Normcore is a “a post-authenticity coolness that opts into sameness.” The term was first coined by the trend forecasting group K-HOLE in their 2013 report Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom, which was a larger philosophical deliberation on the degree to which people should remain alternative into adulthood. This week’s episode of Silent Generation focuses on how the fashion world’s misclassification of normcore as an aesthetic caused internet aesthetics to become less subculture-oriented after the mid-2010s. Nathan and Solana begin by discussing the history of internet aesthetics by breaking them down into four categories and three periods: consumer aesthetics, early internet subcultures (2009-2014), Vaporwave-inspired aesthetics (2014-2020), and Tik Tok aesthetics (2020-2025). They then discuss the true meaning of K-HOLE’s report and question what normcore fashion conceptually looked like. They round out the episode by recapping the reasons why normcore killed off the subculture component of internet aesthetics: aesthetics could now be vibes or metaphysical concepts, aesthetics became a formula that could be capitalized off of by brands, and internet aesthetics became more fashion-centric. 

Links:

Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom

Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion by Fiona Duncan

Normcore: Fashion Movement or Massive In-Joke? by Alex Williams

Normcore Never Died. It Just Got More Expensive by Vanessa Friedman

Normcore Was Always A Misunderstood Fantasy by Delia Cai

ASOS: What is Normcore/90s Normal? ASOS explains...

Gap’s Dress Normal Campaign Isn’t Working Because Normal People Don’t Want to Be Normal by Rachel Raczka

Artwork:

Seinfeld

Recorded on 5/25/2025