Weird core is like when you’re in a playground in the middle of the night, you know nothing bad is going to happen but that ominous darkness around the happy neon colours of the play area contrast so much that everything starts to become a big coma like dream..
this is the best example of weirdcore that i’ve seen yet because i’ve actually wxperienced being in a playground late at night and its so horrifying but i knew my parents were just a little bit away so it was just this odd feeling
Weirdcore is deeply emotional and relatable, if you suffer from dissociation, clinging to the past, complex trauma, or had a childhood that was taken from you. I can't even describe how hard it hits.
Never went deeper into this aesthetic because I thought it was like, edgy liminal spaces or something Couldn't be more wrong, the explanation is way better than any wiki article, and the editing was just on point This strange nostalgia for early computer graphics, mixed with fake realities is fascinating
trust me im not even generalizing when i say most of the weirdcore aesthetic fans are edgy 13 years old kids who probably post youtube videos about their flipaclip ocs, i've it with my own eyes everywhere on the internet, but the aesthetic itself is kinda cool, liminal spaces, backrooms and weirdcore stuff don't give me any nostalgia or makes me feel comfy/uncomfy, it just drags me, it catches my attention for some reason and makes me just keep staring at it Or as an stolen yt comment once said "makes me feel a feeling that doesn't exist"
I tend to become terrified by most weirdcore images, they make me feel like someday I could be trapped in them with no escape, sort of like how images of the backrooms make me feel.
yeah pretty much all of them make me uncomfortable af, they like take all the uncanny elements and feelings from my dreams and just put them in one image that conveys exactly the same feeling I have while dreaming 99% of the time like when u wanna enjoy the dream since you can for example jump like a spiderman or fly etc but there is always some sort of uncanny shit either chasing you or you just have that weird feeling something is wrong and it fucking turns into a nightmare as something jumps you and you wake up or room fills with water and you start suffocationg and wake up or really anything
I love how they make me feel that way! Weirdcore is only comforting to me, I would give my whole life away just to live in the world that Weirdcore portrays.
13:00 this image is so nostalgic, yet also discomforting. its nostalgic because of the old computer, and its like those memes that are like "my mom told me to play outside", but yet discomforting because it is so unnatural to have a computer outside, almost like somebody ditched it. i love this image, it is one of my favorites ever.
6:20 I found a very different meaning of this image. It reminds me of the phrase “We are stardust.” In the early universe, stars created new elements, like carbon, that we today are made of. So, in a sense, this is a very old picture of you.
Hi! I'm the creator of the pictures in 0:24, 5:04, 8:43, 10:20, 11:46 (this was a collab) and 13:41 and a member of the weirdcord discord and weirdcore subreddit and i have to say that this video is REALLY well made! I also love your explaination of weirdcore in this video! I'm amazed!
I think there is like two sides to it, the more memey side and the more aesthetic side, or it's a mixture of both, just do whatever you want with it as long as you're having fun.
i actually took a picture of a beautiful location, added a black sphere, then put the text "congratulations!" then edited it so it looked more saturated and lower quality. it was fun to make a weirdcore image, and not too difficult
15:49 until 16:33 I know this isn't the topic, but the way he talks here is a highly accurate description of ptsd and how traumatic memories can be so distorted or repressed. I have ptsd myself and weirdcore is simultaneously one of the most comforting yet anxiety inducing aesthetics and it helps me feel better+I love the aesthetic so much
Traumacore is another Internet aesthetic sort of based on traumatic memories, ptsd, etc. Some weirdcore and traumacore images overlap, this happens sometimes with weirdcore and dreamcore too (and even other aesthetics like poolcore)
@@orionskittles it's quite important to know that it's not an aesthetic, like other "cores". It's mostly a coping mechanism. (It usually uses more text than usual weirdcore images and often times liminal spaces, dark or dirty, with cutesy characters such as those of Sanrio often featured crying or vomiting, just incase anyone doesnt know what it looks like) It's more like a surreal vent art piece in my opinion
@@doodlebuggle ah, thanks for clarifying, I'm not exactly the most informed on internet aesthetics, but yes, traumacore is supposed to be a coping mechanism, I should have mentioned that and I'm surprised I didn't
@@doodlebuggle yes back before it was called weirdcore or had a name and was just a block of all the "cores" on tumblr I had a pretty good sized blog some of the now popular ones are my oc. But I would spend hours editing pictures of my backyard at night taken with flash or my cat sleeping in cardboard and reblogging them, at the time the fact it didn't have a name or category made it more comforting bc it was just my own context from my mind and I could just imagine my own meaning. For me I have cptsd so it's never one dark main event but little feelings and memories and even current fleeting feelings and how my anxieties messes with them or what I long for. It's hard to explain
WeirdCore in my definition: Anxiety, nostalgia, and the feeling of being alone at the image you are looking at. Sometimes there are heavenly and nostalgic images, the nostalgic feeling may give you the feeling you’re in a dream and give you a sense of comfort depending on how you are connected with the objects and settings in that photo. Eyes and Shadow people are a very commonly used thing in WeirdCore. Eyes and Shadow People staring directly at you or in random places will give you anxiety and your brain will respond to it as if trying to say “Stop looking”, “This is dangerous”, or “Get out” at the image. Text in WeirdCore images are mostly in TraumaCore (a different aesthetic) and are meant to give you a feeling depending on the wording wether it be distrust, comfort, or fear. Sometimes people think the text is their own subconscious ness referring back to trauma (where the TraumaCore thing comes from) or just something out of the ordinary, sometimes wether it be good and comforting things to calm them down, a sentence that doesn’t make sense with the image displayed, a sense of anger at yourself, or the feeling of fear. Blurred out and/or black spludges and portals are meant to give you a feeling of wonder like your brain needs to complete the image for you to remember that memory fully... if it even is a memory, you’ll never know. An alarm going off in your brain telling you you’ve been here before but you can’t tell why you know as if you’re playing mind games on yourself. That’s WeirdCore. Edit: thank you for all the likes 😭
🍵🍵🍵🍵*sips* good explanation. I feel like for everyone their way of explaining weird core may be different because some may have different beliefs, emotions, and experiences when seeing of the images of this core. For me I feel very disturbed while intrigued at the same time w this strange core it makes me go deep thinking mode about life itself. But I'm kinda scared now reading about this core at night... I can't even look at the bathroom mirror without being triggered but yet I am yearning to know more of the unknown . y
Looking at the history of art this aesthetic reminds me a lot of surrealism. Therefore I consider weirdcore a digital rennaissance of surrealism due to the attempt of showing how dreams might feel in an uncanny way.. Btw, the editing and choice of music (especially the Earthbound OSTs) are amazing! Overall this video not just felt like an explanation of this aesthetic but also kinda like walking through a gallery. :)
Surrealism has always been kicking around the internet in some way. This seems to be the most current variation, but it's also been seen in the Meme Man surreal memes, some creepypastas, and even certain video games like that LSD Dream Simulator he talked about in the beginning.
theres this condition i have; derealization/depersonalization. it basically makes me feel like im detached from reality, from myself, from my surroundings, etc. weirdcore, in a way, its like how i visualize the world while dissociating. so seeing visuals of how it feels sometimes, thoughts and all; is somewhat comforting :’)
I have disassociation/derealty/paranoia issues due to childhood trauma and weirdcore/traumacore really resonates with me, enough to make and post my own images online.
I'm not diagnosed but I get this same feeling of being disconnected from reality often when I look at art and imagine myself there, and I love weirdcore/dreamcore. It just comforts me a lot
the stuff in parenthesis is the game, while the stuff out is the song name. Also please corect me if I get something wrong, and let me know if you know a song I left blank. Some common games are abbreviated, for example yume nikki is yume, while yume 2kki is just 2kki.
i feel like a weirdo for saying this, but besides the last one, weirdcore has always been so comforting. its the exact feeling i love feeling while sleeping replicated in real life, and presents that same level of comfort, warmth, and familiarity i cant place. i wish i could chill in some of these pics cause the aura and atmosphere just looks amazing
I think some of those images evoke the feeling of despersonalization and disassociation, as a person who has experienced trauma at a young age, a lot of weirdcore feels familiar and nostalgic in such a weird and terrifying way. But it's not all weirdcore that evoke this feeling in me.
