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Explaining CoreCore, the art movement born from TikTok

Explaining CoreCore, the art movement born from TikTok

When was the last time we witnessed an emergence of an art movement? The last one from our timeline is the emergence of Conceptual and Installation art, both considered Contemporary Art and Post-Modern Art. Although, with today’s diverse content on social media platforms, and our fondness for building aesthetic trends, another art movement could be a possibility… Enter, the wonder of CoreCore.

Our generation has a knack for building categories for trends and aesthetics, no matter what field. Fashion? Film? Communication dynamics? We have everything. And social media has been a way for these things to emerge. In TikTok, dressing up and serving visuals could be categorized into different ‘cores.’ From Witchcore to Cottagecore to Barbiecore, anything could be core! The platform even came up with a new art style: CoreCore. Could this be a new art movement, appearing out of modern media?

What is CoreCore?

If you spend hours scrolling through social media platforms, there is a high chance that you’ve encountered #corecore. CoreCore primarily started in TikTok, therefore it is usually in the form of video clips. Formally, it puts together seemingly unrelated clips—whether pulled from news footage, social media, films, live streams, memes, or whatever else in the ether. Often, somber music serves as the backdrop of this mixture, conveying new meaning and emotion through juxtaposition.

@sebastianvalencia.mp4 Wake up. #corecore #nichetok ♬ original sound – Sebastian V

Know Your Meme defines it as: “plays on the -core suffix by making a ‘core’ out of the collective consciousness of all ‘cores.'” Something like a burst of media that aims to convey a sort of social message, appealing to our emotional senses. While a number of early corecore videos could claim some political or philosophical underpinnings, most have been viewed as more of an aesthetic experience offering catharsis as much as profundity.

Existence and omniscience are two of the most common themes in corecore videos. The contents are usually disorienting because it jams a lot of different emotions and vibes in just one video. In the words of one user, corecore is “life-changing because it makes you see the visual of your sad and meaningless life.”

Similarities with Dada Art Movement

Some people point out that corecore is just a resurgence of Dada, an art movement from the 1920s. Dadaism is generally an anti-art movement. Artworks from this movement physically attacked traditional art and defaced it. They used mundane and everyday objects and displayed them in the galleries, calling it art in their own rights. Dada artists relied on madness and absurdity to shock their audience.

@aamirazh #corecore #postmodernism #dada #art ♬ original sound – aamir

As pointed out by TikToker Aamir in a video, corecore could likely be compared to the 20th-century movement of Dada. Artists wielded collage, cut-up text, sculpture, and multimedia to inveigh against the logic and aesthetics beloved by the bourgeoisie. Just like Dada, corecore relies on randomness and shock value. Its content is chaotic and absurd, making sense out of the nonsense of being online—a true Dada-esque nature.

Nevertheless, the line between Dada and corecore ends with its purpose. While the explosion of media forms from Dada aims to criticise the bourgeoisie and their art, corecore aims to examine the existence and social spheres. Also, corecore is not yet recognized by professional artists as an art movement, specifically, but perhaps an aesthetic style trend. Who knows? Maybe it could be recognized as one, in the long run.

Characteristics of CoreCore

The hashtag for corecore sits at around 600 million views, making it an increasingly popular trend on TikTok. While most of the contents are video clips, some are also pictures or edited collages, paired with sad or emotional background music. They all exhibit the same characteristics: jamming up random clips, snippets, or pictures from different media forms to exhibit a sort of somber message about life.

Three of the most media type that forms corecore are film clips, news footage, and animated cartoons. Clips from American Psycho, The Family Guy, and interview footages of Mark Zuckerberg make regular appearances. Every once in a while, archival footages of users surface too, such as videos of them while they were infant or even videos of them in vital childhood memories. Of course, most of these matched with the other chaotic media forms. As depicted in captions, this usually conveys the existence of the user in a chaotic world.

The editing of corecore videos is usually just casual jamming of clips, but sometimes they contain erratic transitions and disorienting warp of images. The background music could also interchange in the middle of the video, switching from one mood to another. The different juxtapositions and elements happening all at once, to form a hyperactive sensorial outing, sets a striking characteristic for the clips.

Ultimately, Corecore just shows how creative or daring the people of social media could be. Whether it is a serious one or just a random shock value, we can expect more artistic products to come out of platforms such as TikTok. Exciting!

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