Not to sound like some asshole elitist but the rampant materialism of niche subcultures is so weird. I have fallen victim to it before so I'm not perfect, but it urks me how monetized hobbies and general interests can be
I have a burner reddit account and recently stumbled upon cottagecore. It seemed nice at first and like it was a group of people wanting to slow down, focus on sustainable practices, and all that jazz. Instead I realized it's just a bunch of white middle class people larping as grandmas, baking bread for the aesthetic and ordering stuff off of Amazon and Shein to take selfies with. Legit every recent post is someone showing off some stupid shirt or knicknack they found at a store - no discussions on sustainability, gardening, etc. Any hobby subreddit is full of links of people trying to sell shit you dont need - I got into longboarding and the sub tried convincing me to buy $300 wheels. I can't post in the archery subreddit unless I have the latest Hoyt. Don't even get me started on the fitness groups.
This is not coherent at all. Again, I'm not perfect at all or immune to materialism. But for some reason it's just really grinding my gears this morning I figured a site full of communists would get it. End rant
one more reason why it's good that goblincore is a thing. more focus on found, thrifted or selfmade stuff, an aesthetic that embraces it when things are imperfect, damaged and used due to the focus on / acceptance of chaos and weirdness. it's a bit as if it's an attempt to reclaim cottagecore from commercialization and consumerism.
i mean, sure, you can commercialize goblincore as well. people already do that and it's just a matter of time until major fashion brands just switch color palettes to earthtones and slap a toadstool or a bunch of cute cartoon worms on everything to make goblincore mainstream, but you unfortunately have that with every subculture / aesthetic in capitalism. it's the constant cycle of recuperation and detournement that the situationists talked about.
TIL