Weirdcore is a mix of emotions, anxious, hopeful, confusing, alluring. I like to use the weird liminal space background and go walk around and go on a nice walk to clear my mind. It can help me concentrate or leave me terrified at the same time. A great aesthetic fr and your explanation was awesome
Weirdcore is the perfect explanation of how I feel inside, empty, yet full, strange and sinister, but friendly? This video is amazing and a huge relief to all the misrepresentation of weirdcore
It’s a shame that the only thing people think of when they hear weirdcore is just weird images. I was watching a compilation and one the the images was literally just a sandwich with jewelry in place of the fillings
i've heard of weirdcore before, but i didn't know much about it. however, this video has gotten me very interested in this aesthetic! i love dreamlike and surreal imagery, and this aesthetic is everything i've ever loved about it. thank you for making this video, maybe i'll try out making weirdcore stuff sometime
I like weirdcore as both an aesthetic and a music style. I make weirdcore music myself and the main feeling I go for in my music is nostalgia and warmth, but I like adding unnerving and strange visuals. I feel like it's a very common but effective technique to make something "feel off"
Absolutely love the music you used, everything from yume nikki to minecraft to undertale to runescape (i believe); and plenty i dont recognize, but from the ones I do recognize, are probably all clever picks from other existing media. Props to you for the variety.
yes! earthbound and space funeral as well. so much yume nikki haha i love weirdcore. it’s surreal and as others said, comfortably anxiety inducing. it reminds me a lot of my vivid and semi lucid dreams i’ve had since childhood. maybe that’s partially what inspires these images? the proportions are off and nonsensical like a dream can be. also that above comment who referenced complex trauma, dissociation and clinging to the past, they’re definitely right about that.
Never in all my years of browsing the internet have I seen a video quite like this. Watching this was like taking a short trip to an alternate, totally alien reality. The outstanding quality of the presentation of this bizarre subject matter, makes this video a truly unique experience within RUclips's unfathomably vast sea of content. In short, fantastic work.
I just discovered your channel, and I’m so used to these types of video essays having a calm, and slow narrator, that your instant energy and humor completely caught me off guard in the literal best way possible. Keep up the lords work my man.
I notice that when he voids show up, they taint the image. if they weren't there, it would be another "pleasant" dreamcore image, but the voids corrupt it. that just makes the concept more disturbing
I personally feel like Weirdcore is 'comfort horror'. Strangely nostalgic, but theres always the strange feeling of paranoia. It feels like you're in a simulation, but it's glitched. You can see into reality, but it doesn't make sense to you. Some things are censored because the simulation doesn't want you you to leave.
Weirdcore looks like how children (at least when I was a kid) think. Broken up, naive, confusion being mistaken as sense, foggy and blear images. I have such a strange connection to them, like digging up an old memory that just barely makes sense. Or a note you left yourself with vague, but understandable instructions.
Weirdcore nowadays is just mushrooms with eyes and many people have taken away the magic of it. Seeing the pictures in this video make me feel really happy cuz THAT is what weirdcore is supposed to be. Great job for showing the correct version lol!! (By correct I mean the more nostalgic and not random asf version, I think there is no correct or wrong way to portray weirdcore.)
As someone who's 21, childhood was very recent, yet I have already forgotten what it was like. Our generation has been raised under an immense amount of stress and, for people a little younger than me who are still kids right now, it's even worse. My first impression of weirdcore is that it's sort of a holistic expression of the normalization of the anxiety, stress and the unknowable future and variables placed on the people making it. It presents not a world that completly avoids the negative aspects of life, but also not one that exclusively indulges in it; it's sort of a manifestation of how unavoidable the fear is for modern youth, so much so that it's just a part of everyday life. From an outside perspective, weirdcore can seem like a form of horror, but the real scary thing is that it isn't, really. The dark, anxiety inducing elements are an unremarkable, normal part of the world. In a broken and confusing modern world, the broken, confusing nonsensical concepts and areas in a weirdcore world can sort of represent not just the odd layout of dreams, but the unintentional, random and unforgiving nature of the real world, which many people assert is controllable or intentionally designed, creating sort of a cognitive dissonance resolved in a conceptual, visual way by accepting a broken reality as a normal landscape. It still unmistakably is breaking reality, though, so there's still always the subconscious idea that something isn't adding up, something isn't right. Reflecting the way people continue living their normal lives in the real world where things don't add up, either. I feel like weirdcore explores the personal, individual outlook of what it's like to try to navigate such a world, one that is dangerous but at the same time very neutral and normal. Things can and will leave you scarred and traumatized but you just keep moving forward as if nothing is different because it's all that can be done. In a world where your own actions seem to have little affect, yet everything around you seems able to affect you so much, people just try to live normally and move on, with their own aspirations and whims, and niches and actions... As an individual everything hurts a lot and your own joy and euphoria means so much to you, but so many factors are out of your control, constantly invading your mind, and so you you try to block out the parts that are too hard to cope with and then just keep acting as you would, even under the immense amount of stress. Ita hard to express but it's like... transforming beyond the seperation of trauma and comfort, of stress and of relief, into a fairly fused mindset of both at the same time, constantly. I feel like that's the state a lot of kids live in these days, and I feel like weirdcore is one of those things that expresses and manifests that experience. It's almost like expressionist art, using familiar iconography, imagery, and visual ideas to create a clear picture of a distinct experience and feelings. I think I've confused myself though so I doubt that made sense lol, sorry. My younger sibling's convocation happened recently, and hearing the new grads speak in speeches about the last few years of their lives, with the pandemic, and floods and fires, really made me think about how much this kind of crazy world is just, the only world that some young people have ever known. The weight of that is heavy.
This is certainly one of my favorite videos by far right now. I always loved weirdcore and its so nice to see someone making a video on it, and helping me understand it better!
Hello! (i made the 13:17 and 15:54), i love this, this is the first video that has more explanation about weirdcore (to me), and i highly recommend this to watch if you don't know about weirdcore. I like the idea where you entertain the viewers by reading captions on the edits. Love it!
Oh wow thank you for making those images! Weirdcore is a very cool aesthetic that doesn't have anyone doing analysis of so I thought I would give it a try.
If you want a download of every weirdcore image i have and even more aesthetic images check out this twitter post, it has a link to the google drive: twitter.com/pongondonute/status/1583146487764033536?s=20&t=_nVTkKjPdiHKmtlw-ysh7g ALSO: One of the images in this video I made myself you can now get as a sticker or poster on redbubble!! www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/104130146 Or if you want it as a shirt: www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/28405256-you-have-to-choose-weirdcore
Wow, I just want to say, that ending was epic. It really resonates with the purpose of my subconcious. For a while, I've been wanting to write a book. One where the character, me, gets trapped in a dream with infinite realities of white noise, liminal spaces and infinite different lives. It all starts with the character forgetting everything that happened, his past life being erased. Each time, heding to a different reality uncovers different trauma or desires. The person re-lives their own life again. The person has a different fun life. The person gets lost in the backrooms. Once the person wakes up, they think everything is fine. Except... things feel off. Objects go missing at weird times. You walk slightly fast than usual. People's vocabulary changes. Cars and roads don't feel right. Until, you fall into this subconscious-guided trip telling the main character all about their own mind, and all the memories they've repressed, including that ominous "black square". Eventually, the character comes to term with his subconscious, and all of their memories are restored. Until, they exit in the wrong path and repeat the loop forever. You gave me better ideas!
I live for this aesthetic. No, I’m not gonna write an entire paragraph explaining why I love weirdcore so much because no words can express how fucking amazing weirdcore is
One time, I watched so many weirdcore videos in one day, that when it became night, I got so many nightmares based of it and I had to drink so much water just to calm me down.
Weirdcord is such a cool aesthethic, it makes me feel warm and at peace yet some of the images wake up that primal feel of the unknown. This style is something else and it will always remind me of my innocent childhood days when there was nothing to really worry about. Great video!
Ok, can we just appreciate the fact of how strangely accurate this dude got the background music AND tone of voice to fit *each* weirdcore picture he was presenting on screen?!
I'm glad this was documented when it was still seen as strange images of dream like places now all that shows up when you search "Weirdcore" is humanoid eyeballs wearing kawaii dresses and sentient mushrooms
Like how the backrooms and liminal space is all monster-mash edgelore SCP-bootleg bullshit now. It's upsetting that everything has to go edgy once it gets slightly popular.
That's what I'm sayinggggg Like the floating eyeballs stuff with kawaii dresses is fine ig, but I personally prefer the weird looking poorly edited images with the nonsensical text on it (like it's actually a weird image yk)
Nostalgic dread. All the images are so nostalgic and the captions feel like they're mocking you for no longer living in that world. It's a super depressing aesthetic
although he did mention in the 90s there were the aesthetics, it dates back even further, i have a feeling that surrealism is the original weirdcore, but it wasn't on computers, it was on canvases or paintings, take for instance Salvador Dali's "the persistence of memories" painting, and an even more strange one Rene Magritte's "Time Transfixed" painting. also the unrelated captions they add could be inspired by the unrelated titles of the surreal paintings, if you look both two of the paintings up you'll know what i mean. also i really liked how you embraced the aesthetic by making your transitions have that early internet effect things, just look at the intro- 0:50
I feel like the point of weirdcore is to remove the expected, while maintaining familiarity. Making you feel at home, while you reach a new experience and break the repetitious cycle of life
Yume Nikki could be considered weirdcore. The game is very special to me, along with the music, which is commonly used with the aesthetic. (Like this video, haha) I want people to know where the songs actually come from because the Yume Nikki fandom, as well as the game itself, is pretty obscure.
