In collaboration with visual storytelling studio Polygraph, YouTube has created an interactive report into aesthetic tendencies, including and overview of the way YouTubers interact with such content material.
Ever heard of ‘Cottagecore’? What about ‘Bardcore’? Gen Z is exploring and expressing identity types in a new way on YouTube. From a brand perspective, it could deem highly useful to understand where different audience types are engaging, how they’re engaging and what types of content they’re responding to.
The report outlines six key aesthetic tendencies:
- Cottagecore
- Bardcore
- Darkish Academia
- Dreamcore
- Royaltycore
- Y2K
Each ‘trend’ includes a brief explanation as well as links to relevant YouTube videos. For example, let’s take a look at Y2K:
“Y2K is an aesthetic based on the look of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time where the internet was clunky and raw, but most of all, could be turned off. The post-millennium look has many iterations that range from boy-band fangirl inspired looks to Paris Hilton-era Juicy tracksuits.”
If you’ve heard of any of these niches before, chances are you don’t have a fully-fledged understanding of that they mean and the context surrounding them. This is exactly why the interactive report into aesthetic trends was born.
According to YouTube:
“While identity-seeking is one of the core pursuits of any youth culture, for Gen Z, identity is a journey, not a destination. This generation has grown up creating their identities for online spaces, where identity is transient by design. YouTube is an ideal platform for people to learn how to adopt and adapt aesthetics they’re interested in.”
