something else, and still got something good.
now lemme be honest, when i see those familiar images they remind me of old times from the old country i used to live in, and when remembering my old country i remember war, and when i remember war i remember my deep trauma, and when i remember my deep trauma i browse through weirdcore stuff, and when browsing through weirdcore stuff i see those familiar images, and so the loop goes on.
Being born in 1989 and growing up with all these places, aesthetics, technology as it developed from the earliest floppy 💾 computer, to handheld no color Gameboy, cheap knock offs, old home design, store design, fast food aesthetic and vibes, just everything.... I'm just curious about why our modern day is Soo BLAND and lack of personality. Today is like everywhere you go, everything looks the same everywhere, the only things I get that "are unique" are nature spots. But human made things, places, architecture, design is literally copy and pasted every where now and I've noticed how much I miss the vibe of 90s/2000s regardless of past trauma's, I'd rather have the world designed like it used to then the stale ways of today's age. I feel bad for kids growing up at this very moment because we at least got to live in a place with arcades, play places everywhere, action parks, old taco bell McDonald's like wacky corny styles, parking lot fair's/ circus/theme park events that came yearly, roller rinks, laser tag, papa's pizza play places, drive in movie theaters, Hollywood video/game crazy, blockbuster, Kmart/so many odd old unique mom and pop stores that don't exist anymore/old office places that ran off of old computers and scanner/printer machines. Etc. Everywhere just felt so tailored to kids and fun and something to do and it's just so not like that anymore and it's really a shame.
I've always been slightly confused by these, thanks for explaining them! I also really appreciate the trigger warnings before the traumacore, not nearly enough people use those.
I love this video; thank you for giving these ideas (especially traumacore) the respect they deserve. I love your message at the end about how art should provoke. Many people I see on the internet seem not to understand that. They would like for all art to be clean and marketable to the general public. I have seen many people critique traumacore as being bad in someway, due to it's dark subject matter. Completely missing the point of traumacore. Perhaps they do this because facing the reality that many people have gone through such things is too upsetting to them. So, they would rather push it away and label it "offensive". As if being upsetting means it shouldn't exist. But, of course it's upsetting. It's about trauma. Maybe if you've never experienced anything like that, it's more disturbing and harder to digest. To see the true curtain pulled back, not just the hollywood sugarcoated version of trauma.
These give me various vibes, and I would like to elaborate on the feeling. 1. Grieving, loss, etc. This past October, my Nana, who I was rather close to, passed away. Just over a week ago, my cat, who had been in my life for over a decade, passed away. Plus, since I've come out, my Papa has become very cold towards me, and he's been rather sickly as of late as is. It feels like the Papa I knew as a kid is gone, and almost like it was a facade the whole time. Everything feels very empty. It's like the light and warmth is gone leaving and empty shell. Very much "There's nothing for you here." I always expect them, but they're never there. It's so quiet. It doesn't seem like it will ever be the same. They should be here. 2. What may or may not be disassociation, dysphoria, and panic attacks. Especially the ones about not belonging in their skin and being trapped in their body for the dysphoria. Do you ever just feel like your body is on autopilot or like everything is wrong and off. Like you're not supposed to be a human and it's like you forget what a human is and you just suddenly regained some sort of consciousness that you're not supposed to be here? Do you ever feel like you're watching your body do things, but it's not your body? Do you ever feel like some parasitic creature puppeting a meat suit? Do you ever feel like an alien trying to blend in with human society? Are you ever just minding your own business, then "Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I? What am I doing with my life? Who is this? What am I? I don't belong here. Something's wrong. Why am I still here? I need to leave." and you panic, but it only lasts for a brief moment before you're subdued back into your regular life, but it just feels off; like you're forgetting something important? Do you ever desperately feel the need to escape your body? Do you ever feel like you're possessing the body of someone who died long ago? Do you ever just suddenly feel like something is horrifically wrong for an indiscernible reason, and you desperately need to do something about it immediately, but there's nothing you can do? Like the world is about to end. Like you could die a brutal death at any second. Like everyone you ever knew and loved is suddenly gone. Like some large-scale natural disaster is about to strike. It's all your fault. You're not supposed to be here. There's nothing you can do. You can't escape. 3. Dreams. Obviously. I have very weird and surreal dreams that I tend to remember frequently and extremely vividly. I am also quite adept in lucid dreaming. It's almost like a second life sometimes. For better or for worse. I struggle to interpret and portray my emotions. I often don't know what I'm feeling. It's very hard for me to explain. I know I have emotional trauma. I have ADHD and I have many mental health issues. I would explain further on the feelings, but I don't think I can. It's interesting, though.
Your comment resonates a lot with my experiences over the past couple of years....I have felt exactly the same with the same sense of not belonging in this reality or in my body. It was quite dramatic in my case, with the shift happening as soon as I emerged from general anesthesia after surgery. Whatever happened that day (the medics wouldn't tell me), was like a death in a way....or the death of my life as I'd known it. Everything felt off, strange, and I was in a state of delirium. I developed PTSD as a result, with disassociation, depersonalization and derealization. Since then I've been trying to figure out how I'm meant to act, play the role of the character people expect (even though they don't feel like the people I knew before). Although I have desperately tried to communicate some of this anguish with the people who were my loved ones, it's impossible, and I'm trapped pretending to be a person I don't know. There is nothing worse than feeling like an imposter, a fraud, and not being able to break free. But if I was to break free, I don't know where I would go, as this doesn't feel like my life.
It is interesting that almost gatekeeping of some. For example you mentioned trauma core and how some people are like "you should participate if you haven't gone through trauma" But these images, edits, etc have been a thing for a long time. Some of these images i've seen in like 2015-2016 when I was in my college. This back room vibe and weird text and altered childhood images have been explored already, so its interesting now younger people are gatekeeping this and deciding who can participate and sometimes can exclude the people who were originally apart of it at the start. This is ABSOLUTELY is not something that has started within the last 2 years and on tiktok
I discovered traumacore not that long ago and i honestly think it helped me break an addiction. It helped me cope with the c-ptsd that was a big factor of it but also helped me feel better about my almost unbearable daily physical pain. The medical traumacore it's definitely a favorite part for me
Salutations! This helped me understand if each aesthetic was different or not. Now I understand that I mainly turn towards weirdcore, instead of traumacore and dreamcore. Don't stop making these amazing videos, and have a splendid day!
dreamcore reminds me of how i used to view the world as a child -- all the really bright colours, spaces looking more vast and open than they actually are.. idk, but that's a feeling it always invokes for me on top of the already nostalgic feelings. really adds to it lol
To me weirdcore feels like I’m witnessing something I wasn’t supposed to see, dream core feels ethereal and comforting but dangerous like a siren song and traumacore feels dissonant and panicked like being trapped.
Traumacore triggers me and comforts me at the same time. Its a work of art that helps others see what having childhood trauma is like. A lot of the text they put over it resonates with me. Especially ones about “don’t go back there” or where the people are blacked out… that’s literally my mind when I try to recall memories.
This video is really interesting! I'm a writer and artist who likes creating traumacore and the like to help process my own emotions caused by a lifetime of child abuse. I think it is really cathartic and I love our lil community. Thanks for making this video! You've earned a sub from me.
I saw people in the comments talking about how they resonate with these aesthetics, and I guess I just wanna talk about my pov with it all. It really does remind me of my childhood, in a dream-like sort of way. I have memories from when I was young, but they're so distant that they almost don't feel real. Like I was just watching another child play, but I know those memories are me. My childhood is like a weird dream. Just recently my sister found this old toy that we used to love, and seeing it almost didn't feel real because it was such a distant memory. Then we found an old show we used to love, and re-watching was like seeing a dream come to life. Weirdcore and Dreamcore remind me of that.
The strange messages itll give is saying something, d a r k. Ex. "Dw about that door theres nothing there:)" giving the narrative there is something very wrong or something did happen. The way that is put is by putting these "characters" in uncomfortable positions is making that person dissociating from the disturbing person/object that has caused them trauma, this heals for some like i do, these people who like these aesthetic have most likely suffered abuse or shaming and its rather comforting watching the complications. Ty for making a Video about our community i really appreciate it:D (you may have covered this already but Im just clearing it up for others if you did)
god i love instupendo. their music resonates really closely to me in a way i cant describe. it reminds me of memories i dont know if i had or not. my personal favorite song of theirs is comfort chain and boy. boy is very melancholic, while comfort chain obviously comforts. they're so underrated.
This video was a lot more enjoyable to watch because of how calm he is speaking. It feels extremely easy to let time pass as he speaks. I thank you very much for this video.
Growing up in the 2000s and having to survive my abusers and their neglect and assault of me has left me fairly incapacitated into adulthood. I only finally freed myself of their grasp at 21. And even so I’ll now have to confront the pain for the rest of my life. These aesthetics are like a safe haven for us traumatized and neurodiverse people. It’s important for us.
As someone who had trauma as a child, I had this reoccurring dream where i was walking up a floating staircase in the sky ☁️ that lead to a room full of mirrors as walls and doors that kept repeating once you opened them🚪 no matter how many you opened! Now seeing this and learning about the backrooms I’m glad I’m not alone in this thought process. I always thought I was just a freaky kid that had alice in wonderland type dreams 😂
"comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" im getting that tattoo'd on me when i have the money 😭 i love that you included the dissonant slow edit of Home by Toby Fox. The original song conveys this deep, deep comfort in me that makes me want to cry because it evokes this sensation of finally being loved. Conversely, the slower, darker edits evoke a sensation of finally being able to process the horrors I've gone through, as someone who suffers from PTSD. It's like going to the grave of someone you lost who was close to you, and it all hits you at once. It's the perfect song for this topic, and an even better one to close out with. also that one creepy edit of Home, usually accompanied by the weird uncanny valley gif, that specific edit evokes the feeling of being traumatized. not really like im having a flashback, but it like. activates the same warning signals, yknow? it's pretty unique because i love horror and that rarely happens to me when watching/listening/etc to anything horror-related.
