The past was not that cute

This hits on a pet peeve of mine: representing the past as dull and colorless, because we mostly have access to b&w or sepia photos from the time.

I’m not saying that the overall point isn’t true, just that juxtaposing photos propagates an already deeply-embedded and mistaken intuition that the past was somehow less colorful, less vibrant than the present.

To try to combat this, I had ChatGPT colorize the “actual farmer” photo: https://ibb.co/1tkcLKmY

This is something that I have been noticing for years. Whenever I try to imagine "the past" (any time period before I was born), I tend to imagine it with fuzzy colors and film grain, like and old movie. It takes me some conscious effort to remember that the past looked the same as the present!

Yeah, I actually love the “cottagecore” photos I think she’s trying to use as evidence that the past wasn’t cute? But the stone farmhouse with straw roof is exactly the image I have in mind when I romanticize “cottagecore of the past. (While understanding it was a bit drafty, but “cute” is about aesthetic and I totally dig the aesthetic)

But actually I do admit this is the best part of living today, if you want it, you can have some level of that aesthetic and lifestyle with some of the efficiencies of modern technology (not having to worry about dying of starvation if a harvest doesn’t work out)