Follow For More: Screenshots of Soft Culture
An introduction to soft culture via soft grunge
WHAT IS SOFT GRUNGE/IS MY BLOG SOFT GRUNGE?
‘Soft grunge,’ ‘pale blog’ and ‘pastel goth’ are all labels that share aspects of blog-cultural behaviour. These labels infer something pseudo-subversively cute; a softening. In each of them, there is a distinct sense of the feminine, the vapid and the abject. It doesn’t always come off as infantilised or gendered… but on the whole it does. This is Soft Culture.
On the surface, Soft Culture is typical of all aesthetic movements centred around (but not limited to) Tumblr. To put it simply- shifting aesthetic material is collated and shared amongst an amorphous group of bloggers.
On closer inspection, however, Soft Culture is also a system of content re-classification. Assimilation into Soft Culture occurs through the reposting of existing content and declaring it Soft/Pale/Pastel, or through basic edits. These edits include crops, colour overlays, text or tags. More so than the content itself, Soft Culture is underpinned by its re-classifying system.
Soft Culture isn’t an apparent phenomenon for many (who may have found ways to circumvent this wide reaching aesthetic, dismissing its relevancy). If that’s you, this is gonna seem bizarre.
It is in the naming and shaming of this blog-cultural phenomenon that its significance arises. This, as opposed to the content itself or scale of its reach. It’s also important to acknowledge that soft grunge was merely proliferated and transformed on Tumblr. The actual aesthetic pool from which it had been drawn has long existed elsewhere, for some time and in various forms. Its also often been critically engaged with.
“Cuteness can be subversive when it is used by those who may not identity as girls or women, are not white, are not small in body size, visibly queer, or are not conventionally attractive. This isn’t to say that those who are most assaulted by unchallenging cuteness (attractive looking skinny white women or young lady adults) cannot be subversive; it is easier to see the subversiveness of cuteness when it is not on their bodies as their bodies are default for cuteness.” Prismpower
This passage by blogger Prismpower highlights the general lack of subversive power in the Tumblr-based Soft Culture, which was and is largely comprised of white normative bodies and beauties.
Soft culture tends to maintain a status quo, its not exactly a hotbed for ethical, reflective material to emerge from. It mostly comprises the act of recycling and versioning existing, popular models of content.
“The function of the Young-Girl is to transform the promise of liberty contained in the achievement of Western civilization into a surplus of alienation, a deepening of the consumer order, new servitudes, a political status quo.” Tiqqun
In an interview with Molly Soda, Jesse Darling describes Tiqqun’s contentious ‘Young-Girl’ as ‘an allegedly ageless and genderless figure, a “vision-machine” who functions as both the subject and the object of advertizing and brand strategy.’ The same could be loosely applied to the forces behind the Soft Culture phenomenon, or the phenomenon itself.
SCROLL FOR MORE SOFT GRUNGE PROFILING
The term ‘Soft Grunge’ is oddly both pejorative and self-affirming. It is also an oxymoron: Grunge is seen as subversive and abject. Softening it — making it more palatable, agreeable and subservient for consumption is gonna ruffle feathers…
Obviously, here, ‘Grunge’ refers to the aesthetic ephemera that represents the term in popular culture, through fashion, photography, movies etc… As opposed to referring to the music genre, specifically. Grunge was a counter-cultural movement of the early 90s, subsequently absorbed into the mainstream, and which is enjoying a resurgence in recent years. Soft Grunge seems to mockingly acknowledge the consumer-capitalist envelopment of Grunge and revel in it, mourn it, or misunderstand it entirely…
Soft Grunge has been popularized amongst online clothing stores. A typical example is this ASOS interpretation from 2012. It sits amongst many others that capitalize upon soft grunge explicitly.
Soft Grunge exists as a copy without an original, a simulacrum. Its prides cycles of repetition and mutation over authorship.
Soft Grunge is a ‘symptom of regeneration’ without (clear) destruction. I would argue that this soft feminine version of grunge grew out of an amorous psuedo-nostalgia- where individuals wanted to see themselves represented where they felt they weren’t ( in so many ways).
I drew the idea of regeneration from the words of Amalia Ulman. The artist makes comparisons between menstruation cycles and economic trends, in an interview on Dazed Digital:
“Economic collapses are far from being a sign of decline, but a symptom of regeneration part of a cyclical development –like a woman having her period.” Amalia Ulman 2013
Soft grunge has its own image economy- where social capital can be drawn from practicing it. The anxiety or ill-feeling prompted by cycles like economic collapse, menstruation or this ‘soft micro economy’ group them as somewhat abject and out of control but not unforeseeable.