@@cheesygubbinNonono. Mcdoogle is another level. Haven't you figured that out yet. Mcdoogles used to be my favourite until they put the wonderful wapper on the menu, so to answer your question big mac is a slightly weaker little version of mcdoogles. Some call them mcdoogles little brother
Personally I believe the point on the images having to be of a certain year either in feel, aesthetic or literally, is a bit biased. I found myself somehow feeling "anemoia" for aesthetics that stretch back to the 70's-60's, I mainly attribute this to fact that I was born around the mid 2000's while still living in a rather 80's environment. I used to go to even older places that were still in working condition that were built in the 60's, this is due to the fact that I grew up in Australia, relatively average country with pretty poor sectors outside of the Central Business Districts. This all in my childhood left only exposed to the yesterday's technology, architecture and aesthetics. Honestly looking back my childhood was very disjointed due the fact that where I lived, you could basically live in different eras depending on where you stayed. My family did a lot moving to new and old places, far off places too, It really messes with me when I try to discern what year that memory happened because of this. Anyway that's my reason on why there is even more variation in how one goes about creating a nostalgic setting, simply not limited to 2000's era aesthetic.
That's true. I think the whole idea of "aestherics" is a very americanized or at least western thing. People in Asia or Countries like Russia and Brazil have different things that make them nostalgic (There were comments about this under Daniel Felix' or Clarke Elieson's essay on Liminal spaces, can't remember). The reason I focused on the 2000s is because it's something that popped up in the internet and the content creators of the aesthetic are largely from Gen Z or late Millennials. Ofc nostalgia can be felt from older stuff too, hence the whole vaporwave boom
all of my trauma happened during my childhood and it makes me feel like any event prior to when I was 8 never happened. these kinds of odd early 2000s aesthetics are strangely so comforting to me because it makes me feel like what i experienced did happen
This video is golden content. It's very hard to understand or analyze these aesthetics. You managed to get it just right though. It's not just one simple thing. All three of these are a whole art movement that allows hurt, tired, and creative individuals to express thoughts in one of the most unique ways possible. It unlocks a part of the human mind we didn't know we all shared. It shows everyone truly is connected. Like how everyone has dreams of falling from the sky or flying through the air. Or how everyone somehow gets weirded out by electrical pylons and empty hospital lobbies. It's beautiful in a surreal way. A sad part about this is the fact that only a few people may grow up with the current versions we have now. People younger than 14 are gonna have different nostalgia compared to young adults right now. It's not an art form that has the same base, like Cubism or Metal. It will eventually evolve and one day look very different. We might not even be alive to see that happen either. As for Traumacore itself, even people with bad enough trauma(on a specific level if you know wat I mean) are torn on it. Don't feel bad if someone gets upset by saying your gross for calling it an aesthetic. For instance, me and my sisters grew up neglected, abused, manipulated, and unloved and I personally call it an aesthetic. It's a special one but it's still an aesthetic. It's a matter of opinion sometimes.
Traumacore was actually one of the only internet “aesthetics* (for lack of a better word) that I was familiar w going into this video. A compilation had popped up into my recommended after I was searching up a bunch of stuff ab PTSD and other mental health disorders associated w CSA when I no longer had a therapist to ask questions to. That first video was in a sense like a gate way drug into these videos bc there was a good half of a year that I spent just watching hours of that content. One thing I couldn’t figure out was why these images that made me feel so uncomfortable and weird also made me feel extremely lethargic and had me nostalgically yearning for a time I could hardly even remember at that point. I still don’t fully understand it all to this day but I still will watch those comps from time to time to try and evoke that same blend and swirl of emotions poring out of me.
A lot of it is a wishing things were simplier. Most people who grew up in the early 2000s were subjugated to the high speed of modern society way too early and honestly everything all the time is just so overwhelming. I think Bo Burnhams Welcome to the internet describes that well. That song is how it feels to grow up with the internet and weird core is almost an escape from the internet while using it. Places people would have gone to with their friends in the 90s were already dying by the time we were able to and we still have the second hand nostalgia from that either from Tv shows we grew up with or movies we watched. Malls used to be this meeting place for most people, now they're just so, off putting. They're either so overly massive and packed full, or just, empty, like a husk of an era we were just to late to witness. Modern days make it hard for young people to do anything that doesnt involve the internet. Its a yearning for a time that things werent so overbearing on us and a time where we could just take our time with life and enjoy it. I cant remember living my life without caring who was president or what big disaster happened on the news across the world. The world is just changing faster than some of us can adapt. Too late for 90/80s culture, too late for modern culture. Stuck in limbo and unable to figure out what shouldve been our childhood. Open malls or screens. I think thats the essence of where all of this comes from
I just wanna thank you for taking the time to write this because u may not even notice but u have just made me realize somethings I rlly needed too realize....ur so right, and it makes it worse that I struggle with derealization and social amxiety
I think that I was unintentionally dipping into these categories of art with my own videos (I mean that loosely, as they don’t have any music, and there aren’t any obvious messages). I’m a ‘96 originator, so my sense of nostalgia is for the 90s and early 2000s.
One thing that I think is important to note is that this kind of aesthetics are very specific to the north American experience. I'm a foreigner who grew up in the 00s with unlimited access to the internet, so the online interface is still relatable because it's basically the same everywhere, but whenever I look at the images of places that are supposed to bring a sense of nostalgia it just reminds me of tv shows and movie settings, they don't feel "real". That's why I think these kind of aesthetics are a direct byproduct of living in the hyper-reality fabricated in the USA, my fiction is their reality so I can imagine that it would aggravate the feelings of people who suffer from derealization and depersonalization, the lines between what is real and fake are always blurred, your architecture and landscapes of the places you grew up all look like they popped out of the TV but without the lights and glamor it just looks unsettling and lifeless.
Weirdcore is really more of a general name to used for all those types of things like Dreamcore, Traumacore, Aero/Frutiger Aero, Synthwave, Vaporwave, Nostalgiacore, Breakcore/DnB/Jungle (the real ones, not those dissonant and chaotic noises that tiktok made up), y2k, Hyperpop, Old Web, Kidcore, Glitchcore, etc...
Such a great video! I loved the way you drew lines between the three internet aesthetics and were able to draw back parallels to codified art movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism. I can't help but wonder if vaporwave as a music and aesthetic genre also contributed to what we see from the Weird/Dream/Traumacore genres today. So much of Vaporwave builds off of dead malls and the juxtaposition between the shiny personal consumerism of the 80s and early 90s and the shells of their former selves we see today.
i wouldn’t say first, since lsd dream emulator is considered a weirdcore game and iirc that came out in the late 90s … yume nikki is considered one too, and that came out in 2004 personally if i had to pick a source engine game that i’d consider weirdcore (or moreso liminal space-esque) i’d pick garry’s mod, especially if i’m playing alone
when i joined the weirdcore/dreamcore community I honestly felt more comfortable and relaxed, even feeling as if i am being put into a trance, to temporarily escape. to feel more at ease.
For me, it was like finding a place where I felt safe. Like oddly, out of all, I found traumacore to be most comforting for me. I was used to drawing vent art and had an entire traumadump character because a lot of things happened when I was younger and it just made me forget everything. I only really know how I how felt in those instances. Traumacore just felt like a place I could express my pain.
19:43 'it is unlikely to invoke any inherent feeling of dissociation or dread from listening to the tracks alone' *meanwhile me, about to cry because fallen down is playing in the background and its giving me overwhelming feelings of nostalgia for undertale*
I may have been on the internet for a while, but I wasn't really brave enough to learn everything there is. Now I am. I want to learn how the internet has been, while I am still in my youth.
These types of videos are my whole life right now, and this one is near the top of any I’ve ever seen. It’s creative, informative, interesting, entertaining, and overall captivating. Good job!
i think another reason why these generations resonate with this type of aesthetic is due to the age of consumerism. the images of commercial spaces, that are usually filled with spaces, we find ironically satisfying, yet disturbing.
I also feel like a lot of us grew up to quick and this aesthetic is a strange gate way to kind of re-experience a time we’ve left behind far to quickly. But that just may be me
I've never thought about that. Maybe thats why they make me feel so comfortable? I think all of Gen Z has never had any time to really be a kid. I know too much for someone so young I can barely handle it sometimes
@@sillybilly_420 exactly! i grew up fast and have gone through a lot for a kid and these aesthetics always make me feel better and sometimes like a kid again
Hello fellow ghost. And I agree it feels comforting because we didn't get enough
This! This is exactly it
Having to act way older than I really was really upset me as things got stressful so this sums it up for me
What *does* it feel like though? I’m only twelve, so I don’t know yet.
My personal take: I think pretty much everyone who was born in the late 90s/early 2000s who had unsupervised access to computers was traumatized by the internet in some way, whether they know it or not, myself included. I distinctly remember discovering adult content and other dark content by accident as a very young child, and was damaged by it as a result without realizing it for years. Thankfully I avoided the grooming of creepy strangers, others in my generation were not so lucky.
