i'm going to say something insane. i think the overall pronounced fandom cultural slide away from complex plotty violent work and towards kidfic and coffee shops AUs and cozy domestic romcoms is a symptom of fascism.
okay actually this is a great phrase for it
Reblogging this for the term "neopastoralism", because I think that's fantastic.
Coffee shop AUs are, like... fine. They're not my thing, but they're hardly going to end the world. We don't need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I'm also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.
However, I do think it's interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.
The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista's wages; we don't see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers' aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.
The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.
To me, there's something very uncanny about it.
Prevsie I'm not gonna lie you might actually have a point with this. Give yourself some credit!
The premise of the post is flawed. Not only is it very difficult to prove such a statement, but what evidence there is suggests the OP is completely wrong.
Olderthannetfic and friends did some stat exploring and, yeah, no. If anything it looks like fics with graphic depictions of violence are taking up a higher proportion of fics than they used to.
There is a real trend towards fascist garbage in culture generally, but there isn't really any evidence for the claim made by op.
sorry to call you out but i think your tags are too important not to be seen as well
Saw this post and I had to go in the notes to see if anybody actually investigated.
what y'all are talking about in regards to pastoralism and coffee shop AUs is like. The broad concept of romanticizing things or of presenting an idealized version of them.
And like, yeah, fascists definitely romanticize some things, but when talking about fascism we gotta delve a little deeper than "this thing has a similar 'feeling' to this other thing, so therefore they must have similar underlying ideologies."
But more to the point, I don't know that there is a shift toward fluffy or escapist stories.
And without knowing the context of who wrote or who is reading that coffee shop AU, you can't say why they enjoy it or what they're getting out of it. Do you not think there might be a slight difference between a retail worker writing a fic where their own job or a very similar job is actually fun and rewarding and leads to love, and a lawyer or doctor writing that fic, and an independently wealthy person who has never actually worked a day in their life writing that fic? Do you think it might actually make a difference what any of those people is looking for in their preferred form of escapism?
In summary:
1. No actual evidence of an increase in this type of fic or of a change in its level of popularity.
2. No information about who are the primary audience or producers for this type of fic, or what they themselves think about it.
3. Sweeping conclusions based on vibes and "this thing reminds me of another thing" rather than actually any kind of evidence.
Do the work if you want to make the claim.
Also? It's not fascist to want to enjoy escapist fluff, any more than eating sweets when you're stressed is fascist.
