All posts by Y2Craze

Starting around the late 2000s this aesthetic is derived from the indie based hip hop craze at the time, blending both skater and nerd culture into a hip hop style that was derived from both N.E.R.D and Lupe Fiasco who both pioneered this genre and aesthetic.

It overlaps with the “Swag Era” of hip hop and it’s likely a sub category of hipster, the blog era doesn’t shy away from it’s hipster based love of nerd culture and quirky aspects, it also came out around the time of the beginning of social media’s relation to music hence the name blog hip hop which had a huge internet based following, the aesthetic is also heavily nostalgic for the late 80s - early 90s hip hop years as it takes heavy inspiration from A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and The Beastie Boys. quirky related hip hop and rapping about mundane related circumstances as well as relationship complications, shyness, loneliness and and a mostly love for nerd culture, this was a complete contrast from the high luxury approach hip hop often took.

The aesthetic lasted until 2014 and faded alongside the Swag Era, but here are the motifs for this aesthetic and there’s a lot.

One quick mention about the UK, apparently the UK had a massive flux of this wave as well that deserves a mention too I’ll list the artists.

Motifs: Skater Fashion, Nerd Culture, Hipster Aesthetic, Embracing Shyness, Loneliness, Quirky Lyrics, Graffiti Prints, Snapbacks, Chinos, Hightop Sneakers, Plaid Shirts, Vans, Bow Ties, Backpacks, Nerd Glasses, Old Skool Apparel, Early Social Media Influence, Independent Labels, Rejecting Mainstream Hip Hop Norms.

US Artists: Earl Sweatshirt, Early Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Mac Miller, M.I.A, Kreyshawn, Hopsin, Late Eminem, Kid Cudi, Logic, Early Machine Gun Kelly, Odd Future, Chiddy Bang, Gym Class Heroes, B.O.B, Early A$ap Rocky, Wiz Khalifa, Tyler the Creator, Macklemore.

UK Artists: Rizzle Kicks, Dizzy Rascal, Plan B, Tinie Tempah.

Nonplace Fast Food is a minimalist design aesthetic of the 2010s/2020s continuation of the flat design. This aesthetic has gotten huge pushback from the public, online for its lack of creative venture or taste, the term Nonplace was coined by Marc Augé which is a place that only offers functionality rather than an optional third place as restaurants were always seen as, this is usually referred to as the anthropological spaces of transience.

Nonplace Fast Food are usually completely stripped down and resemble modern office buildings or coffee shops, Some of the reasons people have brought up as to why we have been seeing this surgance in minimalist fast food architecture is the food delivery apps that have grown in popularity such as Just Eat or Doordash etc. Another reason is the appeal of minimalist architecture and design as a whole, which continues to affect most of our cultural innovation as growing technology becomes more rampant and offers easy accessibility. For example; basic, simple and plain designs give off a slightly more modern aesthetic as opposed to other aspects.

Key Elements: Minimalist Architecture, Millennial Exuberance, Flat Design, Lack of a Third Place, Pure Functionality Only, Coffeehouse Look, Muted Earth-tones, Touchscreen Accessibility, Product of Late-Stage Capitalism.

From roughly the late 90s to early 00s, adolescent pop music took over both the airwaves and especially MTV. The prime time program that established this aesthetic and trend was TRL, aka Total Request Live, a pop-focused live event program that showcases music trends and top charting singles. The motifs of this trend is 90s bubblegum pop revival first brought in by the group The Spice Girls and later taken up by Boybands and Girl groups with single’s focused pop acts like the blond Pop princesses of 99 (Xtina, Britney Spears, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson and Anastasia). Certain motifs include: Teen focused pop, girl groups and boybands, teen fan websites/pages, artists usually under 20, popularity of both TRL and 106 & Park, rise of singer based competition reality shows like Pop Idol, Popstars and American Idol, certain controversies surrounding youth based sexuality and the growing influence surrounding alternative music such as Hip-Hop, Nu Metal and Teen Pop Punk. Aesthetic lasted until 2002 with a growing rise of guitar-based alt pop and R&B, ultimately putting the trend to a hold.

Generation-core refers to the recent obsession with splitting cultural shifts into age groups rather than decades, all over social media and news outlets have gotten deeply into certain generations killing things or no longer doing something that was once the norm, fashion has now become more defined by generations rather than a central time period, you’re likely to here the terms Gen Z or Millennial to describe our current time period rather than the decade name.

The generation discussion has become a lot similar to other debates in online platforms, there is always a debate around birth dates, time frames and which generation lived through a certain time and which didn’t, the most common aspects of this aesthetic are generational fashion comparisons, younger generations moving away from previous norms such as dating norms, tech norms or workplace norms, birth date debates and generational shift debates.

This aesthetic mostly started in the 2010s.

The aesthetic is a low camera quality style used in horror posters of the 2000s in the wake of The Blair Witch Project hype.

The poster is often distorted and uses low res camera quality to give it a blur effect often making the image look uncanny or unusual.

The reason for the aesthetic is due to the Blair Witch Project giving a similar style and so studios followed suit.

I’m trying to find more examples from that time please give me a shout out if you find any and put it on the discord.

Increase in movie scenes depicting the office as plain or mundane often soul sucking and lifeless also a heavy use of young upstarts self monologuing about their empty life until something strange or unusual pivots their perspective.

Increase usually occurred around 1999/2000 (turn of the century nihilism).

Heavy critique of capitalism and consumerism.

Setting is overly liminal space with empty cubicles and early to mid 90s beige monitors and photocopiers.

Boss is often monotone and direct about work performance usually used as a plot device rather than an actual character.

Typical office attire with earth tone suits, short sleeve shirts, abstract ties and suspenders.

Lasted from 1999 to 2000 offshoots include both The Office UK and US and The Incredibles (2004).