It's difficult to blame parents when older generations just didn't understand how it all worked.
Because there was so much good and fun to be had, for a long time I think we blanketed the trauma we experienced in favor of a sense of only joy and nostalgia for the early age of the internet.
The weirdcore/dreamcore aesthetic of typically seemingly happy or peaceful places, with an additional subtle sense of darkness and danger really encapsulates how the internet was back then, bright and joyous with an underbelly of darkness we were too young at the time to fully understand.
It feels like, over the pandemic and through this art form, at least a good segment of us in Gen Z is finally realizing/confronting that trauma and bringing it to the public consciousness/awareness, and it really defines the generation.
Today, a lot of Gen X and Millenial parents are giving their Gen Alpha kids hours of time with devices or in front of television. Every other Gen Z kid I've spoken to has said that their kids will spend more time outside and won't have unsupervised access to technology until they are older, because we are now aware of our own trauma and the damaging effects of technology on childhood development, and refuse to expose our kids to it; while previous generations are now allowing technology to babysit their children out of sheer ignorance and/or laziness....
Only tangentially related, but PLEASE notify every parent of young children that you know that Cocomelon is horrible for kids. It's literal overstimulation with bright colors and images moving too fast for their developing brains to keep up with, and is being called "nicotine for kids" (Complete with literal documented withdrawal symptoms) by child psychologists.
me too , i remember inappropriate ads on old piracy sites
that’s a really good take! i totally agree
I don't know enough millenial parents to comment on parenting styles but I know pretty much all of my friends and relatives of the same generation agree that the internet traumatized them in some way.
Wow your comment really unearthed the memory of just how dark and Wild West the internet was back when I was a child/tween. I am a late late 90’s kid and I remember surfing the internet unsupervised back in the day, I knew there were places and pages you should not visit, but sometimes you just stumble upon graphic or traumatizing things, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes by accident. It would leave me with a feeling of lost innocence, it would make me frightened, that I made a mistake, that I will never be able to unsee the thing I just saw
I have an ungodly fear of embarrassment because of this type of parenting and the older uncensored days of the internet. I wasn't really traumatized by the content I was exposed to, I was more traumatized by how awful and "cringe-worthy" I used to act in response to it. I struggle with opening up about anything to the people around me now, and I feel like there are tons of kids like me who've gone through this or worse. Parents should *not* let tech babysit their kids, it just ends up with them having horrific social issues! I'm lucky that my parents are wiser now, but I fear what the younger kids around me are going to become in the future, and I just hope that they don't end up with these issues. Your comment was written very well and helped shed some light onto the dangers of letting kids be free with tech at too young of an age, thanks a lot! :)
(PS: I am baffled at how Cocomelon hasn't been shut down yet, but I shouldn't be too surprised because you can't really touch corporations these days.)
as someone who went through trauma serious enough for me to forget approximately 12yrs of my life, these kinds of aesthetics seriously resonate with me. the feeling of something being vaguely familiar but far away is something i feel almost every day as i try to regain the memories i lost. while i didn't grow up like a normal kid, i grew up adjacent to many that did, and especially with how things like dreamcore pull in a lot of religious elements sometimes, it helps me think through it all. baphometkun is a good creator of this kind of stuff, ive seen a lot of their shorts and it might be worth looking into if youre interested.
Yeah Baphomet's great, I linked them in the description
Baphomet Kun is very comforting to me, i especially like their character Dr. Fluer.
These aesthetics are like a fill im for me for my childhood cause so much of it is just forgotten cause of trauma and its also weirdly comforting to find people who feel rhe same way, reminds me that im not alone, its somehow powerful how so many people have used this art to express this.
❤️I get you
I feel the same, I had a really traumatic experience with a family member and though I can remember parts of my childhood, I always felt like I was just watching everything pass me as opposed to being in that scenario.. like I remember that birthday table existing in a play centre near home for some kids party, but I don't remember eating anything, knowing the kid or even being in the room.. it's like a weird out of body experience
Another pandemic-driven aspect of it could be the isolation of public spaces. At the beginning of the pandemic especially, because of shutdowns a lot of places that were once packed with people emptied out. For a while, you could walk into the street or go to a mall and it would be completely empty in a way it never was and never should be. It felt unnatural, amplified by the fear of COVID itself and not knowing if things would ever go back to normal. It felt like you’d been abruptly displaced in a reality that looked like yours but is too empty, is slowly deteriorating, and has something very wrong inside of it that could come for you.
Haven't thought about that. I think Daniel Felix mentioned it in his debut work on Liminal Spaces tho
th-cam.com/video/cQWdtZbj2Zg/w-d-xo.html
Oh, haven’t watched that one yet! Definitely gonna check it out :)
That makes a lot of sense, the pandemic has definitely changed the way I look at the world and my general attitude
Yeah for sure I don't agree with all the rules with mask ect but yet everything has changed it is a very historical moment it seems so odd to us all but it's nothing new
Yeah should have been in NYC during the height of the lockdowns.
Walking from Washington Square Park to Madison Square Center (essentially the entire lower half of Manhattan) and seeing almost no one at like 9pm during Pride Weekend was surreal. The parks were busy, but nowhere else. I counted 6 people that day on 5th Ave.
I’ve always remember that.
Can we just appreciate how weird the internet is? Just think how many concepts like these simply wouldn’t exist without the internet. Weird core especially is so odd, and it’s very interesting how we are all collectively experiencing this really unique thing. From the good, to the bad, to the obscure, the internet is super weird.
Never before in history has humanity been able to access and easily contribute to this wide of a compendium of experiences and ideas and vague feelings. It's definitely exposing weird parts of the human psyche.
@@Jacob-ko2li ikr- I’ve come across so many things from the internet and been like “hey, I do that too! I thought it was just my brain”
@Servant of Kluex the Avian God thanks :D
We are not all collectively experiencing this, although I would agree it's a unique thing. The architecture, interior design, locations, even the food in this video, and in most media dealing with this type of aesthetic are American. As a European, I do find some of the content nostalgia-inducing, but I wouldn't stop at calling it western. While I do share your fascination with the notion that the internet helped create such concepts, I'd take it even further and say the internet was a mere catalyst in the process of globalization which ingrained a sense of collective memory allowing many of us to relate to experiences we didn't genuinely live through.
every time i try to explain to a coworker whart reddit is, i come to the thought of how incredibly simple yet uncommon and 'new' the internet is
Something about the 90s and 2000s has this calming energy too it.
The 90's was an optimistic and easy going time. The majority of the 2000s presented a more free and wild west form of the internet. I think we're consciously or subconsciously drawn to simpler, carefree times of our youth. I say this as an older millennial whose childhood and teen years was from the mid-80s to the year 2000. As an adult the post-9/11 world has become bleaker, and scarier with an uncertain and seemingly more dire future as the years go by. Starting with 9/11, then the great recession followed by Trumpism the growing climate crises and now a pandemic, we now see the cracks and flaws in what we once thought we knew and assumed about the world around us. For younger millennials and I think older Gen Zers the simpler and comforting era is the 90s and 2000s.
Best thing to happen was the fall of the soviet union
The calm before the storm
@@BoeBins Too true
@@Traumaqueenamy - "trumpism" has nothing on the current situation that's being directly made worse by biden... just sayin, let's not demonize one entire side when the other is just as flawed
Weirdcore is a visual representation of how depersonalisation and derealisation feel. There's no threat, but something is "off", something is "wrong", but yet this is reality, apparently. Its so gut wrenchingly terrifying, and these images are exactly what these feelings look like.
I couldnt find the words to describe derealisation/depersonalisation for such a long time. I still struggle! But the next time someone asks im gonna show them some liminal weirdcore and be like "this."
I've been dealing with it for so long now that I'm actually comforted by the images now, they're close to my heart bc at least someone out there gets it 😂
i think it has to do with the fact that you see something that is real, but in a context that isnt, so, it isnt just abstract and unfamiliar or fully nonsensical, it does have real elements, but in a context that is outside of the normal one
wow that's it, you're exactly right.
Derealization has fucked me up for a long time now. Brought on by drug experiences, I remember being terrified at the fact that it's never gonna be normal again, that I'm never able to experience real reality.
Honestly I still have it after 5 years, especially in summer, when the light makes everything seem off. Lighting is a really big factor in it for me.
I learned to accept it tho, it's not so terrifying anymore, in some way it's even beautiful. Idk how to explain it, it's like you have the opportunity to experience nature and everything surrounding it as something new of sorts? So you notice every little detail, how gorgeous it really is instead of just looking at it passing by.
Always gotta stay positive with the cards you are dealt with, everything is gonna be fine :)
yes man the constant feeling of dread
the world looks like how a word feels when u say it too much
This deserves more views than the 441 it currently has. Do NOT stop creating these because it feels pointless for lack of views. You are cataloging important internets history. This sequenced information will remain long after we have faded into collective memory.
Well good news then
So
Right, now its 32k but still a good point
You know this is actually pretty interesting especially for a small youtuber with under 10k subs
it’s at 49k :D!
