As #corecore grows on TikTok, you’ll see a new video with the same qualities every few minutes. Badly edited videos, melancholic music and a quick mix of some random clips are the distinctive main themes.
Viewers are often left slightly sad, but relate to the videos. If you spend hours scrolling through social media platforms – there’s a good chance you’ve seen something like the TikTok video attached below:
This is an example of a trending hashtag. It is somewhat similar to #nichetok which covers almost the same domain.
With over 371 million views on TikTok alone, the hashtag corecore aims to make the viewer feel something.
Know Your Meme defines it as:
“plays on the -core suffix by making ‘core’ out of the collective consciousness of all ‘cores’.”
TikTokers can’t get enough of this trend and almost every user’s ‘About’ or ‘fyp’ page has a video waiting for them to hit with the hashtag.
Where does “corecore” come from?
The suffix “-core” is used to describe some aesthetic. It is usually preceded by aesthetics itself. For example cottage-core or bloke-core.
The core was about music, the origin being “hardcore” music. The term “norm-core” music was first used in 2013, and the suffix soon began to diverge from its musical roots. Tumblr saw cottage-core and bloke-core trends in 2018 and 2021 respectively.
With the emergence of several aesthetics, it was only a matter of time before corecore became a thing.
It was first used in 2020 by a Tumblr user named Muttgirl. They started tagging corecore in the captions of her posts quite often. In April 2020, Muttgirl posted a Hannah Montana cigarette cartoon and used the hashtag for the first time. He earned approximately 110 notes.
you’ve heard of cottagecore, now we’re introducing you to Corecore https://t.co/4mhqUNyQj2
It wasn’t until early 2022 that viewers began to embrace this aesthetic in a non-literal sense.
On January 1, 2021, masonoelle on TikTok posted a small number of clips collected into a video. The videos, featuring footage from American Psycho and Charlie D’Amelio, demonstrated how an abundance of content can lead viewers to romanticize madness. On TikTok, the video gained about 162.4 thousand likes and 745 shares. The video received approximately 162.4 thousand likes on TikTok with 745 shares.
Highenquiries on TikTok posted a similar video on March 18, 2022 and has garnered over 100.8k likes and 797 shares. Clips in the video range from British director Adam Curtis to Nikocado Avocado.
Heksensabbat on TikTok was the first to post a corecore edit. He coined the term July 16, 2022. He combined many frames, including ones from the TV shows Family Guy, Good Times and Taxi Driver. Over 132,000 people have liked and nearly 1,500 have shared his video.
Before long, the hashtag caught the attention of content curators and Corecore became a new trend that was everywhere.
Viewers react to viral #corecore videos
Twitterati have mixed opinions about Corecore being all over social media platforms. Some say they’re obsessed with the aesthetic, while others say it’s not worth the hype.
With Corecore taking over TikTok, it’s only a matter of time before it moves on to Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms.