‘Why am I crying over this?’: how corecore TikTok videos caught the mood of Gen Z
Jimmy Nguyen, an 18-year-old student, saw his first “corecore” video on TikTok in January. He can’t remember which one it was – there are so many of them now. But he says it was typical of this new trend of video: other TikTok videos, celebrity or podcaster interviews, TV show and film clips spliced together over some sad or ambient music. They’re depressing, full of existential dread and usually on the theme of disconnection and alienation. Nguyen initially thought, like other users, that these videos were a joke. They’re crudely edited and the name in itself is a sarcastic emerging from TikTok since 2020. But he was soon staying up late at night in his bedroom making corecore of his own.