I thought this was another weird core playlist so I clicked it and when he started talking let me tell you I had an out-of-body experience
i like the idea of weirdcore as a surrealist-esque art movement. i’ve never thought about it that way prior to this video.
yea
It’s very dada
sometimes it works as art but i think a lot of the time it just looks like something made in a few minutes to be quirky
It kind of is a surrealist art form. I’m excited to see how it all evolves
i was born in 03 and i feel like these aesthetics are how ive always seen/felt the world to be. i think even if the pandemic and other stuff didnt happen, if no one else was making this art, i would have found a way to express myself similar to this. i used to try and describe it to my friends, saying "ive never told anyone this before bc i dont know how to describe it, but have you ever seen something that looks. perfect? like something that just fits, like a streetlamp lined street at night, or an empty field with the sun shining directly above it, or the feeling of being in a strangers house, or midnight in the school hallways, or a snowy land in the late afternoon, or your room after you take all the items out of it" and they wouldnt quite understand how those settings were significant, and when i told them "i, like, hurt when i see those things. its like theyre too perfect and i get so many chills that it hurts" they would legitimately look at me like i was insane. my "aesthetic" has changed a lot over the years bc nothing was ever the right one. i went from pastel, to vintage, to 80s, to vaporwave, and i thought i had found something amazing when i looked at vaporwave and heard its music. it felt perfect, almost. there were a lot of vaporwave things that hit, but it was too broad in its style. when i found dreamcore/weirdcore i felt complete. there was a name for my perfect feelings. they were my liminal senses being triggered without knowing that liminal was a thing.
03 gang💜
I have felt the same way, dream core/ weirdcore is an aesthetic i can feel to be mine own i too was born in 03
Born in 2003 lmao its still hard to understand that there are people now adults(or at least with nostalgia and memories of their own) that were not yet born in the same time that i was already at that point in my own life.
Bruh I know EXACTLY what you mean about vaporwave. I think since it was one of the earlier ones it was good for it’s time, but just didn’t quite feel complete. Didn’t quite make you feel that type of way.
(Also shout out to my ‘03 twins)
Personally I think weirdcore is post postmodernism. The idea that after you break down all things into their base components and try to rebuild them back together from memory. From a broken and hazy memory. It's not quite the same. It never can be again. Post Modernism had killed the essence of the art and media of the past, the very soul, and matter how we Frankenstein's Monster it back together, we can never bring back the soul of it. Which is why it's eery
Western-Liberalism caused this. White-western Culture is so woke it is quite literally tearing itself apart trying to reeducate other nations with the woke nonsense.
Nations around the world are to finally saying goodbye to Western-Liberalism and it's nihilistic beliefs. They are joining the Russians in the BRICS.
TW: mentions of abuse and trauma
i have a complicated relationship with traumacore. i fully believe for some people making this content can indeed help someone in their proccess of recovering from their trauma. as long as they warn people that possibly triggering content is present, i feel it can be productive. personally i find traumacore content extremely validating, and comforting knowing that im not alone in my experiences and thoughts. however, ive occasionally ended up spending hours scrolling through images like this and sending myself into a mini depression spiral where all of what im thinking about is past abuse ive gone through. its almost like it can be a form of self sabatoge for me. like i feel as if i shouldnt be allowed to be happy and recover and i need to feel bad and remind myself of past trauma. almost like emotional self harm? i definitely think the traumacore community should have discussions about personally reflecting on if it is productive and helpful for you as an individual, or if its really holding you back or even keeping you in a bad headspace.
I hate when ppl tag sanrio in their traumacore art too
THIS!! While I didn't go through the same trauma that's often referenced in the aesthetic, I've known others who did that are very close to me. And I always felt so pathetic I could never help them or take away what happened. Making me feel I could only have value if I could be a sort of therapist to these people. And making me feel I shouldn't have the RIGHT to speak about my own, while less severe, trauma because "others have had it worse". And I've always struggled w having a smaller voice and not feeling useful to anyone for my own personal reasons relating to how I was raised.
It was especially bad because this was just at the time I was realizing a lot of stuff about my family and friends that made me upset, so I used sanrio and other kids media as a comfort. But whenever I'd look up kidcore aesthetics on Tumblr, I'd be bombarded w/ traumacore. And it would always bring back my guilt and just ruin my whole day, or even week. It got so much I eventually just blocked the tag altogether.
Reasons why I also fear ever watching Jack Stauber's Opal again. Not only does it RADIATE traumacore,, but I related way to much to the titular main character for comfort :(
same! sometimes i look at those images and i'm like "wait, this is me", i found it self destructive and now just try to ignore it
Online self harm is most definitely a thing. There's been some conversation in social media, I can't remember the exact term used though. The same goes with self degrading, belittling and romanticizing depression/ED/anxiety/etc. memes and alike. Even just general social media scrolling can be defined as such when it plays into harmful behavior like body checking and drastic lifestyle changes as well as hurtful thoughts compering yourself to other people, almost searching for prove of being lesser than, not being good enough and not being able to accomplish what "others" can. Absolutely a topic worth covering more widely. _(personal anecdote about depression related dissociation and harmful internet habits below)_
For a while for me it was consuming a specific type of internet commentary content covering some vaguely unsettling ARGs and other "creepy" things like some series that I knew were affecting my sense of reality and safety but still kept watching for some weird curiosity. Bit of context: I'm sensitive to atmospheric changes, environmental details and tones to the point that my memory isn't great since the details take much more space in my cognitive processing than the "full story" the memories involve. Though it's more of an anxiety/high sensitivity thing than an actual issue of consciousness, I tend to be worried about my sense of reality and often feel disconnected or fragmented. There was something so triggering about the "mysteries" in the niche internet art projects analyzed in a video essay, the way they'd go from general information step by step towards the hidden details and the "blink and you miss it" aspects of some of those things. The general esthetic and vibe specifically created to strike disturbing feelings coupled with the implicit messages and hidden interpretation keys - something about that just kicked off dissociation possibly for multiple days at a time. It feels embarrassing and stupid and it's hard to explain. But at that point there were still too many unstable factors going on like paranoia, feeling out of control in everyday routine and numb fear reaction episodes, and this void of meaning in my life situation, a kind of out of place experience that was further activated by that stuff. I fully knew it was the furthest from "real", I was totally fine with true crime type of content (debatable maybe) whereas these interactive investigative stories were triggering to me especially because of the uncanny, unreal and out of place feeling they induced. So the things presented, even in the meta narration of the commentary, affected me the way they did _because_ they were so far from real yet somehow real enough, explained and revealed like a real thing worth discussing in such seriousness. The found footage and surveillance videos as well as related "realistic" websites were the kinds of formats most disturbing to me for that exact reason.
All and all, at some point I realized to give it up for now completely and while I'm still drawn to that stuff and find the artistic aspects highly interesting, I know I would only be choosingly causing harm to my mental state by ending up diving too deep. Just like before this form of harmful self induced behavior in other ways, I was reaching to feel something and ending up actually hurting my still unstable wellbeing. It's good to be conscious about *how* we are using the tools we're given. Just like the physical objects commonly associated, most things are safe per se until they're used in dangerous self sabotaging ways.
Absolutely!! With any kind of catharsis and relatable content like this, you have to take a step back and make sure that you're consuming it in a healthy way, because purposefully triggering yourself is 100% self-harm.
Like, for myself, I'm super happy I learned about traumacore, but I know I have to be super careful about how I consume it because traumacore and weirdcore can either help me feel comfort over shared experiences/feelings being put into something more tangible than a thought, or it can send me into a depressive spiral and even have me begin to dissociate.
Be safe guys, and take some time to reflect on how you deal with things and how you cope. You deserve to grow, you deserve to be happy.
i love weirdcore/dreamcore but my anxiety does not
Same but i still watch weirdcore/dreamcore vids lol
I feel this. It’s like you want to look but you know you shouldn’t kind of thing
@@heenybeanyteeny8465 yeah, i also like horror stories but can’t deal with any of the imagery
Is it bad I find it relaxing and comforting 🤣
@@moonj0ck I find it comforting and represents my inner mind the best. Like the quote says, "Art should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable"
I think that people's reaction to this type of aesthetic could divide people into the common, shallow people from the emotionally complex people. It feels like most people are these NPCs that have no depth in their character or inner worlds (if they even have one)
I accidentally had a very negative out of body experience and if it wasn't for all the weird core stuff I consumed I never would've caught on that I was having a problem. It made me question my brain and stopped me from fully getting lost.
I might be a little too old of a section of the fandom but all of this has helped me feel less alone. Modern day times has purposely made us more isolated, purely because of money and that alienation of self really comes through in these genres. I very much f heavy with this.
i feel like one of the most important aspects of these aesthetics is the unity it can bring us, and the feeling that our experiences are shared. it can help us acknowledge our experiences and even make seeking help/coping personally feel less shameful.
Same!! Due to weirdcore/dreamcore, I wouldn't find out that I experience depersonalisation/derealisation, and that wouldn't make me go seek help and actually find out what the source of the problem was!!
"The alienation of man thus appeared as a fundamental evil of capitalist society" Marx, born 200 years ago
Their’s a focus on how more “normal” people see these, but I’d love to hear from someone with a deep psychosis that involves hallucinations.
These all strike me as the vibe the world might have if you are powerfully hallucinating.
I don't really hallucinate anymore, because it only happens if I stop sleeping properly. But these cores do invoke some of what I experienced back when I did. Most of it was shadows out of the corner of my eye (interpreted in the moment as birds, cats, rats, giant spiders, people) and disembodied voices.
