Golden Hour

Golden Hour is an aesthetic that is based on the sunsets, sunrises, and the color gold. It also frequently features lens flare, palm trees, and flowers.

Visual[]

Golden Hour visuals are often of sunrises and sunsets taken at just that perfect time (California, Hawaiian, and any sort of Tropical Island horizons are particularly popular within Golden Hour visuals, since they offer the best clarity and color palette for these sorts of images). Golden Hour aesthetics can also be paired quite successfully with VSCO. It is named Golden Hour due to the fact all pictures taken around this time are given a very warm, golden hue to them. Silhouettes and shadows are also common to see within this aesthetic, along with pictures of eyes catching the golden light.

Music[]

A lot of Golden Hour-themed music is designed to invoke a summertime vibe, so there's a lot of crossover with Vaporwave (specifically Future Funk), Lo-Fi, EDM, and certain flavors of Synthwave music, as well as summertime pop hits of any time, designed to give the timeless feel of the freedom of summer.

Songs[]

Golden Hour by JVKE
Creepin' by 21 Savage, Metro Boomin, and The Weeknd
The Girl I Haven't Met by Softy
Your Sister Was Right by Wilbur Soot
Sunset on Summerville Madds Buckly

Subgenres[]

While Golden Hour is the best-documented, there appear to be other aesthetics in a similar vein popping up on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. These include:

Black Hour[]

Black Hour is a rather flexible aesthetic that largely takes on the sights and sounds of the night time, which can lead to two different interpretations of Black Hour: a darker, scarier, or gloomier atmosphere designed to put the viewer at unease or something more akin to After Hours, where it conveys a sense of peace, tranquility, and fun. Black Hour can also be a heavy element to Halloween-centric aesthetics.

Grey Hour[]

Grey Hour, unlike Black Hour, seems to not be nearly as flexible in its usage, but is used to convey a gloomy, melancholy, sad atmosphere that could be something similar to Dullcore. Grey Hour is heavily characterized by its overcast skies in the day and has also shown to incorporate elements such as rain or snow to carry its melancholic motif.

Pink Hour & Purple Hour[]

Pink Hour and Purple Hour convey similar vibes with a slightly romantic, idyllic motif, with the main difference between the two (besides the predominant color) being that Pink Hour has a distinctly more feminine vibe than Purple Hour, but both convey an atmosphere similar to what you would find in Lo-Fi; nostalgic, warm, comforting, and tranquil. This is typically that time of day between Golden Hour and Black Hour when skies aren't overcast. Also, Pink Hour utilizes pastel colors in its color palette while Purple Hour utilizes brighter, more vivid colors.

Red Hour[]

Red Hour conveys a vibe similar to what one could find in Liminal Space, where there is a slight element of danger to the subject. The element of danger can range to Liminal Space's sense of anxiety and horror to out-right Post-Apocalyptic war.

Green Hour[]

Green Hour, similar to Black Hour, can be flexible in its usage, ranging from a more horrific and terrifying atmosphere (think something similar to the Saw movies) to something more akin to stepping out of the haze of Blue Hour, delving some into After Hours/Lo-Fi vibes (especially when it's used in a more Urban setting). Green Hour is also the most likely to implement nature into its subject