So Retro

"So Retro" (also spelled as "Sooo Retro", to emphasize the sarcastic intonation) is an ironic phrase that refers to an aesthetic that largely surged as a result of companies and artists trying to replicate the 8-Bit (sometimes 16-Bit) aesthetic as an attempt to make their games and/or art look nostalgic, but fail or put no effort into actually doing so, often being inaccurate to the true essence of retro games^[1]. Therefore, the term is only used as a pejorative, kind of like the word Hipster.

Most of the time, it represents low effort, poorly-made pixel art that look kitschy and tacky; so alternatively, this aesthetic can also be called "Trashy Retro". Anything that can be described as "So Retro" may take inspiration from extremely popular games deemed old, such as Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. The aesthetic often includes the MS Paint aesthetic with poorly made drawings in the MS paint program.

History[]

The aesthetic may have originated from YouTube user mint301 who created a series titled How to Draw Like a Pro With Paint, which included satirical "tutorial" videos on how to poorly copy a sprite from a Retro game in Microsoft paint.

In 2023, the term "So Retro" was coined for the aesthetic and gained popularity as a concept within the YouTube animation community^[2]. A gif became popular showing sprites from Mario poorly animated, and became associated with So Retro even though it did not incorporate any poorly made pixel art.

The term has been expanded from Pixel Art to refer to games that use the retro Low Poly aesthetic combined with more modern graphical elements which may create an odd feeling, even though this may be an intentional artist choice.