Note : from the book of psychology i have finished a year ago A person in your dream isn’t your subconscious’a creation, its all a person who you have seen irl , even if you just walked pass them run passed them , meet them in a shop you have only go once in a place you may don’t even remember This also applies with the places and the story your dream has imagined Edit : this shit can be wrong, go find some articles yourself if you want truth, stop trying to debate me in the reply section Edit 2 : i am not your therapy, please do not ask me about “why does someone look like this” or something like that
7:04 ive actually had a dream about this. no joke. I was inside the walls/gate. Everything was abnormally bright and colorful, there were flowers, and a small but nice house. There was a farm and the pool with clear sky-water, so i could've stayed inside the fences forever. But I felt trapped and wanted escape. I couldn't really see what was on the other side until I got out. Someone or something agreed to let me out, under the condition that I never went back.I was let out, and now I could see what I was missing out on. Outside was a stream, no grass, grey clouds, and dead trees. everything seemed lifeless and abandoned. Like I had left a bunker or safe haven, and discovered that everyone was gone. Other than two people. My mom, and my cat. Once we got past the dead forest we came across a town of sorts. A single street, with buildings. We went into a grocery store to find food and took whatever we could carry. After, we found a car in the parking lot. It had gas, so we used it to hold the food and travel to new places, in search for other people, or any sign of life. I don't remember the rest, sadly.
@deadlyninja112 I'm isolated and confined to a safe but boring life and the only thing keeping me back is the fear that trying to change things will result in an outcome worse than where I am now- That's old news for me at this point though
The nostoliga part of weirdcore is the most interesting for me, I actually remember there was a video of images from your childhood, but something seems off
people shit on weirdcore a lot, but it's such a beautiful aesthetic that really needs to be explored! especialy now in a time of pure pain, all we want anymore is to go back to a simpler time, and weirdcore was a reflection of it all. sometimes even a reminder that even in the safety of the blured childhood visuals, there may have still been pain, further comforting the pain we feel today.
I didn't know people shit on it, but me personally i just don't agree with the name. like, it's just a modern form of surrealism? like using audio, images, and videos in a new way, but it's still just surrealism, really.
This is really well done. The editing is superb, and the explanations and research clearly is in-depth and understandable. You did a fantastic job, and frankly, I'm impressed. Great video!
I love weirdcore, it is interesting and can be comforting for me. I like the style and the horror or calm aspect of how some of them can be. There so many types and i love it, also music is very good tooz! I love it. Anyways thanks for this really good video about this subject!! :D
Literally while watching this my grandma dropped off donuts and the one I ate had an almost nostalgic flavor to the frosting and valentine's day toppings Definitely was a weirdcore moment
I remember you suggesting to make a video of this on Twitter; I’ve never been so excited to watch video about photos and polygon un donute over here has never failed to severely impress me! I hope you make more content like this!
I love weirdcore! I always see people just poke fun at it for being "cringy" which it definitely can be, but its much more than that! I love it so much.
i've been trying to get over my ptsd, and i've found that weirdcore is the most terrifying thing i've ever seen. i experienced trauma as a child, and the nostalgic panic i feel when i see weirdcore is so horrible. i've been trying to convince myself that it's not real, but it's like you said, my memories are distorted. all of my childhood memories feel like a fever dream
I think it's because weirdcore kind of hits that feeling of being a traumatized child, where even the mundanity of ordinary life can be scary and confusing because scary and confusing is all you know.
I feel like... weirdcore in a way overlaps with traumacore and dreamcore a lot but still manages to be... it's own distinguishable genre and aesthetic Thank you so much for this! the editing work this must have taken is impressive! you did amazing!💖
In my opinion weirdcore should be its own thing. Traumacore and dreamcore are different aesthetics, they all just use a similar visual style. Ill be explaining this kinda stuff in later videos to make it more clear tho!
This is an amazing, non specific, humorous and easy to understand way to learn about weirdcore! Often people set certain rules for this aeshtitic but this shows the basic format, thank you!
This is a perfect analysis of the aesthetic! And it perfectly sums up everything I love about weirdcore. This may be my favourite "weirdcore explained" video I've seen so far
i feel like this kind of aesthetic feels like memories of the 90s but not all details are there and sometimes mixes with the look of early video games or the internet.
The Yume Nikki soundtrack is perfect for weirdcore. It's unusual, bizarre but familiar, with sounds reassembling real instruments and music. But unnatural. It blends perfectly with the familiarity of the images and the uneasiness they give. And the game is about dreams too, and sometimes, bad memories.
Honestly a game about weirdcore/dereality where you slowly but surely regain the memories of the horrible things you so desperatly tried to block out would be so cool
I feel like the pictures of the voids makes me feel moist (?) like it’s summer and you have a very weak fan trying to cool you down, but you’re still sweating and your skin feels sticky and you can’t breathe properly.
I hope this makes sense and someone can relate to me~ but I have agoraphobia and get really anxiety that leads to bad panic attacks while I’m in transportation or in a place. After knowing that brief background, I would like to say how this relates to how my anxiety perceives places. There’s been many times where I look up at a tall building and get scared, or a normal regular place (like in those house pictures) start to freak me out. It feels like when my anxiety is high, it feels like a confusing, disorienting perception of the normal things around me. It makes me feel like weirdcore shows my jumbled thoughts while looking outside. When I see these images, they remind me of how I see things in anxiety. It’s dread, sudden doom, feeling like there’s no escape. But for weirdcore, It almost comforts me because it makes me feel like I’m not alone in my thoughts.
i've known about this aesthetic for a while now and have shown it some interest but i am currently trying to get more into it. i was having some difficulty understanding what components made up weirdcore but your video was super helpful! i love how you broke it down and used a wide variety of images to show the diversity within the aesthetic :)
I always like weirdcore, it’s the nostalgic feeling. Like the houses remind me staying over my grandparents place or the really old furniture I had as a kid before we got new furniture. Also the filters they put over the pictures to make it sunny and a bit blurry reminds me of old 80’s or 90’s films for some reason. I can’t be the only one… there just the vibes. I love how you managed to explain this aesthetic and the little artistic tropes in this aesthetic! :D
So- I don’t comment on videos a lot, but man I just gotta say I LOVE this video! You perfectly captured the different feelings and “auras” that Weirdcore images have. I can tell how much effort went into this video, and it’s just so amazing and stunning. I felt so pleasant watching this. I would love to see more videos like this!
This is a big Pog moment! I loved this video and the weirdcore aesthetic is really cool, I might actually get into this more now that I know what it is! This is in my top 10 fav videos by you, and that’s really saying some, cuz I love all your videos, so great job!
I think earthbound is at least semi-weirdcore/dreamcore, as some places in game fit those aesthetics(such as magicant and moonside(which also kind of reminds me of vaporwave)), and the ost is used in quite a few weirdcore/dreamcore/liminal space videos (such as these ones). The game also has many things that are strange(which sometimes fit weirdcore)
Iirc the creator/s of Earthbound were influenced by Monty Python. I need to play that game again as it had some rare mechanics ....you automatically beat opponents that are a bit lower level than you, 1st person battle view...it's very anti grind...your character isn't the most powerful...
Weird core is like when you’re in a playground in the middle of the night, you know nothing bad is going to happen but that ominous darkness around the happy neon colours of the play area contrast so much that everything starts to become a big coma like dream..
Or like your playing in a kindergarten in the holidays and noone is there or like your at a abandoned indoor playground (Jumparama)
liminal space
Unicorns
And its cold and ur tired
this is the best example of weirdcore that i’ve seen yet because i’ve actually wxperienced being in a playground late at night and its so horrifying but i knew my parents were just a little bit away so it was just this odd feeling
I'd define weirdcore as "comforting anxiety"
So is weirdcore just the embodiment of oxymorons
thats the best way to describe it ive seen yet
Lol
Best definition
A; 400 and 20th like I have given thee. B; I LOVE THÉ ENA PROFILE PICTURE!
I love this aesthetic. It makes me think of the back rooms, but a way happier and more meaningful version.