Though the shadows look like they'd have the strongest core resemblance on the surface, since there's this running theme with shadows blotting things out in the core images, my shadows stopped existing if I tried to look directly at them. So the images actually remind me more of the voices I heard? Nonsense conversations I couldn't parse, sentences that sounded almost normal on the surface, almost like someone was talking in the other room, but which turned into word salad if I actually paid attention to what I thought I was hearing. It made reality feel like what those images look like.
i mostly have delusions rather than hallucinations, but i’d still like to add my input.
i feel like i relate to some of these. ‘don’t wake up yet.’ ‘there’s someone here’ and similar phrases often in these are similar to thoughts i have when having delusions. the feeling of someone being there but a black square over it, being unable to see it but knowing there is something there. feeling as if everything around me is unreal, and believing it but not wanting to wake up afraid of what the ‘real reality’ is like.
black blurs on the edges feel like hallucinations for me. mine aren’t often whole objects, detailed figures or something else. mine are more figures that i’m unable to make out, shapes that make themself twist and change every time i blink.
i relate heavily to weird core and similar aesthetics, it’s kind of similar to how my daily world feels like.
For me who has auditory hallucinations, definitely. I hear old video game music or strange weird core like- music late at night where it shouldent be there. It's terrifying and definitely has the weird core/dreamcore vibe even if it's not visual.
@@ghostfaces6392 you've just perfectly described what is also my experience
i don’t really have hallucinations, but i do have issues with derealization and depersonalization, so i guess that kinda applies.
weirdcore/dreamcore gives a VERY SIMILAR vibe as to what general reality feels to me sometimes. half the time i feel like a numb shell walking through a video game or another reality that isn’t really a reality at all. it’s like nothing is actually real, i’m just perceiving it in a certain way that’s to make me think that it is and i’m not buying it anymore. even though i know this isn’t true (usually, at least) i still just feel… not there, and weirdcore/dreamcore is pretty much the exact way the world feels for me. i very rarely feel 100% real, only when i’m in nature do things feel fine, and i hardly ever feel 100% human or like a real, flesh and blood person.
it’s not great, but these sort of aesthetics actually help me a lot and make me feel a lot better. i guess it’s nice to see that other people may understand what i experience? plus, i always adored strange, odd, weird, and creepy stuff even at a young age, so i think it’s a mix of both.
hope this gave you a bit of insight lol, have a good day 👍
0:00 Kero Kero Bonito - I'd Rather Sleep (slowed+reverb)
0:36 Xori- Warm Nights
1:28 Ricky Eat Acid - Outside Your House
2:34 Ricky Eat Acid- Inside Someone Else's House
3:18 Yume Nikki OST - Snow World
7:07 Yume Nikki OST - Dark World (slowed+reverb)
12:28 Yves Tumor - Limerence
13:57Ricky Eat Acid - Inside My House; Some Place I Keep Dreaming About
16:05 this was the only song I couldn't identify
18:44 Toby Fox - Fallen Down (slowed, Farizky version)
21:33 VHS Logos - Sony
I honestly can’t put it into words how much I hate how fast time goes. I honestly just think about it every second, and it’s scary. Like those vague childhood minutes that linger in my mind and the random dreams I remember from when I was 7. Even a year ago, that foggy memory of riding home from track and field. Of course new memories are coming, but soon it’ll all just stop, and I hate how I don’t know when, I don’t know when my memories and I will all just abruptly disappear. It’s a terrifying thought. Anyways, this video is truly amazing and you did some amazing work here, I’m definitely subscribing
I agree, it scares me to think about how the life I'm living now will just be a hazy memory someday the same way my early childhood seems to me now when I try to remember it, honestly even just a few weeks from now I'll probably forget writing this comment
yeah… just yeah…
@@DuckInGameStop YOU WILL NEVER FORGET. I WILL REPLY TO YOUR COMMENT 69,000 TIMES A DAY SO YOU NEVER FORGET YOU WROTE THAT COMMENT.
@@pizzatime2001 thank you, but I had already forgotten before you replied
you just put everything i feel into words... :(
This also kinda feels like an extension of or building upon vaporwave with it's use of distorted music and early internet culture.
Yeah, maybe stemming from webcore influences (which is closer to vaporwave)
I'm Italian and I've lived in Italy for all my life, so a lot of images used in weirdcore and dreamcore aren't that familiar to me, but that doesn't stop me from still feeling nostalgic when I see them, for some reason. I love especially the ones that use American suburbia, as they both represent to me a sight that I've never seen in person and something that still feels extremely nostalgic.
I loved the video a whole lot, it explained really well the details I love so much in weirdcore🤗 great job!
I feel the same, I am Portuguese
but the reason of why its so nostalgic at least for me even though I have never been to the US is because of tv (american movies/shows).
i’m italian too and i feel the same exact way it’s crazy it’s like american suburban life is universally relatable in some inexplicable way
same, I always found it interesting that so many of us non americans can still feel nostalgia when looking at those pics even though our own countries look nothing like it. my theory is that bc we grew up with so much american media we feel a connection to it even though we've never been there. it's hard to explain this to non americans lol they just can't understand what it's like, it's a very unique situation and I can't think of any other instance of this happening
@@Vapormoon Yo I just wanna let you know, this comment reflects some of my most complex thoughts about my relationship with the internet aesthetic perfectly, so thanks for writing it lol. I'm an italo-american born in the late 90s, so I have a veeery weird relationship with the internet and these aesthetics, especially related to the "americans vs europe" thing. This tiny thread has made me feel strangely at home, with all the strangeness around us. Crazy
Traumacore gave me a sense that someone else understood a deep dysfunction that took root in my childhood. The gift of rot, rage, and loss from those who were supposed to nurture, love, and protect me.
I was born in '95 and feel a very distinct attraction to dreamcore specifically. There's something very powerful about the balance between the intent to comfort and unsettle in equal measure. It can make you feel like the experiences you have and things you feel, the ones most difficult to put into words, are being respected instead of brushed aside as anomalies.
Dude same, I'm from the US, born in '97, and dreamcore resonates with me on an almost existential, ontological level. I have really blurry, abstract early memories, either waking or in dreams (it's hard to differentiate), of these types of bygone locations, textures, color palettes, and it's comforting if not a little freaky to discover how universal some of these experiences are
These aesthetics comfort me because I have a lot of mental illness due to bad childhood trauma and they feel familiar to me because they remind me of myself but in a comforting way, like a lullaby from my subconscious.
My ideal aesthetic would be one based on mental illness/insanity and this is the closest I can get to that as far as I know. It really captures the essence of being so broken that you don’t even recognize yourself anymore. The surrealism is basically a tangible way to describe how I feel, especially during episodes of delirium when nothing makes sense outside of my own head.
I make traumacore art! The analysis you gave was sooooo good. It’s a form of art therapy that I do in addition to my primary forms of mental health care. It allows me to explore and become more comfortable with the disorienting nature of my childhood experience. So many things were lovely, so many things scarred me for life. And so much isolation. My memory has been impacted in distressing ways but the act of creating the art helps me process. Making traumacore art is a way to reclaim my agency using something I love.
I really like how you explained traumacore and how the imagery relates to specific experiences that come with things like ptsd, dissociation, etc. I also greatly appreciate the tw's. It's a small, but important detail that I wish more content creator's would use. This is a wonderful video, keep up the good work!
"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" now that's the most epic way to end a video. Awesome 💙💜💙💜
I listen to and indulge this type of content daily, and this is, imo, the best documentary/essay on the topic hands down. Keep up the great work!
Thx for the support, it's much appreciated :3
I distinctly remember seeing places like these in my dreams. Especially as a kid during the late 2000s to early 2010s.
Random houses with no furniture with weird pink or purple tints. A green infinite field with clouds and small hills.
Maybe it was just my child brain trying to understand the concepts of our world resulting in these disturbing yet comforting images.
This was actually insanely interesting. I have very light trauma, and kinda bonded with the dream core stuff, and it's interesting to see who else agrees. Thank you for making this :)
Just wanted to share that I absolutely loved how you were able to dissect, link and successfully explain weirdcore, traumacore and dreamcore. I’ve seen a lot of videos covering these aesthetics but this one just gets it right. By the end of the video I thought I had watched something from a really big popular channel because of how well put together and presented everything was. This video is a hidden gem and ty for creating it!
10:00 For anyone wondering what that place is, I believe it’s called Eastern Shore Lanes, it’s a bowling alley and arcade in Alabama. I’ve been there multiple times. I think this place looks like it, I haven’t been there in a while because I moved so I may be remembering it wrong though. Either that or it’s this roller skating area I went to. The floor looks like that place. Sorry if I accidentally spread wrong information.
I'm in love with this video. Weirdcore is my favorite aesthetic and I love watching videos like this and wow! Everything is explained in such a good way! Good job, friend! 👏
I have commented about this a few times on other "weirdcore" videos. but I do love that a lot of this "weird" aesthetic or look are so super close to the vibe/feeling Roblox horror/myth games of 2015-2018. Big "myths" such as AloneTraveler and G0Z and RUST_010 have a lot of these "weird" elements (ex: watching eyes, liminal, spaces, paranoia.) And as someone that was so invested in this community I love to see this genre of "almost horror" make a comeback.
edit: I just remember that the image with the very round hills and fences and a yellow house is actually just a roblox game.
Weirdcore is the sort of thing I struggle to describe or explain, and given that it resonates with me so much, I think that's the point. This was an amazing video. I'd be interested to see if you do another video on traumacore
TW: mentions of abuse, e/d, s/h
I’ve been using traumacore to cope recently. My memory is blurry until about the age of 12. When I was younger, I had unsupervised internet access, leading me to see some things. My dad never was around, and when he was the things I can slightly remember are just being uncomfortable the whole time, but thinking it was normal. Then I started to get heavily bullied for my weight and genetic disorder. Leading me to almost develop anorexia in 3rd grade. Switched schools then, things didn’t get better since I’m LGBT+ and now in a Catholic school. To this day, I constantly get called slurs by both my dad and by kids in school.