RESISTANCE IS CUTE AND FUTILE: OBSERVING AND BEING ABSORBED BY SOFT CULTURE
i
Soft culture bloggers and soft content have existed (and in some number) from around late 2011. Soft culture practice can be the first port of call for novice bloggers who (perhaps struggling for identity) seek immediate immersion and inclusion into an established aesthetic stream. Of course, there are also those who simply found this kind of imagery appealing: who enjoy the vapid, abject and cute. Obviously, the desires of the novice blogger in the former and the aesthetic taste of the latter are not mutually exclusive.
ii
A popular post on a given social network is likely to get the original poster a lot of follows/reblogs, which act as micro stimulation for the original poster, and strengthens their position in the community. More bloggers will follow a user whose posts are consistent and acts as a reliable source of original content. The Tumblr feed/dashboard is the main point of activity and access, rather than the blog itself. The feed/dashboard is where OP’s content is most often seen and is likely to be amplified from. Users who strategically blog Soft Culture content, observe this cumulative prospect as an attractive one- they desire social capital.
iii
Being a consistent supplier of original content takes effort and time. Not all users create this content, the vast majority just repost or reblog it. While creating and circulating soft cultural matter, popular motifs are developed and refined, to the point of incessancy.
‘The Young-Girl has neither opinions nor positions of her own.
She takes shelter as soon as she can
in the shadow of the winners.’ Tiqqun
iv
The Soft Culture swarm’s reach is keenly felt in other aesthetic communities on Tumblr; communities who obliviously post content that falls under the absorbing gaze of the Soft Culture reclassifying system. Although, it’s nigh on impossible to pinpoint the aesthetic attributes of a constantly morphing community, what characterisation it has received has been at the hand of irritated/mocking observers from other aesthetic communities.
v
In order to efficiently reach out to those with similar interests (for followers/reblogs/micro stimulation), Soft Culture bloggers reblog or repost content; often with a hyperlinked caption reading ‘follow for more soft grunge/pale blog’ or similar.
vi
Such practices become so hegemonic/popular that they often illicit aggressive and declamatory responses from those outside of that community — all attempting to distance themselves.
The content makers/distributors are berated for their pandering to viral tendencies and disregarding authorship. Flagrant appropriation is no skin off the noses of Soft Culture practitioners.
vii
The manner in which they purport their softened brand of content resembles a kind of hive mind, a group that speak and blog as one. Lead by process rather than dogma, it is a swarm that moves with eerie synchronisticy.
There’s also something clearly spam-like (and therefore uncanny) about the Soft Culture conventions. The ‘pale and pretty’ blogs exist in such multiplicity, delivering eerily samey content, in such a cumulatively overbearing manner, they seem complicit in their lack if differentiation. They are like Twitter spam bots bios- which manage in their algorithmic efficiency to reflect the achingly cliched and forcibly-kooky bios of genuine users.
This uncharacteristically allied post from a blogger who has recognized the phenomenon suggests that Soft Culture rebrands itself to avoid being demonized. Not understanding, despite their well intentioned efforts, that just like the content itself, the name is an emergent phenomenon, and not something that will either be mandated by a leader or voted on.
AFTER SOFT
Soft Culture is hard for some to look at, and some insist it not be discussed, for its lack of subversive or progressive clout.
This phenomenon has made visible tensions and conformities that might persist in their abrasive softening. Or may dissipate, migrate and mutate.
And then where will those once choral declarations of ‘pretty and pale’ or ‘follow more fore soft grunge’ go? Networks, friendships, and no doubt feuds are playing out within these Soft Communities- will this agency ever go beyond aesthetic pooling, this sewing circle, this ‘my little personal-branding pony club’ etc?
Although its fascinating, the imperialist image dominance of Soft Culture shows worrying proliferation of hegemonic image-sharing and production of social capital that is unaware and unself-critical.
Does this celebration of young femininity and softness, the template of which already reigns supreme in mainstream trans-national culture, have any redeeming qualities?
Can what they have learnt be developed and transposed into different models of agency, for better or worse? I think so, how about you?
This piece of writing dates from early 2013, its a snapshot of Soft Culture, drawn largely from my perspective and speculation, with a little help from Thom Dinsdale. Header image features Cilia Wagen performing in an associated video project Follow for More Soft Grunge. Some of the pictures featured are viral images of myself, co-opted by Soft Culture, which was crucial in my writing about the subject, as I had an almost involuntary access point. I’ve come to consider my writing style in some ways as Soft writing, for its purposeful lack of academic convention, informal tone, cuteness, <3 etc.