There are some levels of the Backrooms that are weird core
@@xanderhug like a lot of them too
Backrooms are weirdcore arent they
@@xanderhug and there's also some pretty horrifying weirdcore monsters there, like the partygoers.
Weirdcore seems pretty sad to me.
@@cloveraev I don't agree
Weirdcore is deeply emotional and relatable, if you suffer from dissociation, clinging to the past, complex trauma, or had a childhood that was taken from you. I can't even describe how hard it hits.
this. I couldn’t put it into word but you just did, thank you!
yeah same
Of course it'll hit hard for you because mentally ill people like mentally ill shit
Perfectly said
Yes
I still can't get over how he reads the captions, especially those little emoticons
Thank you im gonna make a video of just reading the captions soon
@@PolygonDonut I was seriously going to ask you to do that.
looked away for one second and the corner of my eye saw capricorns
@@PolygonDonut yessss please do
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Never went deeper into this aesthetic because I thought it was like, edgy liminal spaces or something
Couldn't be more wrong, the explanation is way better than any wiki article, and the editing was just on point
This strange nostalgia for early computer graphics, mixed with fake realities is fascinating
Indeed. Welcome to the world of weirdcore my friend :)
yea, and its strange because you feel nostalgic for something you've never seen before
trust me im not even generalizing when i say most of the weirdcore aesthetic fans are edgy 13 years old kids who probably post youtube videos about their flipaclip ocs, i've it with my own eyes everywhere on the internet, but the aesthetic itself is kinda cool, liminal spaces, backrooms and weirdcore stuff don't give me any nostalgia or makes me feel comfy/uncomfy, it just drags me, it catches my attention for some reason and makes me just keep staring at it
Or as an stolen yt comment once said "makes me feel a feeling that doesn't exist"
No!
i mean part of it kinda is edgy liminal spaces but not in a bad way, and even if thats not your thing theres so much more to it
I tend to become terrified by most weirdcore images, they make me feel like someday I could be trapped in them with no escape, sort of like how images of the backrooms make me feel.
yeah pretty much all of them make me uncomfortable af, they like take all the uncanny elements and feelings from my dreams and just put them in one image that conveys exactly the same feeling I have while dreaming 99% of the time
like when u wanna enjoy the dream since you can for example jump like a spiderman or fly etc but there is always some sort of uncanny shit either chasing you or you just have that weird feeling something is wrong and it fucking turns into a nightmare as something jumps you and you wake up or room fills with water and you start suffocationg and wake up or really anything
I love how they make me feel that way! Weirdcore is only comforting to me, I would give my whole life away just to live in the world that Weirdcore portrays.
So an empty hell
liminal space
Exactly how I feel.
13:00 this image is so nostalgic, yet also discomforting. its nostalgic because of the old computer, and its like those memes that are like "my mom told me to play outside", but yet discomforting because it is so unnatural to have a computer outside, almost like somebody ditched it. i love this image, it is one of my favorites ever.
It would be even more interesting if in your dream you actually unlocked the computer and found a bunch of files on it
We need Polygon reading off the captions of weirdcore images to be a series
I was thinking of making a follow up where i just read off the images with no talking in between similar to nutshell videos
@@PolygonDonut DO IT YOU YOY
DO IT
@@PolygonDonut I NEED IT please? :)
He did it boys
6:20 I found a very different meaning of this image. It reminds me of the phrase “We are stardust.” In the early universe, stars created new elements, like carbon, that we today are made of. So, in a sense, this is a very old picture of you.
Yeah thats what i was alluding to
@Gnoškolk Galunga what did you say about my hair?
omg
@@exister._.5086 wrong way! Try again! :)
@@w花b Bout to get crazy:The world:Over heaven:Lovetrain:Act4: requiem on you
Hi! I'm the creator of the pictures in 0:24, 5:04, 8:43, 10:20, 11:46 (this was a collab) and 13:41 and a member of the weirdcord discord and weirdcore subreddit and i have to say that this video is REALLY well made! I also love your explaination of weirdcore in this video! I'm amazed!
Thank you for making all those images!!! And thanks for watching :)
@@PolygonDonut No problem!!
10:20 HE PLANNIN SOMTHIN BAD IN THE SNOW
the cat one made me really happy thank you
C e t
Weirdcore is the line between an aesthetic and a meme
I think there is like two sides to it, the more memey side and the more aesthetic side, or it's a mixture of both, just do whatever you want with it as long as you're having fun.
r/wierdcorecirclejerk vs r/weirdcore
i actually took a picture of a beautiful location, added a black sphere, then put the text "congratulations!" then edited it so it looked more saturated and lower quality. it was fun to make a weirdcore image, and not too difficult
Show sir
*show us please*
Nice! Would like to see
Show us plz
plz
I’m a weirdcore artist and maker, and thank you so much for this. it’s amazing how you explain this so well!
Thank you for watching :)
@@PolygonDonut ay, where do you get these weird little gifs that appear on the corner of the screen sometimes?
How do you make weirdcore images in the first place, like I'd imagine photoshop but this stuff is just really confusing lmao.
@@TheGlitchyFox i use procreate and stuff! It’s really cool.
@@chipkid I think I've heard of that one, though I'm used to Krita.
Polygon's editing is really something else
thank youi :)
■
@@PolygonDonut R U Still There?
@Joe
Rust...
@@Jray608 SPEED PROGRAMING LANGUAGE
Surprisingly he didn’t talk about this but a common phrase in dreamcore/weirdcore is “WAKE UP”
oh hey i found a comment from my old account
Well, its common because dream
Or its a dream with some godly entity that doesn't want you in their dream🥶
they always say wake up but never hows up
15:49 until 16:33 I know this isn't the topic, but the way he talks here is a highly accurate description of ptsd and how traumatic memories can be so distorted or repressed. I have ptsd myself and weirdcore is simultaneously one of the most comforting yet anxiety inducing aesthetics and it helps me feel better+I love the aesthetic so much
Traumacore is another Internet aesthetic sort of based on traumatic memories, ptsd, etc.
Some weirdcore and traumacore images overlap, this happens sometimes with weirdcore and dreamcore too (and even other aesthetics like poolcore)
@@orionskittles it's quite important to know that it's not an aesthetic, like other "cores". It's mostly a coping mechanism. (It usually uses more text than usual weirdcore images and often times liminal spaces, dark or dirty, with cutesy characters such as those of Sanrio often featured crying or vomiting, just incase anyone doesnt know what it looks like) It's more like a surreal vent art piece in my opinion
@@doodlebuggle ah, thanks for clarifying, I'm not exactly the most informed on internet aesthetics, but yes, traumacore is supposed to be a coping mechanism, I should have mentioned that and I'm surprised I didn't
@@doodlebuggle yes back before it was called weirdcore or had a name and was just a block of all the "cores" on tumblr I had a pretty good sized blog some of the now popular ones are my oc. But I would spend hours editing pictures of my backyard at night taken with flash or my cat sleeping in cardboard and reblogging them, at the time the fact it didn't have a name or category made it more comforting bc it was just my own context from my mind and I could just imagine my own meaning. For me I have cptsd so it's never one dark main event but little feelings and memories and even current fleeting feelings and how my anxieties messes with them or what I long for. It's hard to explain
that part of weirdcore reminds me of Omori which is a game all about repressed memories
WeirdCore in my definition:
Anxiety, nostalgia, and the feeling of being alone at the image you are looking at. Sometimes there are heavenly and nostalgic images, the nostalgic feeling may give you the feeling you’re in a dream and give you a sense of comfort depending on how you are connected with the objects and settings in that photo.
Eyes and Shadow people are a very commonly used thing in WeirdCore. Eyes and Shadow People staring directly at you or in random places will give you anxiety and your brain will respond to it as if trying to say “Stop looking”, “This is dangerous”, or “Get out” at the image.
Text in WeirdCore images are mostly in TraumaCore (a different aesthetic) and are meant to give you a feeling depending on the wording wether it be distrust, comfort, or fear. Sometimes people think the text is their own subconscious ness referring back to trauma (where the TraumaCore thing comes from) or just something out of the ordinary, sometimes wether it be good and comforting things to calm them down, a sentence that doesn’t make sense with the image displayed, a sense of anger at yourself, or the feeling of fear.
Blurred out and/or black spludges and portals are meant to give you a feeling of wonder like your brain needs to complete the image for you to remember that memory fully... if it even is a memory, you’ll never know.
An alarm going off in your brain telling you you’ve been here before but you can’t tell why you know as if you’re playing mind games on yourself.
That’s WeirdCore.
