jimmy Nguyen, an 18-year-old student, watched his first “corecore” video on TikTok in January. He can’t remember which one it was, there are so many of them now. But he says it was typical of this new video trend: other TikTok videos, celebrity or podcaster interviews, TV shows and movie clips layered over sad or ambient music. They’re depressing, full of existential dread and usually and always talking loosely on the subject of disconnection and alienation. Nguyen initially thought, like other users, that these videos were a joke. They are roughly edited and the name itself is a sarcastic reference to the proliferation of microtrends emerging from TikTok since 2020. But soon he was staying up late at night in his bedroom doing his own corecore.
“While I was making my first video, I started to see myself really expressing how I felt and was relieved that I didn’t have anyone to talk to and explaining my emotions is hard,” he tells me. “But that video felt like an exit or gateway to those feelings.” In it, clips of Lee Jung-jae, Squid Game’s lead smiling widely and fake at the camera, someone recounting how at school kids would ask which superpower you’d want to come out of invisibility and fly, but he says, “I’m already invisible.” and Jake Gyllenhall in Stronger (2017) screaming “Why do you want me? I’m so fucked!” they meet on a moody track from Arcade Fire Now Nguyen makes these videos in an attempt to help people, she says, to let them know they’re not alone.
To date, the corecore hashtag on TikTok has 2.1 billion views. Some young people consider this genre as mere content or, even worse, content about content. But many feel that it speaks to them and their experiences on a deep emotional level. “They are my favorite type of TikTok video because they feel raw and real,” says Annabelle, 20, from London. “The combination of clips kind of sums up everything bad in life, but I couldn’t tell you why.” Or as one commenter put it on a corecore video about the fight to dates and the toxicity of modern relationships perpetuated by all genders: “Why am I crying about this?”
“This form of video started with ‘nichetok’, where you’d see really random clips, like footballers scoring goals, Peep Show clips, and performances by Oasis and Blur. It was masculine and all the guys were making it,” says Eden Young, managing editor of Polyester magazine and co-host of the podcast. “People wanted something a little deeper and carved something more meaningful out of this trend, which led to corecore.”
It’s pretty obvious why Gen Z would enjoy corecore. These videos may move you without knowing the sources of the clips, but if you understand the references to pop culture, culture, and the Internet, you feel special. Like most internet humor, if you get it, you get it. “It all feels very hopeless and corecore talks about these frustrations and anxieties. It’s a way to laugh at how hopeless it all is, or at least get some meaning out of it. You have a lightbulb moment that says, oh yeah, the world sucks,” Young says.
Are these videos art? A new frontier in amateur documentary filmmaking? “I don’t see why they wouldn’t be art if people are able to read things in the juxtapositions they present,” says art critic and author Philippa Snow. “Whether they are ‘good’ art or not is obviously debatable on a case-by-case basis, but that is true of absolutely all forms of art on Earth.” She references a quote from a TikTok user named Dean Erfani, who said that corecore is essentially the abstract concept of taking random videos and editing them together to the point that it makes sense to the viewer. Or at least that the viewer interprets it in his own way. “That doesn’t sound all that different to me from looking for meaning in ‘the chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table’ as the famous mantra of surrealism suggests.”
in my favorite corecore videoAlmost euphorically somber in its composition, Ampers Anthony edits the following: a woman talks about her last boyfriend having a no-cry rule, a sexy man appears with the caption that he texted his ex to delay his process healing, there is talk about “bad boys” and “good boys”, a guy laments that he can’t manipulate his current partner, women talk about not dating broke guys. The music that accompanies it (Darker Than This by the composer Emile Mosseri) is brilliant, hopeful and in the face of this noxious film it feels slightly humorous, ironic. His top comment says: “This should be seen by everyone. Somehow this video captures it all. We are a generation without love. It cannot be poured from an empty cup.
To me, like others of its ilk, it’s a simple and accessible version of an Adam Curtis movie, embracing his humor and slant, the seemingly unrelated clips to his voiceover. Young notes that writer Mark Fisher’s insights shine in this genre: Fisher was anti-capitalist, talked a lot about isolation, and wondered how we can process hopelessness in the modern world.
When I watch corecore, as someone who only uses TikTok sporadically, it mimics how using the app is an overstimulating act of watching a series of short videos and voices. This trend is a clever (and sad) commentary on the proliferation of content in culture: self-focused, often narcissistic commentary, shared opinions, tricks, and problems — it’s everywhere. The videos make me feel dejected and sorry for a generation that grew up during the pandemic and never went offline in their lives. Whether we enjoy them or not, they are probably the cutting-edge documentaries we deserve, and certainly the ones that make the most sense.
