Why are Gen-Z so obsessed with ‘cores’ and ‘eras’?

Growing up as the only Black girl in my school, life meant that I often longed to meet someone that looked like me – someone I shared cultural familiarity with; who I could be myself around. We could enjoy the same taste in music, the same liking in TV Shows (Black sitcoms defined our childhoods), a similar style of clothes and general aesthetics in a judgement-free zone. 

“As I’ve grown older, my aesthetic is ever-changing: It has matured, it has relaxed, and it has become unrestricted, limitless and unapologetic.”

As I’ve grown older, my aesthetic is ever-changing: It has matured, it has relaxed, and it has become unrestricted, limitless and unapologetic. Aesthetics and cores may be based loosely on trends, but they allow room for growth and change. Those two things are a key part of what allows society to evolve. Not only that, they create communities, and – as we know – society is built on communities, evolving together.

“I genuinely do not think that adding the suffix ‘core’ is a remotely important aspect of contemporary patriarchy. Focusing on discourse (or worse, policing discourse) blinkers us to existing inequalities between men and women,” says Dr Alice Evans, a senior lecturer in Social Science of Development. 

Like Dr. Alice, I do think that too much emphasis is put on policing women’s lifestyle choices, and somehow adding an aesthetic to your lifestyle has been a cause for negative and unnecessary discourse, which is distracting us from bigger issues in society and gatekeeping movements in youth culture. This will only suppress and further marginalised young people looking to find themselves and to grow.

Much of this criticism comes from people who find the terms ridiculous or people that don’t understand the nuances of certain colloquialisms. However, allowing people to just be, is a good start to getting to a place of mutual understanding. 

“Women engaging in aesthetics is a positive because it’s all about freedom of expression. Having so many trends happening simultaneously means that women have the authority to choose and have the option to engage in whatever interests them. There isn’t ‘one strict way’ to be a woman or to be in touch with your womanhood. 

“Women and femmes are using the ‘cores’ and ‘aesthetics’ to reclaim them and showcase them in a more individualist way.”

“All of these ‘aesthetics’, ‘eras’, ‘cores’ happening concurrently prove that we can adapt and switch out stylistic identities, and this naturally allows us to be more confident,” says creator Mikai McDermott.

Like Mikai, I too believe that womanhood can exist in many forms and adapting these highly malleable artistic tastes generates a positive environment of creativity. She adds, “Women and femmes are using the ‘cores’ and ‘aesthetics’ to reclaim them and showcase them in a more individualist way. 

“A lot of them are stereotypically feminine, like ‘barbie core’, or ‘cottage core’, which in the past, society has associated with being ‘weak’ and ‘passive’. Women are showing us that just because they’ve adopted them, it doesn’t mean that they’re limited to what could be seen as negative stereotypes that patriarchy set upon us.” 

We simply need to stop policing women’s choices. If I’m in my soft life today, but tomorrow I decide to fight for everything, I should be able to do that. The idea of aesthetics is that they’re not full personality traits that you have to commit to for a lifetime, because who’s to say your taste won’t change tomorrow? Core, eras and aesthetics create room for inspiration and for people to find and build community – when they might otherwise have felt alone in their journey of discovery.

“The idea of building a community around whatever your aesthetic is at any given moment in time is one that we should applaud, not suppress or sneer at.”

If we didn’t evolve, or if we were riding solo without a support group or a community with mildly similar interests then we would be criticised for that too, and perhaps even called ‘weird’. There is something warming and reassuring about the idea of aesthetics and I am so here for it. 

The idea of building a community around whatever your aesthetic is at any given moment in time is one that we should applaud, not suppress or sneer at. You should be able to switch it on and off, whenever you feel like it because ‘Hello, hi!’, that’s your prerogative. Sure, putting labels on every interest, aesthetic, or lifestyle choice can be superfluous, and I can accept that some labelling may take the mick sometimes. I mean, hard-boiled egg girls? Really?