The absolute worst thing I remember is my cousin touching me inappropriately. I asked him to stop but he didn’t, he followed me around just so he could touch. People keep saying “oh that’s a dream, they would’ve never done that”
I also get r@pe nightmares A LOT and they feel so real. Like, I’ve been there before. I feel like something happened but my brain decided to turn off so I wouldn’t have to remember. It told me things like “cut yourself b/tch, you don’t deserve anything” so I did. Currently recovering, at 80 days
i feel like another reason people like this aesthetic so much is because they had to grow up very quickly. sometimes i feel like i stopped being a kid way too soon, i left behind a piece of me. looking at weirdcore, traumacore, dreamcore and childcore, makes me think of things i tried to forget or things i left behind. it's comforting and unsettling, it makes me sad and it makes me want more.
Holy man you did an OUTSTANDING job with this video!
Videos like this deserve more attention, it's always my nightmare to see a youtuber like this not get the appropriate attention it deserves!!1!1, keep it up tho!!!1!
I remember discovering Traumacore through TH-cam Shorts. It was odd at first but after watching for a bit, i started to cry a little. I don't know if i suffer from PTSD but it definitely did help me realize that the physical and mental abuse ive experienced. I've always loved the disturbing art/worlds people can create. I don't fully understand why but I'm glad I discovered that side of the internet and I want to explore more of it. I think I partially want to delve deeper into the community for my own curiosity but also because it brings comfort to me. I find dreampools relaxing to look at and fantasize just wading through the waters, letting the sounds echo endlessly. I want to create art that's both confusing and comprehendible such as liminal spaces. My thoughts are strange, i fully dont understand them or myself but these cores and aesthetics have helped me connect to myself in an odd way. Sorry for the ramble, just wanted to contribute something using my brain juices and slightly disturbed mind
aesthetics are kind of hard to talk about because they allways focus on some sort off feeling, but theres still a lot of things to say, i think its probablly that you feel a very specific kind of happyness while viewing these pictures, and its sometimes hard to describe, if you do, then i honestly can really relate, even if these arent really the kinds of aesthetics i like
@@marmolejomartinezjoseemili9043 makes sense honestly. I am a very weird individual
@@localqueergoblin7486 same in some ways lol 🤪
Sorry u got abused :( Glad that you’re doing better tho 😊
@@dragonfruit6532 it’s fine. I still have the trauma but I’ve (mostly) worked past it. At least, I like to think I have
I remember I used to really enjoy watching videos about phobias, listening to horror stories read aloud, things like that. There was something comforting about the twisted and unsettling. Maybe it was for a distraction from my own life, or maybe to serve as metaphor for my own life-- I think a bit of both, something that resonates from a distance if that makes sense. Now I see creations like weirdcore and traumacore and I feel much less alone. Apparently people everywhere are doing the same thing-- taking the bizarre and unreal and using it to explain their own realities. Perhaps if human language could describe such things, we would not need art so much-- but as it is, I'm grateful to art of all kinds for showing me that I am not as alone as I thought.
I hate how people make these things into trends. TikTok really does get ahold of everything I love and makes it popular.
Last July, I made an animated traumacore series as an abreaction to remembering how I felt about traumatic events from my childhood. It was basically like vomiting trauma into a cursed creation. The protagonist was an angel who was stranded in Purgatory and represented me. The antagonist was based on my various abusers throughout childhood and was a demon who had escaped from Hell. It was too triggering for me to make the characters look humanoid, so I made them look like children’s stick figure paintings instead, sort of like the redacted people you mentioned. But, even with doing that, I couldn’t even watch my own videos after making them due to them being so heavy for me.
Despite that, I uploaded 3 episodes to my channel, but, unfortunately, most people didn’t take them seriously. Instead, they just treated them like shitposts with no deeper meaning. Only two people even considered a deeper meaning, one of them being a fellow abuse victim who was still in the abusive situation and found comfort in my videos.
I eventually ended up unlisting the videos, but here is a link to a video made by the fan I mentioned earlier containing a speedpaint of the protagonist: th-cam.com/video/DgRkIxXI758/w-d-xo.html and here is a link to another animation I made that is still up on my channel and contains said character: th-cam.com/video/3qT2ROrLgCk/w-d-xo.html
Lastly, if you read this far, here is a link to the series itself, which was discontinued shortly after I started it. Maybe, if the creator of this video puts it in the description of this video or even looks at it in another video or something, it can get more proper recognition than just shitposty comments from people who don’t look deeper: th-cam.com/play/PLcrJASsd9vvmn0JmUcd9QEv-wcBP8RujX.html
I'm glad you made them and I'm sure many people out there would appreciate them too, if they just got to see them. The algorithm is weird sometimes
@@Nightshade_goblin Thanks for showing support.
I’d love to have a link to it, handmade art like that is so precious
@@Every11ts2sl33p I already included one.
I clicked on this video thinking its a playlist lol great video tho + ur voice sounds like a kids show narrator from the 90s -00s its so nostalgic and cozy, love it
Lol thx
It’s all very comforting and kinda gives me a glimpse into a world that once existed… I was born in 89, and got to experience my whole childhood in the 90s, and then my early young adult years in the early 2000s… as an adult in this day and age it’s easy to get lost in these aesthetics…
These images seem to pick at my fight or flight instinct. My mind turns a little different, I can feel small changes in environments but sometimes I can't fully tell what's different and it freaks me out.
I also am deeply uncomfortable with large and empty spaces. People thing a beautiful open field is relaxing when all I feel is an existential dread. When no one's around and there's no visible activity it gives me apocalypse vibes. I hate the emptiness, hate feeling alone with nowhere to hide. The wonder and fear of being alone and what if I'm not alone and something's hiding. Watching from a distance.
I also get deja Vu a lot, just in general. I often feel I've already said or done something but have no clear memory. And these images that are meant to be familiar remind me of that. Places I recognize but am unsure if I've been to or where I've seen it before.
Some people are saying this stuff is comforting, and while I find fascination in it all I find zero comfort in any of it. In fact if I linger on this stuff too long I'll find myself on the verge of panic, especially if it's night time. I'll be unable to sleep in fear of nightmares, nightmares that may be too similar to this music and pictures.
The psychology of it all is fascinating. And how it effects people similarly but also different. I'd love a professionals observation about it all and why it has these effects on the mind.
i think part of the reason why these images feel like something familiar, is that we have been in our childhood in quite aesthetic places which were made sort of accidentally aesthetic, and our parents really didnt tell us about aesthetics and couldnt describe them, like, ive allways looked at various places and things that make me feel a specific way, and my familly as well, but they could really describe them, and now that i can, it feels nostalgic
This stuff gives me strong anxiety and makes me feel out of place in this reality it's scary and very triggering but I can't help but love weird core
You grew up in Italy and for you experiencing this images takes you back to your childhood. You remember most of the time you grew up. The friends you had. 5 years after graduation you decided to leave for UK.
For me this aesthetic is a representation of the world we left behind as we were forced to grow up, everything is molding over and dusty, and as if that world was alive, it’s become angry with us for abandoning it so abruptly, So eventually those sweet memories of the past start to haunt us, never letting us move on. Ever.
I had a lot of mental health issues as a young child. The greatest symptom was probably derealization, or the feeling of being unreal and/or living in a dream. I think, for me, enjoying this kind of aesthetic gives me back control of the things I felt as a child. I can choose to see these things, and when I turn off the computer they go away. “Choose” is the key word… I am no longer trapped with this feeling, and encountering it from time to time gives me the control to deal with what happened to me.
For lots of people who like weird core or dream core there is this place in Las Vegas called area 15 and, it’s just really fun I think lots of people would like it!
I thought this was just ganna be a playlist of these type of music. But no, right now I'm leaning. Really loved the video! Expected of something else, and still got something good.
now lemme be honest,
when i see those familiar images they remind me of old times from the old country i used to live in, and when remembering my old country i remember war, and when i remember war i remember my deep trauma, and when i remember my deep trauma i browse through weirdcore stuff, and when browsing through weirdcore stuff i see those familiar images, and so the loop goes on.
I can’t believe my edit is in this! 10:57 ! Thank you for including it :-)
Being born in 1989 and growing up with all these places, aesthetics, technology as it developed from the earliest floppy 💾 computer, to handheld no color Gameboy, cheap knock offs, old home design, store design, fast food aesthetic and vibes, just everything.... I'm just curious about why our modern day is Soo BLAND and lack of personality. Today is like everywhere you go, everything looks the same everywhere, the only things I get that "are unique" are nature spots. But human made things, places, architecture, design is literally copy and pasted every where now and I've noticed how much I miss the vibe of 90s/2000s regardless of past trauma's, I'd rather have the world designed like it used to then the stale ways of today's age. I feel bad for kids growing up at this very moment because we at least got to live in a place with arcades, play places everywhere, action parks, old taco bell McDonald's like wacky corny styles, parking lot fair's/ circus/theme park events that came yearly, roller rinks, laser tag, papa's pizza play places, drive in movie theaters, Hollywood video/game crazy, blockbuster, Kmart/so many odd old unique mom and pop stores that don't exist anymore/old office places that ran off of old computers and scanner/printer machines. Etc. Everywhere just felt so tailored to kids and fun and something to do and it's just so not like that anymore and it's really a shame.