Edit: thank you for all the likes 😭
*spaces out trying to comprehend the information i have just been given*
@@omegadragons321 *damn was it that bad*
My Man just wrote a book on weirdcore , claps for him 👏👏
@@biplabid 😀😀thank u thank u
🍵🍵🍵🍵*sips* good explanation. I feel like for everyone their way of explaining weird core may be different because some may have different beliefs, emotions, and experiences when seeing of the images of this core. For me I feel very disturbed while intrigued at the same time w this strange core it makes me go deep thinking mode about life itself. But I'm kinda scared now reading about this core at night... I can't even look at the bathroom mirror without being triggered but yet I am yearning to know more of the unknown . y
No aesthetic has resonated with or comforted me more than weirdcore, and I’m so glad you made such a lovely video covering it! Amazing job!
Reminds me of vaperwave malls
Weirdcore used to be 2000s internet nostalgia with the glitter and style now its just eyes in an eerie environment with people with eyes for heads
Yeah it sucks
Looking at the history of art this aesthetic reminds me a lot of surrealism. Therefore I consider weirdcore a digital rennaissance of surrealism due to the attempt of showing how dreams might feel in an uncanny way..
Btw, the editing and choice of music (especially the Earthbound OSTs) are amazing!
Overall this video not just felt like an explanation of this aesthetic but also kinda like walking through a gallery. :)
Surrealism has always been kicking around the internet in some way. This seems to be the most current variation, but it's also been seen in the Meme Man surreal memes, some creepypastas, and even certain video games like that LSD Dream Simulator he talked about in the beginning.
I'd say weirdcore is a modernized, digital version of surrealism :D
The phrase that came to me while watching this was “Suburban vaporwave Magritte”.
@@Syq4ij then I think that things like Weirdcore/Traumacore/Dreamcore etc. should be collectively referred as "Neosurrealism"
theres this condition i have; derealization/depersonalization. it basically makes me feel like im detached from reality, from myself, from my surroundings, etc. weirdcore, in a way, its like how i visualize the world while dissociating. so seeing visuals of how it feels sometimes, thoughts and all; is somewhat comforting :’)
Same here! It's such a strange thing bc weirdcore unsettles me to no end but it's still pretty comforting in some strange sense
exactly it makes me feel understood and comforted in a way, kind of weird. i had DPDR for 6 years
I have disassociation/derealty/paranoia issues due to childhood trauma and weirdcore/traumacore really resonates with me, enough to make and post my own images online.
THIS
I'm not diagnosed but I get this same feeling of being disconnected from reality often when I look at art and imagine myself there, and I love weirdcore/dreamcore. It just comforts me a lot
I've listed most of the songs with timestamps on the other video and I'm going to try doing the same thing here.
0:00 happy town lovely B from lsd dream emulator
0:33 the cyber grind (ultrakill)
1:01 realistic cave (yume 2kki)
2:04 bright moon cottage ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
2:28 schoolday bgm yandere mix (yandere simulator)
2:42 wok (bomberman hero)
3:02 sup01 (soup0.9)
3:06 toriningen party (Yume Nikki)
3:08 pool/splash sounds
3:10 hourglass desert (Yume 2kki)
3:14 tar04 (soup0.9)
3:16 title screen (yume nikki)
3:18 ponico's room (nikki)
3:20 overgrown city deeper section (2kki)
3:22 moonlight tower ambient b (lsd dream emulator)
3:24 graveyard world (2kki)
3:26 Ocean floor Hand pathway (2kki)
3:28 save screen music (silent Hill 3)
3:30 happy town lovely B (lsd dream em)
4:01 happy town cartoon b
4:04 radio (portal)
4:05 route to the corrupted school (.flow)
4:07 forest maze (mario rpg)
4:10 boggly Woods (paper mario thousand year door)
4:12 kat01 (soup0.9)
4:14 tar04 (soup0.9)
4:16 mural world (Yume)
4:17 dressing room (2kki)
4:19 suguar star planetarium (omori)
4:21 petscop (petscop)
4:23 stall music disk (minecraft)
4:25 giygas intro (earthbound)
4:36 cloud tops world (2kki)
4:37 garden world (2kki)
4:39 sheild folk world (Yume)
4:41 pipes and phone poles (.flow)
4:43 tar 03 (soup0.9)
4:48 file select (Kirby 64 crystal shards)
4:52 blood world (2kki)
4:54 Mars (Yume)
4:56 block world (Yume)
5:00 ghost world (Yume)
5:02 happy town lovelyB (lsd dream)
5:03 chauncey's room (luigi's mansion)
5:05 moonside swing (earthbound)
5:17 bgm 26 (.flow)
5:19 dark world (Yume)
5:21 dream scene mountans (2kki) probably.
5:24 tar01 (soup 0.9)
5:26 sky garden (Yume)
5:28 moonlight tower ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
5:35
5:38 power plant (2kki)
5:41 rua02 (soup0.9)
5:44 rpg2000 bgm (space funeral)
5:48 subject name here (portal)
5:54 snow world (Yume)
6:14 piano (hylics)
6:35
6:47 tar04 (soup0.9)
6:51 happy town ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
6:54 underwater (2kki)
6:56 rainbow Hill II (.flow)
6:59 don07 (soup0.9)
7:01 don04 (soup0.9)
7:04 neon world (Yume)
7:06 T28 balcony (cave story wii (eu))
7:09 moonside swing (earthbound)
7:11 battle against a machine (earthbound)
7:35 dark forest (2kki)
7:44 tar01 (soup0.9)
7:47 pink sea (Yume)
7:50 stairway to the sky (Yume)
7:53 Mars (Yume)
8:10 sanctuary guardian (earthbound)
8:27 chirp (minecraft)
8:29 sanctuary guardian (earthbound)
8:32 save theme (Yume)
8:34 don03 (soup0.9)
8:36 don11 (soup0.9)
8:37 hourglass dessert (2kki)
8:40 don10 (soup0.9)
8:42 rpg2000 bgm (space funeral)
8:56 hagstrom (minecraft)
8:59 mall rooftop (Yume)
9:02 toriningen beat (Yume)
9:04 tar09 (soup0.9)
9:07 Kyoto ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
9:09 tar03 (soup0.9)
9:16 title screen (Yume)
9:19 gift plane (petscop)
9:21 power plant (2kki)
9:29 boggly Woods (paper mario thousand year door)
9:40 don04 (soup0.9)
9:43 tar02 (soup0.9)
9:45 hypno kk aircheck (animal crossing new leaf)
9:48 pink cloud shrine (earthbound)
9:51 mall rooftop (Yume)
9:56 Happy town lovelyB (lsd dream emulator)
9:59 baby park (mario kart double dash)
10:01 cloud tops (day) (2kki)
10:03 snow world (Yume)
10:17 toriningen party (Yume)
10:19 snowdin town (undertale)
10:21 tar03 (soup0.9)
10:24 title screen (Yume)
10:26 underwater (2kki)
10:28 dark forest (2kki)
10:30 tar04 (soup0.9)
10:32 delphino square (mario kart)
10:35 garden world (2kki)
10:38 cosmic world (2kki)
11:04 heaven (.flow)
11:07 happy town ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
11:09 boggly Woods (paper mario thousand year door)
11:11 flesh paths world (2kki)
11:13 Atlantis world rooms (lcddem)
11:16 yellow highway (2kki)
11:18 puddle world (Yume)
11:20 moonside swing (earthbound)
11:32 great fairies fountain (zelda ocarina of time)
11:55 save theme (Yume)
12:15 battle against a machine (earthbound)
12:26 pink sea (Yume)
12:29 karacters (eastern minds)
12:31 bright moon cottage ambient a (lsd dream emulator)
12:33 hourglass desert (2kki)
12:35 tar04 (soup0.9)
12:38 moonlight tower ambient b (lsd dream em)
12:40 tar09 (soup 0.9)
12:42 rua02 (soup0.9)
12:44 Hand hub (2kki)
12:47 back to the present title (cruelty squad)
12:49 the ceiling (2kki)
12:52 last chaotic ambience (katamari forever)
12:54 kat01 (soup0.9)
12:56 Ocean floor Hand pathway (2kki)
12:59 barracks setlment (Yume)
13:30 dual love form (discover our bodies)
13:46 power plant (2kki)
13:49 mural world (Yume)
13:51 graveyard world (2kki)
13:53 kraken of the sea (earthbound)
13:55 ghost world (Yume nikki)
13:57 tar01 (soup0.9)
13:59 don06 (soup 0.9)
14:03
14:09 stairs to sky garden (Yume)
14:12 graffiti world (Yume)
14:14 rua02 (soup0.9)
14:17 dark world (Yume)
14:30 not safe (OFF)
15:45
16:36 ending/opening (2kki)
the stuff in parenthesis is the game, while the stuff out is the song name. Also please corect me if I get something wrong, and let me know if you know a song I left blank. Some common games are abbreviated, for example yume nikki is yume, while yume 2kki is just 2kki.
