From Flowers to Fascism? The Cottagecore to Tradwife Pipeline on Tumblr

TL;DR

This study analyzed Tumblr posts to investigate potential aesthetic-based radicalization from Cottagecore to Tradwife content, finding limited evidence of explicit radicalization but noting a mainstreaming of reactionary themes over time.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of social media content, revealing the nuanced relationship between aesthetic communities and extremist ideologies on Tumblr.

Findings

No evidence of explicit radicalization was found.

Tradwife content is mostly confined to Tradwife-only spaces.

Post-2021, Tradwife tags shifted towards reactionary themes like religion and traditional gender roles.

Abstract

In this work we collected and analyzed social media posts to investigate aesthetic-based radicalization where users searching for Cottagecore content may find Tradwife content co-opted by white supremacists, white nationalists, or other far-right extremist groups. Through quantitative analysis of over 200,000 Tumblr posts and qualitative coding of about 2,500 Tumblr posts, we did not find evidence of a explicit radicalization. We found that problematic Tradwife posts found in the literature may be confined to Tradwife-only spaces, while content in the Cottagecore tag generally did not warrant extra moderation. However, we did find evidence of a mainstreaming effect in the overlap between the Tradwife and Cottagecore communities. In our qualitative analysis there was more interaction between queer and Tradwife identities than expected based on the literature, and some Tradwives even explicitly included queer people and disavowed racism in the Tradwife community on Tumblr. This could be genuine, but more likely it was an example of extremists re-branding their content and following platform norms to spread ideologies that would otherwise be rejected by Tumblr users. Additionally, through temporal analysis we observed a change in the central tags used by Tradwives in the Cottagecore tag pre- and post- 2021. Initially these posts focused on aesthetics and hobbies like baking and gardening, but post-2021 the central tags focused more on religion, traditional gender roles, and homesteading, all markers of reactionary ideals.