What is #Corecore and what is it actually trying to say?

When the pandemic began, sitting cooped up in my room had me constantly vexed; we only had the smartphone as our companion and that was the only way we could see the world. What if we left everything behind and moved to the country? Things we never considered started coming to us- what if we didn't work so hard and lived simply? The life approach that I started reflecting on has been echoed by approximately 2.9 million people (in the US alone). And unsurprisingly, Instagram quickly picked it up and began to shower similar content on my account. #cottagecore, the caption read. And that was it.

Recently, my friend pointed out to a very popular trend going viral on social media- corecore. The name sounded familiar, so I started browsing more about it- amateurish clips on population, dumping ground, and of course, snippets from American Psycho and Taxi Driver-some unpleasant clips being shown in a 15-second flash being replaced by the simple pleasures of life. Hmm...interesting. I dug deeper and started seeing the actual significance of this trend, which was sadly being cloaked by various nonsensical perspectives. So let's begin.

So the name of this artistic trend known as Corecore comes from a witty usage of the -core suffix. The -core suffix is used to identify similar concepts in culture, genres, or aesthetics in the current internet era and unifies them under a single heading- just like cottagecore, which I had mentioned earlier. Corecore is fundamentally a way of thinking that promotes a simpler, more environmentally friendly way of life. Cutting out the superfluous will allow you to focus on what matters most. But, in a rather dark and harsh way.

Technically, corecore material on TikTok combines disparate, at first seem unconnected clips—whether taken from news video, social media, movies, livestreams, memes, or anything else in the media ether—with sometimes sad music to juxtapose fresh meaning and emotion.

Although it rings close to the Japanese word "korokoro," which means "rolling around," that is used to characterize the trend towards a simpler, more environmentally friendly way of living, it might not entirely be originated from that. "Corecore", as I see it, is nudging the viewers to contemplate a simpler lifestyle and thinking, rather than being swarmed up with unnecessary traffic that is in and around our life, especially in the digital aspect. While some early corecore clips may have had some political or philosophical implications, the majority have been seen as more of an aesthetic experience that offers closure in addition to gravitas. Consider it an attempt to find a core in a bewildering, algorithm-driven digital existence—meaning-making via doom-scrolling. When you pick out one image from the video, it wouldn't make any meaning, but it is when you club the whole set together that you realize what it is trying to say. Sure, it looks unpleasant or depressing, but so are the majority of us; deep down, we're struggling to find the true meaning and purpose of our lives, and just the word core, is more than enough to unravel it. When people live in a world where there is an ongoing effort to convince them that they are alone in their difficult emotions, corecore helps them feel as though they are not.

Corecore can mean different things to different people; it all rests on the person viewing it. Whether to call it alarming, or negative, witty, or dark- it all narrows to one core meaning- to look within you and find your true self.