@@iexist1300 Thank you so much!
YOUR LITERALLY A HERO THANK YOU FOR THIS
(I’ve spent hours trying to find all the songs)
Thank you
😊😀😁😅😅😀😁😁😅😅😁😀😁😁
i feel like a weirdo for saying this, but besides the last one, weirdcore has always been so comforting. its the exact feeling i love feeling while sleeping replicated in real life, and presents that same level of comfort, warmth, and familiarity i cant place. i wish i could chill in some of these pics cause the aura and atmosphere just looks amazing
I'm like that, too. Like a steady calm or something
real
It makes me feel like my identity has been stripped away and i’m just me
in a body
exploring the dream world
I love weirdcore for how they evoke feelings that doesn't exist
mandela effect
I mostly feel Humber with weirdcore, I don't know why tho
weirdcore makes me feel loric ngl
well they do exist f it something youre feeling, but there just isnt a word you know for it
I think some of those images evoke the feeling of despersonalization and disassociation, as a person who has experienced trauma at a young age, a lot of weirdcore feels familiar and nostalgic in such a weird and terrifying way. But it's not all weirdcore that evoke this feeling in me.
really liked the music accompaniment, really captured the weirdness
hi sawtooth
oh yo! heya sawtooth!
Yeah I'd actually love to watch another video talking about the weirdcore MUSIC, as well!
Oh hey sawtooth!
Why are you here?
Weirdcore things feel like the dreams you have when you’re trying to sleep without a blanket
Omg i would never
I've slept in a cold room without a blanket and instead of this I just wake up begging for a blanket
@@PolygonDonut he would never
Im the opposite, its those dreams I have when I have too warm of a blanket
Or the real question is "are we living in a simulation? Are these feelings even real?"
Weirdcore is a mix of emotions, anxious, hopeful, confusing, alluring. I like to use the weird liminal space background and go walk around and go on a nice walk to clear my mind. It can help me concentrate or leave me terrified at the same time. A great aesthetic fr and your explanation was awesome
Weirdcore is the perfect explanation of how I feel inside, empty, yet full, strange and sinister, but friendly? This video is amazing and a huge relief to all the misrepresentation of weirdcore
It’s a shame that the only thing people think of when they hear weirdcore is just weird images. I was watching a compilation and one the the images was literally just a sandwich with jewelry in place of the fillings
Thanks for being part of the understanding weirdcore gang
@@PolygonDonut hell yeah dude, thanks for making an awesome vid about it
i've heard of weirdcore before, but i didn't know much about it. however, this video has gotten me very interested in this aesthetic! i love dreamlike and surreal imagery, and this aesthetic is everything i've ever loved about it. thank you for making this video, maybe i'll try out making weirdcore stuff sometime
Glad you enjoyed!!! Weirdcore is a really neat aesthetic
I like weirdcore as both an aesthetic and a music style. I make weirdcore music myself and the main feeling I go for in my music is nostalgia and warmth, but I like adding unnerving and strange visuals. I feel like it's a very common but effective technique to make something "feel off"
“How many lives do we have left?”
“Did you hear that too?”
“Do you ever think about the things you’ve ruined?”
“ *AYO WHERE’D THE SUN GO-* “
LOL-
5:22 - 5:30
the read more button is peak comedy i swear
Absolutely love the music you used, everything from yume nikki to minecraft to undertale to runescape (i believe); and plenty i dont recognize, but from the ones I do recognize, are probably all clever picks from other existing media. Props to you for the variety.
Thank you, there are credits for everything i used in the description
@@PolygonDonut hey, can you provide them in order of appearance? It’d be a big help.
@@PolygonDonut Thank you for that as well. I'm so using some of it for my own work.
yes! earthbound and space funeral as well. so much yume nikki haha i love weirdcore. it’s surreal and as others said, comfortably anxiety inducing. it reminds me a lot of my vivid and semi lucid dreams i’ve had since childhood. maybe that’s partially what inspires these images? the proportions are off and nonsensical like a dream can be. also that above comment who referenced complex trauma, dissociation and clinging to the past, they’re definitely right about that.
Never in all my years of browsing the internet have I seen a video quite like this. Watching this was like taking a short trip to an alternate, totally alien reality. The outstanding quality of the presentation of this bizarre subject matter, makes this video a truly unique experience within RUclips's unfathomably vast sea of content.
In short, fantastic work.
Thank you so much for the feedback!!! I have more videos like this if you're interested :)
💬
This is one of the wildest RUclips videos I've ever seen, 10/10
plastic flowers
hmm
Weirdcore moment
😂😂😂
Yoooooo
I just discovered your channel, and I’m so used to these types of video essays having a calm, and slow narrator, that your instant energy and humor completely caught me off guard in the literal best way possible. Keep up the lords work my man.
MARK MY WORDS POLYNOMERS
Polygon will find a way to implement weirdcore into the lore of his channel
R U Still There?
his entire channel is already that lmao
@@thecreature916 *ok*
100%
@@anukepin893 R U Still There? :}
I notice that when he voids show up, they taint the image. if they weren't there, it would be another "pleasant" dreamcore image, but the voids corrupt it. that just makes the concept more disturbing
I personally feel like Weirdcore is 'comfort horror'. Strangely nostalgic, but theres always the strange feeling of paranoia. It feels like you're in a simulation, but it's glitched. You can see into reality, but it doesn't make sense to you. Some things are censored because the simulation doesn't want you you to leave.
this is such a good crash course, thanks. I love how you edited this video to include all the sounds and music too. it flows really well
I honestly feel as if Liminal Spaces are scarier than weirdcore, simply because i feel as if in weirdcore somebody, or something is there with you.
Oh that's the scary thing for me
I feel as if in weirdcore, its your subconscious communicating with you, which in a way makes it more terrifying.
Weirdcore looks like how children (at least when I was a kid) think. Broken up, naive, confusion being mistaken as sense, foggy and blear images. I have such a strange connection to them, like digging up an old memory that just barely makes sense. Or a note you left yourself with vague, but understandable instructions.
Yesss
Weirdcore nowadays is just mushrooms with eyes and many people have taken away the magic of it. Seeing the pictures in this video make me feel really happy cuz THAT is what weirdcore is supposed to be. Great job for showing the correct version lol!! (By correct I mean the more nostalgic and not random asf version, I think there is no correct or wrong way to portray weirdcore.)
I know. Its all bullshit now.
Omg true! Finally someone who thinks the same way!
Yesss! I dont really like the mushroom type as much as this nostalgic type, both are cool tho:3
The Mushroom and Eyes cliché just ruined the idea of dreamcore and weirdcore. It just deleted the magic old images had.
moshroom wifh eyez
I think the contrast gives the effect of somwhere in the middle of the Yin and Yang, giving comfort in the balance of things seemingly set right
As someone who's 21, childhood was very recent, yet I have already forgotten what it was like. Our generation has been raised under an immense amount of stress and, for people a little younger than me who are still kids right now, it's even worse. My first impression of weirdcore is that it's sort of a holistic expression of the normalization of the anxiety, stress and the unknowable future and variables placed on the people making it. It presents not a world that completly avoids the negative aspects of life, but also not one that exclusively indulges in it; it's sort of a manifestation of how unavoidable the fear is for modern youth, so much so that it's just a part of everyday life.
From an outside perspective, weirdcore can seem like a form of horror, but the real scary thing is that it isn't, really. The dark, anxiety inducing elements are an unremarkable, normal part of the world. In a broken and confusing modern world, the broken, confusing nonsensical concepts and areas in a weirdcore world can sort of represent not just the odd layout of dreams, but the unintentional, random and unforgiving nature of the real world, which many people assert is controllable or intentionally designed, creating sort of a cognitive dissonance resolved in a conceptual, visual way by accepting a broken reality as a normal landscape. It still unmistakably is breaking reality, though, so there's still always the subconscious idea that something isn't adding up, something isn't right. Reflecting the way people continue living their normal lives in the real world where things don't add up, either.
