Can an exhaustion with trends be a trend in itself? This is the question that TikTok’s corecore aesthetic, also known as nichetok, asks. You might have seen these videos circulating the Internet — edited together fragments of modern life and media with emotional music in the background. This type of video has become widely popular recently. It has been described as dadaist art, faux-deep nonsense, an anti-trend, a therapeutic release. But what actually is it? And what do these videos mean, if indeed they mean anything at all? Here is a look into this strange phenomenon and some of the most popular examples.
What Is Corecore On TikTok?
The first step to understanding corecore is the name itself. The suffix -core is commonly used on TikTok and across the internet to define new aesthetics. For example, Barbiecore, Goblincore, Fairycore, Cottagecore, and Normcore, just to name a few. Corecore is a response to the oversaturation of these trends — it’s the aesthetic of rapidly changing aesthetics.
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The subject of these videos tends to be some of the most difficult aspects of modern life. Income inequality, climate change, and social media are among the most popular topics covered. The rapidly changing collages of memes, film clips, interviews, news segments and TikToks mirror our own social media feeds. There is a sense of bleak absurdity to many of these videos, although some take on a more hopeful tone.
However, the popularity of corecore has meant that a high volume of these videos are being produced to garner likes and engagement. Clips and sounds are reused, and the format almost becomes a parody of itself. Some stitch together clips that seemingly make no sense next to one another. That’s the difficulty of defining corecore — it is far more than one unified concept.
Corecore Examples
If you’re curious to explore corecore for yourself, here are some of the most popular examples. Whether you connect with them or find them cheesy, whether you think of them as a new art form or not, these videos seem to be able to get a strong reaction from just about anyone who views them. However, it’s hard to know exactly what to take away from them. You realise the flaws in social media apps that they point out, but for most of us, after we finish the video, we just keep on scrolling.
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