The slow life isn't inherently rebellious
In a guest post for shit you should care about's Culture Vulture newsletter, Emma Kumagawa wrote briefly about the slow life as an embodied internet trend. Kumagawa contrasted two iterations of the slow life separated through generational media and aesthetics. The Dull Women's Club is a Facebook group that Kumagawa describes as "a Boomer- and Gen X-coded internet haven where women can unapologetically celebrate the mundanity of everyday life." Unlike the Gen Z Instagram world with which Kumagawa contrasts this Facebook group, the photos are uninspired. A snap of a closet organizer stuffed with non-trendy worn shoes; a badly lit photo of a horse; an unappetizing picture of uncooked meat and veggies. Normal scenes, normal bodies, normal lives. "My favorite thing to do in the morning as a dullie is to go outside and look at my wildflowers," writes one poster.
Kugawama places this group alongside Gen Z memes that yearn for the slow life.
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Kumagawa almost juxtaposes these two worlds. She writes:
"I realized this community is attempting to embrace 'the slow life,' or an existence that focuses on the here and now, just like myself and other Zillenial cusps. They just have a slightly different vocabulary and aesthetic for it."
Then, she simply describes the slow life, which is not invaluable but nothing new. And, because of its not-newness, has become so mass-consumed as to need further consideration. The brevity of Culture Vulture's writing does not allow for this. The slow life is, Kugawama writes, "an act of rebellion against a society that says fast is the only way." The slow life refuses the productivity claim that neoliberalism enforces in us. Except, the memes that Kugawama calls upon to describe the Gen Z slow life often fall into producivity culture. These memes present an abstract and romanticized slow life that re-orients the slow life back into producuvity culture. "poeticizing the mundane" is a prime example of producing an aesthetic for the sake of that production rather than the experience of the mundane. The second meme that Kugawama shares critiques the first--though this goes unnoted. The slow life, in one iteration, is a deferal of living the slow life that demands consumption to arrive at that place of contended slowness. The caption on the @kendollisms meme is "went to the nursery and got a new hibiscus plant." A purchase is necessary to move towards the slow life.
The Dull Women's Club, which Kugawama notes may have started as a joke, lacks an overall aesthetic. The posts focus on sharing embodied, terminal acts that have no abstract function. The posts are about doing. Sure, there are crafters weaving lovely blankets, but shared through grainy photos that emphasize the taker simply wanted to share their event of crafting rather than the outcome.
There is also much to be said about the demographics of this group and how they can access the slow life as comprased to those consuming the idyllic Gen Z slow life memes or those Gen Z'ers implenting the slow life irl. But I want to go knit now.