I feel like weirdcore explores the personal, individual outlook of what it's like to try to navigate such a world, one that is dangerous but at the same time very neutral and normal. Things can and will leave you scarred and traumatized but you just keep moving forward as if nothing is different because it's all that can be done. In a world where your own actions seem to have little affect, yet everything around you seems able to affect you so much, people just try to live normally and move on, with their own aspirations and whims, and niches and actions... As an individual everything hurts a lot and your own joy and euphoria means so much to you, but so many factors are out of your control, constantly invading your mind, and so you you try to block out the parts that are too hard to cope with and then just keep acting as you would, even under the immense amount of stress. Ita hard to express but it's like... transforming beyond the seperation of trauma and comfort, of stress and of relief, into a fairly fused mindset of both at the same time, constantly. I feel like that's the state a lot of kids live in these days, and I feel like weirdcore is one of those things that expresses and manifests that experience. It's almost like expressionist art, using familiar iconography, imagery, and visual ideas to create a clear picture of a distinct experience and feelings.
I think I've confused myself though so I doubt that made sense lol, sorry. My younger sibling's convocation happened recently, and hearing the new grads speak in speeches about the last few years of their lives, with the pandemic, and floods and fires, really made me think about how much this kind of crazy world is just, the only world that some young people have ever known. The weight of that is heavy.
As someone who is 21, not reading this
@@fhinpus Same I just like the images wtf
I love this analysis
I'm a 8 year old I Rember a kid show when I was like 2-4 idk the shows name
@@fathimahazzahra2199 bruh you too young to be watching this stuff
I like the fact that he explained weird core using weird core
This was so cool to watch! Every image fits with every song you put, and the explanation of weirdcore was also super enjoyable. :D
Thank you :))
This is certainly one of my favorite videos by far right now. I always loved weirdcore and its so nice to see someone making a video on it, and helping me understand it better!
Hello! (i made the 13:17 and 15:54), i love this, this is the first video that has more explanation about weirdcore (to me), and i highly recommend this to watch if you don't know about weirdcore. I like the idea where you entertain the viewers by reading captions on the edits. Love it!
How to you make those?
Oh wow thank you for making those images! Weirdcore is a very cool aesthetic that doesn't have anyone doing analysis of so I thought I would give it a try.
@@PolygonDonut yes
Good job infact it was my favorite in the entire video it really feels like a unnerving dream
@@skellybird8697 Thanks!
If you want a download of every weirdcore image i have and even more aesthetic images check out this twitter post, it has a link to the google drive: twitter.com/pongondonute/status/1583146487764033536?s=20&t=_nVTkKjPdiHKmtlw-ysh7g
ALSO: One of the images in this video I made myself you can now get as a sticker or poster on redbubble!! www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/104130146
Or if you want it as a shirt: www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/28405256-you-have-to-choose-weirdcore
I was hoping that this would happen
Nein
Can i get the music sources too some of them sound fire
@@meilinrivera1 Music is in the descripiton!!!
Wow, I just want to say, that ending was epic. It really resonates with the purpose of my subconcious.
For a while, I've been wanting to write a book. One where the character, me, gets trapped in a dream with infinite realities of white noise, liminal spaces and infinite different lives. It all starts with the character forgetting everything that happened, his past life being erased. Each time, heding to a different reality uncovers different trauma or desires. The person re-lives their own life again. The person has a different fun life. The person gets lost in the backrooms. Once the person wakes up, they think everything is fine. Except... things feel off. Objects go missing at weird times. You walk slightly fast than usual. People's vocabulary changes. Cars and roads don't feel right. Until, you fall into this subconscious-guided trip telling the main character all about their own mind, and all the memories they've repressed, including that ominous "black square". Eventually, the character comes to term with his subconscious, and all of their memories are restored. Until, they exit in the wrong path and repeat the loop forever.
You gave me better ideas!
I live for this aesthetic. No, I’m not gonna write an entire paragraph explaining why I love weirdcore so much because no words can express how fucking amazing weirdcore is
facts
One time, I watched so many weirdcore videos in one day, that when it became night, I got so many nightmares based of it and I had to drink so much water just to calm me down.
This is the worst i hop it doesn’t happen to me or anybody
In my opinion I would like to experience that
Weirdcord is such a cool aesthethic, it makes me feel warm and at peace yet some of the images wake up that primal feel of the unknown. This style is something else and it will always remind me of my innocent childhood days when there was nothing to really worry about. Great video!
Ok, can we just appreciate the fact of how strangely accurate this dude got the background music AND tone of voice to fit *each* weirdcore picture he was presenting on screen?!
ikr!
hell yeah bro, this guy was made for this
No
It's like he's living wierdcore itself
I'm glad this was documented when it was still seen as strange images of dream like places
now all that shows up when you search "Weirdcore" is humanoid eyeballs wearing kawaii dresses and sentient mushrooms
Like how the backrooms and liminal space is all monster-mash edgelore SCP-bootleg bullshit now. It's upsetting that everything has to go edgy once it gets slightly popular.
So, basically what happened with the Backrooms and SCP foundation
Only on TikTok and RUclips, reddit and some other places are still good
@@jackpijjin4088 I KNOW!!1
That's what I'm sayinggggg
Like the floating eyeballs stuff with kawaii dresses is fine ig, but I personally prefer the weird looking poorly edited images with the nonsensical text on it (like it's actually a weird image yk)
Nostalgic dread. All the images are so nostalgic and the captions feel like they're mocking you for no longer living in that world. It's a super depressing aesthetic
although he did mention in the 90s there were the aesthetics, it dates back even further, i have a feeling that surrealism is the original weirdcore, but it wasn't on computers, it was on canvases or paintings, take for instance Salvador Dali's "the persistence of memories" painting, and an even more strange one Rene Magritte's "Time Transfixed" painting. also the unrelated captions they add could be inspired by the unrelated titles of the surreal paintings, if you look both two of the paintings up you'll know what i mean.
also i really liked how you embraced the aesthetic by making your transitions have that early internet effect things, just look at the intro- 0:50
Weirdcore is basically a modern internet-version of the surrealism movement yeah
Whats the music here btw
@@athegreat8009 yeah, but Idk what the song is.
@@PolygonDonutwhat about floppacores those things power floppas aka Caracals
I feel like the point of weirdcore is to remove the expected, while maintaining familiarity. Making you feel at home, while you reach a new experience and break the repetitious cycle of life
Yume Nikki could be considered weirdcore. The game is very special to me, along with the music, which is commonly used with the aesthetic. (Like this video, haha)
I want people to know where the songs actually come from because the Yume Nikki fandom, as well as the game itself, is pretty obscure.
That was my thought too, and I'm so excited when someone uses music from yume nikki or 2kki
kinda like omori
but omori is more traumacore and yume nikki is more dreamcore/weirdcore
@@Pandemonium.367 yeah, but in omori those are only present in certain parts, while in nikki and 2kki they're there the whole point of the game
0:56 THE ULTRAKILL CYBERGRIND HELL 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
oh hell yeah also what is this music called IT GOES HARD 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Ultrakill music mentioned 🔥🔥🔥
I shall REND, YOU, APART. and you will become inanimate, once, more
I believe it's The Cyber Grind@@purplevoidd
ULTRAKILL!!!
Note : from the book of psychology i have finished a year ago
A person in your dream isn’t your subconscious’a creation, its all a person who you have seen irl , even if you just walked pass them run passed them , meet them in a shop you have only go once in a place you may don’t even remember
This also applies with the places and the story your dream has imagined
Edit : this shit can be wrong, go find some articles yourself if you want truth, stop trying to debate me in the reply section
Edit 2 : i am not your therapy, please do not ask me about “why does someone look like this” or something like that
yoy
So some middle aged woman with a smoking problem was smothered to death at a gas station that’s secretly a cult actually exists?
@@peckneckanimations your subconscious redirected the story up to its fitting
Im pretty sure i've never went into jupiters red spot, became 164x smaller then flew into the mouth of an alien from mars
ok nerd
7:04 ive actually had a dream about this. no joke. I was inside the walls/gate. Everything was abnormally bright and colorful, there were flowers, and a small but nice house. There was a farm and the pool with clear sky-water, so i could've stayed inside the fences forever. But I felt trapped and wanted escape. I couldn't really see what was on the other side until I got out. Someone or something agreed to let me out, under the condition that I never went back.I was let out, and now I could see what I was missing out on. Outside was a stream, no grass, grey clouds, and dead trees. everything seemed lifeless and abandoned. Like I had left a bunker or safe haven, and discovered that everyone was gone. Other than two people. My mom, and my cat. Once we got past the dead forest we came across a town of sorts. A single street, with buildings. We went into a grocery store to find food and took whatever we could carry. After, we found a car in the parking lot. It had gas, so we used it to hold the food and travel to new places, in search for other people, or any sign of life. I don't remember the rest, sadly.
How does this have no comments!!!
What do you think that means symbolically
@deadlyninja112 I'm isolated and confined to a safe but boring life and the only thing keeping me back is the fear that trying to change things will result in an outcome worse than where I am now-
That's old news for me at this point though
@@scoopsropes6628 amen, amazing subconscious work fellow thinker.