I've always been slightly confused by these, thanks for explaining them! I also really appreciate the trigger warnings before the traumacore, not nearly enough people use those.
I love this video; thank you for giving these ideas (especially traumacore) the respect they deserve.
I love your message at the end about how art should provoke. Many people I see on the internet seem not to understand that. They would like for all art to be clean and marketable to the general public.
I have seen many people critique traumacore as being bad in someway, due to it's dark subject matter. Completely missing the point of traumacore. Perhaps they do this because facing the reality that many people have gone through such things is too upsetting to them. So, they would rather push it away and label it "offensive". As if being upsetting means it shouldn't exist.
But, of course it's upsetting. It's about trauma. Maybe if you've never experienced anything like that, it's more disturbing and harder to digest. To see the true curtain pulled back, not just the hollywood sugarcoated version of trauma.
These give me various vibes, and I would like to elaborate on the feeling.
1. Grieving, loss, etc. This past October, my Nana, who I was rather close to, passed away. Just over a week ago, my cat, who had been in my life for over a decade, passed away. Plus, since I've come out, my Papa has become very cold towards me, and he's been rather sickly as of late as is. It feels like the Papa I knew as a kid is gone, and almost like it was a facade the whole time. Everything feels very empty. It's like the light and warmth is gone leaving and empty shell. Very much "There's nothing for you here." I always expect them, but they're never there. It's so quiet. It doesn't seem like it will ever be the same. They should be here.
2. What may or may not be disassociation, dysphoria, and panic attacks. Especially the ones about not belonging in their skin and being trapped in their body for the dysphoria. Do you ever just feel like your body is on autopilot or like everything is wrong and off. Like you're not supposed to be a human and it's like you forget what a human is and you just suddenly regained some sort of consciousness that you're not supposed to be here? Do you ever feel like you're watching your body do things, but it's not your body? Do you ever feel like some parasitic creature puppeting a meat suit? Do you ever feel like an alien trying to blend in with human society? Are you ever just minding your own business, then "Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I? What am I doing with my life? Who is this? What am I? I don't belong here. Something's wrong. Why am I still here? I need to leave." and you panic, but it only lasts for a brief moment before you're subdued back into your regular life, but it just feels off; like you're forgetting something important? Do you ever desperately feel the need to escape your body? Do you ever feel like you're possessing the body of someone who died long ago? Do you ever just suddenly feel like something is horrifically wrong for an indiscernible reason, and you desperately need to do something about it immediately, but there's nothing you can do? Like the world is about to end. Like you could die a brutal death at any second. Like everyone you ever knew and loved is suddenly gone. Like some large-scale natural disaster is about to strike. It's all your fault. You're not supposed to be here. There's nothing you can do. You can't escape.
3. Dreams. Obviously. I have very weird and surreal dreams that I tend to remember frequently and extremely vividly. I am also quite adept in lucid dreaming. It's almost like a second life sometimes. For better or for worse.
I struggle to interpret and portray my emotions. I often don't know what I'm feeling. It's very hard for me to explain. I know I have emotional trauma. I have ADHD and I have many mental health issues. I would explain further on the feelings, but I don't think I can. It's interesting, though.
Your comment resonates a lot with my experiences over the past couple of years....I have felt exactly the same with the same sense of not belonging in this reality or in my body. It was quite dramatic in my case, with the shift happening as soon as I emerged from general anesthesia after surgery. Whatever happened that day (the medics wouldn't tell me), was like a death in a way....or the death of my life as I'd known it. Everything felt off, strange, and I was in a state of delirium. I developed PTSD as a result, with disassociation, depersonalization and derealization. Since then I've been trying to figure out how I'm meant to act, play the role of the character people expect (even though they don't feel like the people I knew before). Although I have desperately tried to communicate some of this anguish with the people who were my loved ones, it's impossible, and I'm trapped pretending to be a person I don't know. There is nothing worse than feeling like an imposter, a fraud, and not being able to break free. But if I was to break free, I don't know where I would go, as this doesn't feel like my life.
It is interesting that almost gatekeeping of some. For example you mentioned trauma core and how some people are like "you should participate if you haven't gone through trauma" But these images, edits, etc have been a thing for a long time. Some of these images i've seen in like 2015-2016 when I was in my college. This back room vibe and weird text and altered childhood images have been explored already, so its interesting now younger people are gatekeeping this and deciding who can participate and sometimes can exclude the people who were originally apart of it at the start. This is ABSOLUTELY is not something that has started within the last 2 years and on tiktok
I discovered traumacore not that long ago and i honestly think it helped me break an addiction. It helped me cope with the c-ptsd that was a big factor of it but also helped me feel better about my almost unbearable daily physical pain. The medical traumacore it's definitely a favorite part for me
These aesthetics have such a special place in my heart they are so nostalgic
Salutations! This helped me understand if each aesthetic was different or not. Now I understand that I mainly turn towards weirdcore, instead of traumacore and dreamcore. Don't stop making these amazing videos, and have a splendid day!
dreamcore reminds me of how i used to view the world as a child -- all the really bright colours, spaces looking more vast and open than they actually are.. idk, but that's a feeling it always invokes for me on top of the already nostalgic feelings. really adds to it lol
To me weirdcore feels like I’m witnessing something I wasn’t supposed to see, dream core feels ethereal and comforting but dangerous like a siren song and traumacore feels dissonant and panicked like being trapped.
Traumacore triggers me and comforts me at the same time. Its a work of art that helps others see what having childhood trauma is like. A lot of the text they put over it resonates with me. Especially ones about “don’t go back there” or where the people are blacked out… that’s literally my mind when I try to recall memories.
I didnt see anyone talking about this, so at 2:28 the house there is the SAME house from the first part of 'Our House' by Game Grumps
great vid tho
I don’t know what’s more terrifying…
That I’m the only one that feels this way, or there are so many out there that feel the same
8:52 this literally is an image of the music room at a school I used to go to
This video is really interesting! I'm a writer and artist who likes creating traumacore and the like to help process my own emotions caused by a lifetime of child abuse. I think it is really cathartic and I love our lil community. Thanks for making this video! You've earned a sub from me.
Nice that people are starting to recognize these aesthetics. I’ve been trying to explain what the cores are to my friends for like 3 years now.
Timeline:
00:00 Kero Kero Bonito - I’d Rather Sleep
00:45 Intro
06:27 Core/Cœur
07:34 Introducing Weirdcore
013:18 Weirdcore Music
13:07 Weirdcore Visuals
10:28 Conclusion Weirdcore, Origins
01:57 Dreamcore
15:05 Traumacore
18:00 Ending Thoughts
23:33 Artist Spotlight
23:33 VHS Logos - Sony
I saw people in the comments talking about how they resonate with these aesthetics, and I guess I just wanna talk about my pov with it all. It really does remind me of my childhood, in a dream-like sort of way. I have memories from when I was young, but they're so distant that they almost don't feel real. Like I was just watching another child play, but I know those memories are me. My childhood is like a weird dream. Just recently my sister found this old toy that we used to love, and seeing it almost didn't feel real because it was such a distant memory. Then we found an old show we used to love, and re-watching was like seeing a dream come to life. Weirdcore and Dreamcore remind me of that.
The strange messages itll give is saying something, d a r k. Ex. "Dw about that door theres nothing there:)" giving the narrative there is something very wrong or something did happen. The way that is put is by putting these "characters" in uncomfortable positions is making that person dissociating from the disturbing person/object that has caused them trauma, this heals for some like i do, these people who like these aesthetic have most likely suffered abuse or shaming and its rather comforting watching the complications. Ty for making a Video about our community i really appreciate it:D (you may have covered this already but Im just clearing it up for others if you did)
Definetly thought this was a weird core music video, instead I got a commentary video with a nice smooth voice! Love it, thanks! :)
god i love instupendo. their music resonates really closely to me in a way i cant describe. it reminds me of memories i dont know if i had or not. my personal favorite song of theirs is comfort chain and boy. boy is very melancholic, while comfort chain obviously comforts. they're so underrated.
This video was a lot more enjoyable to watch because of how calm he is speaking. It feels extremely easy to let time pass as he speaks. I thank you very much for this video.
The begin of the video looks like the intro of documentary and that's very cool, bro!
This is by far the best video I've seen on this topic. Even the comments section is great. Thank you for making it happen.
Growing up in the 2000s and having to survive my abusers and their neglect and assault of me has left me fairly incapacitated into adulthood. I only finally freed myself of their grasp at 21. And even so I’ll now have to confront the pain for the rest of my life. These aesthetics are like a safe haven for us traumatized and neurodiverse people. It’s important for us.
As someone who had trauma as a child, I had this reoccurring dream where i was walking up a floating staircase in the sky ☁️ that lead to a room full of mirrors as walls and doors that kept repeating once you opened them🚪 no matter how many you opened! Now seeing this and learning about the backrooms I’m glad I’m not alone in this thought process. I always thought I was just a freaky kid that had alice in wonderland type dreams 😂
"comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" im getting that tattoo'd on me when i have the money 😭
i love that you included the dissonant slow edit of Home by Toby Fox. The original song conveys this deep, deep comfort in me that makes me want to cry because it evokes this sensation of finally being loved. Conversely, the slower, darker edits evoke a sensation of finally being able to process the horrors I've gone through, as someone who suffers from PTSD. It's like going to the grave of someone you lost who was close to you, and it all hits you at once. It's the perfect song for this topic, and an even better one to close out with.
also that one creepy edit of Home, usually accompanied by the weird uncanny valley gif, that specific edit evokes the feeling of being traumatized. not really like im having a flashback, but it like. activates the same warning signals, yknow? it's pretty unique because i love horror and that rarely happens to me when watching/listening/etc to anything horror-related.
