On a frigid January day, the clouds hung like a thick drape over the sun as I drove down an inner-city parkway. The lanes weren’t crowded, so I had a clear view of the bare banks on either side of the road. Instead of the usual mounds of weeds that choke the grass in the summer, all I could see was a frosting of white. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it snowed without me knowing, and somehow the powdering had mysteriously covered only the banks next to the road, leaving the pavement untouched.
After another look, though, I realized that what I saw was not snow, but instead, heaps of trash: shredded bits of decaying fast-food boxes, napkins, and unidentifiable material that drivers must have flung from their cars.
Repulsion rose in me, but also sadness and anger. When did the city’s grassy and natural areas become our trash can? The world seemed very ugly to me at that moment, and I couldn’t help but long for sights more beautiful than the litter-congested streets before me.
I instantly understood why so many are drawn to internet aesthetics, and specifically cottagecore with its wildflower loveliness, Frog and Toad quaintness, and nostalgic appeal to the past. How much more pleasing it would be if, instead of riding past littered parkways, I could walk through the screen of my computer and sit near a meadow in the calmness of nature. Or travel down the woodland paths in paintings, unhurried and unworried by blaring horns and speeding cars. What a refreshing change it would be to live in a storybook-like world that resembles Anne of Green Gables or The Secret Garden. Life would seem so much better and more beautiful.
Cottagecore invites us to pause and notice the loveliness in the ordinary; to experience and care for the natural world, not as dominators but as stewards; and to know that our lives as unique human beings are important.
I discovered cottagecore—which grew in popularity during the pandemic—via YouTube while searching for instrumental music videos to listen to as I studied or wrote. These videos displayed pictures of rural landscapes or paintings such as Edwin Harris’ A Quiet Moment combined with soft piano and classical music. Over time, the algorithm led me further down the cottagecore path and introduced me to Paola Merrill. Her channel, The Cottage Fairy, has millions of followers and has enabled her to publish a book titled The Cottage Fairy Companion: A Cottagecore Guide to Slow Living, Connecting to Nature, and Becoming Enchanted Again.
If you’re looking for enchantment, then Merrill’s channel is a good place to start. Her artistry is displayed in the way she captures wide landscapes as well as the close details of her daily life and handmade art. The videos are as calm and relaxing as a mug of chamomile tea on a chilly day, with Paola’s voice quietly sharing thoughts about her art and life. Watching her bake treats, paint, craft paper lanterns, and discuss her favorite books, I’m repeatedly struck by her emphasis on slower and more sustainable living. This can be said of many in the cottagecore movement, as enthusiasts are invited to quiet their busy lives and notice the beauty around them.
To some individuals, the aesthetic is just that, a preference for décor or merely a style of dress. For others like Merrill, however, it represents a deeper philosophy than just creating a cottage-themed home or donning vintage dresses and lace ribbons. Tied in with cottagecore is an emphasis on slower living, taking time for rest and quiet, noticing the small but significant details in life, and enjoying nature. As Merrill stated in an interview for Mango Publishing, “I don’t think it is the countryside that we truly desire, only the feeling it evokes, albeit a sense of peace and quietness that allows us to exit the stress and [busyness] of our daily lives.”
Of course, for all its charm, there are opponents to the aesthetic. Critics argue that cottagecore fans are living out an escapist fantasy of an idealized time. As an article titled “Cottagecore, a beautiful aesthetic with issues to address” on The Michigan Daily thoughtfully points out:
Whether or not it does so purposefully, the trend romanticizes a lifestyle that comes with unique hardships, unimaginable to cottagecore fans born and raised in urban and suburban areas. Cottagecore chooses not to acknowledge rural poverty and lack of resources, along with the heavy labor involved in the upkeep of a farm.
Life in a rural cottage, both in the past and the present, often entails hardship and poverty, aspects notably absent in the pictures and videos of cottagecore enthusiasts. Ignoring the realities and hardships of life in rural, impoverished areas is not something we should encourage. Neither should we forget that there is a difference between reality and what we see on the internet. Cottagecore and other aesthetics (e.g., fairycore, grandmacore, light academia) are based on highly polished pictures and a deliberate presentation of selected images to viewers. In many ways, it is a fantasy world that viewers can enter to find relief from life’s struggles. Such escapism is not always wrong, but it can be misplaced and unhealthy at times.
Does that mean cottagecore has no value to society? No, for underlying its frills and fantasies is an innate human desire for beauty and peace that hearkens back to Eden and everything we lost because of the Fall. This yearning lies within all people, which for many was intensified by the pandemic and continues to be fueled by today’s fast world consumed by deadlines and technology. We were not made to live behind screens or to always strive anxiously after the next task. Cottagecore invites us to pause and notice the loveliness in the ordinary; to experience and care for the natural world, not as dominators but as stewards; and to know that our lives as unique human beings are important. Among the lace bows, folklore-inspired outfits, and wildflower bouquets can be found traces of a longing that waits to be fulfilled.
A day is coming when we will live on an Earth that is filled with beauty. No longer will there be streets clogged with trash, paved-over meadows, or the tragic loss of habitats and species. Humans will live in harmony with each other and the natural world on a new Heaven and new Earth that are far better than Eden. God will wipe away the tears from our eyes, and sorrow, brokenness, and loneliness will no longer mar our days (Revelation 21:3-4). That which we thought could only be a fantasy will become reality.
That does not mean, however, that we have to retreat into our screens while we wait. Even as we look forward to that day, we can bring fragments of that hope and longing to life now. I have already seen glimpses of that, even beyond the screen. In the same town where there were roads littered with trash, I’ve seen quaint ladybug welcome signs dotting the lawn of an apartment complex, standing despite overgrown grass and graffiti on the fence. I’ve seen a house in a rundown section of town proudly adorned with bursts of colors from a garden. There are numerous reasons why those areas have become what they are, including political and societal problems that need to be addressed. Those small instances of beauty, though, have a place in defying the evil of injustice around them by offering a healing sight of hope.
We can be a part of that redemptive work when we labor to beautify our spaces and those of our neighbors, and to live more intentionally and slowly to recognize the value of all human life. But such work requires that our lives be more than an internet aesthetic. What is needed is an incarnational approach in which we testify to the goodness and loveliness of the Creator and Savior. His plan of salvation was not a wishful thought. Rather, he took on human flesh and entered into our brokenness to bring healing.
For me, this means refusing to retreat into the whimsy of pictures and videos as if there is no potential for loveliness in my own corner of the world. For beauty is already present there, even amidst the messiness and brokenness of inner-city life. I just need to be willing to look at what my world is as well as what it could be. In other words, to not only long for beautiful embankments along parkway streets, but to also make them a reality by beautifying my community and cleaning up the trash along its parks and roadways. To cultivate a space that shows others that brokenness does not have the final word. That there is, indeed, a better world coming, an eternal one cultivated by the hands of the one who forever bears the scars that bought our healing.
One day, maybe, someone will clean up that white frosting of trash along the road and plant clusters of daisies or daylilies. And oh, how much greater will the beauty of that area be because of its transformation from decay into new life.