@@deadlyninja112 it was your commenting that got me thinking
The nostoliga part of weirdcore is the most interesting for me, I actually remember there was a video of images from your childhood, but something seems off
youre voice is genuinely so perfect for reading these
people shit on weirdcore a lot, but it's such a beautiful aesthetic that really needs to be explored! especialy now in a time of pure pain, all we want anymore is to go back to a simpler time, and weirdcore was a reflection of it all. sometimes even a reminder that even in the safety of the blured childhood visuals, there may have still been pain, further comforting the pain we feel today.
I didn't know people shit on it, but me personally i just don't agree with the name. like, it's just a modern form of surrealism? like using audio, images, and videos in a new way, but it's still just surrealism, really.
This is really well done. The editing is superb, and the explanations and research clearly is in-depth and understandable. You did a fantastic job, and frankly, I'm impressed. Great video!
Thanks so much :)))
I love weirdcore, it is interesting and can be comforting for me.
I like the style and the horror or calm aspect of how some of them can be. There so many types and i love it, also music is very good tooz! I love it. Anyways thanks for this really good video about this subject!! :D
Thank you for watchinng:))
@@PolygonDonut and thank *you* for making thiz video! :D
I love the fact that polygon really lets his love for weirdcore show like in the fonts, the gifs, etc.
hi old me
Literally while watching this my grandma dropped off donuts and the one I ate had an almost nostalgic flavor to the frosting and valentine's day toppings
Definitely was a weirdcore moment
WEIRDCORE DONUT
Does it have eyes?
I remember you suggesting to make a video of this on Twitter; I’ve never been so excited to watch video about photos and polygon un donute over here has never failed to severely impress me! I hope you make more content like this!
I love weirdcore! I always see people just poke fun at it for being "cringy" which it definitely can be, but its much more than that! I love it so much.
What great video! Love the editing! Keep going bud.
i've been trying to get over my ptsd, and i've found that weirdcore is the most terrifying thing i've ever seen. i experienced trauma as a child, and the nostalgic panic i feel when i see weirdcore is so horrible. i've been trying to convince myself that it's not real, but it's like you said, my memories are distorted. all of my childhood memories feel like a fever dream
nostalgic panic is such a superb way to describe some of the feelings these images give.
I think it's because weirdcore kind of hits that feeling of being a traumatized child, where even the mundanity of ordinary life can be scary and confusing because scary and confusing is all you know.
I had a dream where the IKEA wouldn’t render unless you were near it.
POV: Minecraft Render Distancing.
POV: literally every 3d game😭
Did you find the exit?
Oh god
5 chunk render distance
I feel like... weirdcore in a way overlaps with traumacore and dreamcore a lot
but still manages to be... it's own distinguishable genre and aesthetic
Thank you so much for this! the editing work this must have taken is impressive!
you did amazing!💖
In my opinion weirdcore should be its own thing. Traumacore and dreamcore are different aesthetics, they all just use a similar visual style. Ill be explaining this kinda stuff in later videos to make it more clear tho!
@@PolygonDonut oh yeah definitely! can't wait for it! keep up the good work!💖
@FAT PLUSH its a coping mechanism
@@PolygonDonut what's the difference between wierdcore and dreamcore
@@0rangexchip43 ill have to take a whole video to explain so look forward to that sometime lol
TYSM for making this vid polygon! It gave my inspiration and now I’ve made my own weirdcore image! I’m rlly proud of it!
This is an amazing, non specific, humorous and easy to understand way to learn about weirdcore! Often people set certain rules for this aeshtitic but this shows the basic format, thank you!
This is a perfect analysis of the aesthetic! And it perfectly sums up everything I love about weirdcore. This may be my favourite "weirdcore explained" video I've seen so far
I love how you read these weirdcore images. You're so expressive with your voice in these. And your voice fits perfectly for some of them even
*having an existential crisis thinking about some of the captions* “ayo where’d the sun go”🤨
the weirdcore vids are how i found poly and now im a really big fan
Same
i feel like this kind of aesthetic feels like memories of the 90s but not all details are there and sometimes mixes with the look of early video games or the internet.
The Yume Nikki soundtrack is perfect for weirdcore. It's unusual, bizarre but familiar, with sounds reassembling real instruments and music. But unnatural. It blends perfectly with the familiarity of the images and the uneasiness they give. And the game is about dreams too, and sometimes, bad memories.
Honestly a game about weirdcore/dereality where you slowly but surely regain the memories of the horrible things you so desperatly tried to block out would be so cool
There's a game kinda about that. It's called BBirthday
I feel like the pictures of the voids makes me feel moist (?) like it’s summer and you have a very weak fan trying to cool you down, but you’re still sweating and your skin feels sticky and you can’t breathe properly.
Your soundtrack is fucking amazing. I loved the philosophical deep dive into the different aspects that make the weirdcore aesthetic.
15:00 OMG I MADE THIS ONE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR INCLUDING IT THIS VIDEO WAS AMAZING!!
Thank u for making cool image :)
@@PolygonDonut Yeah this video inspired me to get back into the weirdcore community after I stopped making images for a while so thank you!😊
@Mr Bist The eye was fine, it would be more of a Liminal Space otherwise.
weirdcore is the feeling you get when you look at a kind of image where it feels like if you were a cat your fur would be puffed up
omg!! i made 12:18, tysm for including it!! (especially in the deep dreaming area)
Thanks for making cool image :)
I hope this makes sense and someone can relate to me~ but I have agoraphobia and get really anxiety that leads to bad panic attacks while I’m in transportation or in a place.
After knowing that brief background, I would like to say how this relates to how my anxiety perceives places. There’s been many times where I look up at a tall building and get scared, or a normal regular place (like in those house pictures) start to freak me out. It feels like when my anxiety is high, it feels like a confusing, disorienting perception of the normal things around me. It makes me feel like weirdcore shows my jumbled thoughts while looking outside. When I see these images, they remind me of how I see things in anxiety. It’s dread, sudden doom, feeling like there’s no escape. But for weirdcore, It almost comforts me because it makes me feel like I’m not alone in my thoughts.
I LOVE the vibe of this video, ive rewatched it so many times
Same
Same
Same
some of these make me actually feel somewhat like panic
i've known about this aesthetic for a while now and have shown it some interest but i am currently trying to get more into it. i was having some difficulty understanding what components made up weirdcore but your video was super helpful! i love how you broke it down and used a wide variety of images to show the diversity within the aesthetic :)
YEEESS! I love weird core. It gives me so many different feelings. Sometimes it’s off putting, sometimes it’s comfort. I can’t explain.
I always like weirdcore, it’s the nostalgic feeling. Like the houses remind me staying over my grandparents place or the really old furniture I had as a kid before we got new furniture. Also the filters they put over the pictures to make it sunny and a bit blurry reminds me of old 80’s or 90’s films for some reason. I can’t be the only one… there just the vibes.
I love how you managed to explain this aesthetic and the little artistic tropes in this aesthetic! :D
It feels natural, despite how surreal it all is.
i dont like how weirdcore just transformed into object heads, mushrooms and eyes, this version of weirdcore is my favorite
Ik
So- I don’t comment on videos a lot, but man I just gotta say I LOVE this video! You perfectly captured the different feelings and “auras” that Weirdcore images have. I can tell how much effort went into this video, and it’s just so amazing and stunning. I felt so pleasant watching this. I would love to see more videos like this!
Thank you for watching!!! :)
This is a big Pog moment! I loved this video and the weirdcore aesthetic is really cool, I might actually get into this more now that I know what it is! This is in my top 10 fav videos by you, and that’s really saying some, cuz I love all your videos, so great job!
Thank you!!!
@@PolygonDonutbean
5:27
the way he says "ayo where'd the sun go" lifts my spirit
AYO WHERE IS IT AT THO?
@@PolygonDonut hi
@@PolygonDonutin your basement
@@PolygonDonutSOMEONE BRING IT BACK IM GONNA- 🧊 🧊🧊🧊
I think earthbound is at least semi-weirdcore/dreamcore, as some places in game fit those aesthetics(such as magicant and moonside(which also kind of reminds me of vaporwave)), and the ost is used in quite a few weirdcore/dreamcore/liminal space videos (such as these ones). The game also has many things that are strange(which sometimes fit weirdcore)
Iirc the creator/s of Earthbound were influenced by Monty Python. I need to play that game again as it had some rare mechanics ....you automatically beat opponents that are a bit lower level than you, 1st person battle view...it's very anti grind...your character isn't the most powerful...