Overall, this video is amazing! Though I feel Kidcore does deserve a place here, it's still one of the best and few videos I know of on this topic.
Yeah, wasn't sure if I should put it in the video. Idk if I'll make a video specifically on kidcore. Maybe something adjacent to it
@@Nightshade_goblin That would be really cool! I'd definitely watch that
Just found one by another creator on the platform, if you're still interested: th-cam.com/video/J0Dp-m2KAzU/w-d-xo.html
@@Nightshade_goblin yes, i was still interested. Thank you very much for this video!
@@cheesygubbinNonono. Mcdoogle is another level. Haven't you figured that out yet. Mcdoogles used to be my favourite until they put the wonderful wapper on the menu, so to answer your question big mac is a slightly weaker little version of mcdoogles. Some call them mcdoogles little brother
Personally I believe the point on the images having to be of a certain year either in feel, aesthetic or literally, is a bit biased. I found myself somehow feeling "anemoia" for aesthetics that stretch back to the 70's-60's, I mainly attribute this to fact that I was born around the mid 2000's while still living in a rather 80's environment. I used to go to even older places that were still in working condition that were built in the 60's, this is due to the fact that I grew up in Australia, relatively average country with pretty poor sectors outside of the Central Business Districts. This all in my childhood left only exposed to the yesterday's technology, architecture and aesthetics.
Honestly looking back my childhood was very disjointed due the fact that where I lived, you could basically live in different eras depending on where you stayed. My family did a lot moving to new and old places, far off places too, It really messes with me when I try to discern what year that memory happened because of this. Anyway that's my reason on why there is even more variation in how one goes about creating a nostalgic setting, simply not limited to 2000's era aesthetic.
That's true. I think the whole idea of "aestherics" is a very americanized or at least western thing. People in Asia or Countries like Russia and Brazil have different things that make them nostalgic (There were comments about this under Daniel Felix' or Clarke Elieson's essay on Liminal spaces, can't remember).
The reason I focused on the 2000s is because it's something that popped up in the internet and the content creators of the aesthetic are largely from Gen Z or late Millennials.
Ofc nostalgia can be felt from older stuff too, hence the whole vaporwave boom
all of my trauma happened during my childhood and it makes me feel like any event prior to when I was 8 never happened. these kinds of odd early 2000s aesthetics are strangely so comforting to me because it makes me feel like what i experienced did happen
This video is golden content. It's very hard to understand or analyze these aesthetics. You managed to get it just right though. It's not just one simple thing. All three of these are a whole art movement that allows hurt, tired, and creative individuals to express thoughts in one of the most unique ways possible. It unlocks a part of the human mind we didn't know we all shared. It shows everyone truly is connected. Like how everyone has dreams of falling from the sky or flying through the air. Or how everyone somehow gets weirded out by electrical pylons and empty hospital lobbies. It's beautiful in a surreal way.
A sad part about this is the fact that only a few people may grow up with the current versions we have now. People younger than 14 are gonna have different nostalgia compared to young adults right now. It's not an art form that has the same base, like Cubism or Metal. It will eventually evolve and one day look very different. We might not even be alive to see that happen either.
As for Traumacore itself, even people with bad enough trauma(on a specific level if you know wat I mean) are torn on it. Don't feel bad if someone gets upset by saying your gross for calling it an aesthetic. For instance, me and my sisters grew up neglected, abused, manipulated, and unloved and I personally call it an aesthetic. It's a special one but it's still an aesthetic. It's a matter of opinion sometimes.
Traumacore was actually one of the only internet “aesthetics* (for lack of a better word) that I was familiar w going into this video. A compilation had popped up into my recommended after I was searching up a bunch of stuff ab PTSD and other mental health disorders associated w CSA when I no longer had a therapist to ask questions to. That first video was in a sense like a gate way drug into these videos bc there was a good half of a year that I spent just watching hours of that content. One thing I couldn’t figure out was why these images that made me feel so uncomfortable and weird also made me feel extremely lethargic and had me nostalgically yearning for a time I could hardly even remember at that point. I still don’t fully understand it all to this day but I still will watch those comps from time to time to try and evoke that same blend and swirl of emotions poring out of me.
Bro when it said just to be a kid again that place is ACTUALLY AMAZING LIKE YOU GET SUCH GOOD VIBES ONLY BAD WHEN ITS EMPTEY
A lot of it is a wishing things were simplier. Most people who grew up in the early 2000s were subjugated to the high speed of modern society way too early and honestly everything all the time is just so overwhelming. I think Bo Burnhams Welcome to the internet describes that well. That song is how it feels to grow up with the internet and weird core is almost an escape from the internet while using it. Places people would have gone to with their friends in the 90s were already dying by the time we were able to and we still have the second hand nostalgia from that either from Tv shows we grew up with or movies we watched. Malls used to be this meeting place for most people, now they're just so, off putting. They're either so overly massive and packed full, or just, empty, like a husk of an era we were just to late to witness. Modern days make it hard for young people to do anything that doesnt involve the internet. Its a yearning for a time that things werent so overbearing on us and a time where we could just take our time with life and enjoy it. I cant remember living my life without caring who was president or what big disaster happened on the news across the world. The world is just changing faster than some of us can adapt. Too late for 90/80s culture, too late for modern culture. Stuck in limbo and unable to figure out what shouldve been our childhood. Open malls or screens. I think thats the essence of where all of this comes from
I just wanna thank you for taking the time to write this because u may not even notice but u have just made me realize somethings I rlly needed too realize....ur so right, and it makes it worse that I struggle with derealization and social amxiety
I think that I was unintentionally dipping into these categories of art with my own videos (I mean that loosely, as they don’t have any music, and there aren’t any obvious messages). I’m a ‘96 originator, so my sense of nostalgia is for the 90s and early 2000s.
One thing that I think is important to note is that this kind of aesthetics are very specific to the north American experience. I'm a foreigner who grew up in the 00s with unlimited access to the internet, so the online interface is still relatable because it's basically the same everywhere, but whenever I look at the images of places that are supposed to bring a sense of nostalgia it just reminds me of tv shows and movie settings, they don't feel "real". That's why I think these kind of aesthetics are a direct byproduct of living in the hyper-reality fabricated in the USA, my fiction is their reality so I can imagine that it would aggravate the feelings of people who suffer from derealization and depersonalization, the lines between what is real and fake are always blurred, your architecture and landscapes of the places you grew up all look like they popped out of the TV but without the lights and glamor it just looks unsettling and lifeless.
Weirdcore is really more of a general name to used for all those types of things like Dreamcore, Traumacore, Aero/Frutiger Aero, Synthwave, Vaporwave, Nostalgiacore, Breakcore/DnB/Jungle (the real ones, not those dissonant and chaotic noises that tiktok made up), y2k, Hyperpop, Old Web, Kidcore, Glitchcore, etc...
Such a great video! I loved the way you drew lines between the three internet aesthetics and were able to draw back parallels to codified art movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism. I can't help but wonder if vaporwave as a music and aesthetic genre also contributed to what we see from the Weird/Dream/Traumacore genres today. So much of Vaporwave builds off of dead malls and the juxtaposition between the shiny personal consumerism of the 80s and early 90s and the shells of their former selves we see today.
I'm planning on doing a Vaporwave related video in the future, but I gotta read up on the subject a bit more till I can work on it
Now that I think about it, gotta say that 'No Players Online' is one example of dream/traumacore based on the experience and aesthetic
"The cake is a lie"
Wierd/dream/whatever/traumacore sure reminds me of Portal. Perhaps Portal is one of the first "wierdcore games"
i wouldn’t say first, since lsd dream emulator is considered a weirdcore game and iirc that came out in the late 90s … yume nikki is considered one too, and that came out in 2004
personally if i had to pick a source engine game that i’d consider weirdcore (or moreso liminal space-esque) i’d pick garry’s mod, especially if i’m playing alone
smg4
when i joined the weirdcore/dreamcore community I honestly felt more comfortable and relaxed, even feeling as if i am being put into a trance, to temporarily escape. to feel more at ease.
Good job! Great to see another longform analysis channel rising up. I'm definetely sticking with you till you see your first thousand subs
For me, it was like finding a place where I felt safe. Like oddly, out of all, I found traumacore to be most comforting for me. I was used to drawing vent art and had an entire traumadump character because a lot of things happened when I was younger and it just made me forget everything. I only really know how I how felt in those instances. Traumacore just felt like a place I could express my pain.
19:43 'it is unlikely to invoke any inherent feeling of dissociation or dread from listening to the tracks alone'
*meanwhile me, about to cry because fallen down is playing in the background and its giving me overwhelming feelings of nostalgia for undertale*
Why did your explainations really hit the nail on the head every time…
I may have been on the internet for a while, but I wasn't really brave enough to learn everything there is. Now I am. I want to learn how the internet has been, while I am still in my youth.
These types of videos are my whole life right now, and this one is near the top of any I’ve ever seen. It’s creative, informative, interesting, entertaining, and overall captivating. Good job!
i loved this video so much!! currently doing a dissertation on this, your discussion was so multifaceted and well-done, thank you
i think another reason why these generations resonate with this type of aesthetic is due to the age of consumerism. the images of commercial spaces, that are usually filled with spaces, we find ironically satisfying, yet disturbing.