Skinny vanilla lattes. Ugg boots. Lighting a Twilight Woods candle from Bath and Body Works as you binge-watch Elle and Blair Fowler videos on YouTube. Yes, the Rosy blog is indeed the basic white girl aesthetic of 2010's Tumblr.
The rosy blog aesthetic can be traced back to the rise of Instagram and a recently coined term called "glam capitalism." Glam capitalism refers to the period between 2013-2016, roughly the peak years of the rosy blog aesthetic, which was "mall consumerism aimed at young women and girls," as The Digital Fairy puts it. Glam capitalism is closely intertwined with the peak of the beauty guru (think about content creators like James Charles and Jackie Aina), and rosy blogs aestheticized the consumption of high-end makeup and mall brands like Victoria's Secret and Juicy Couture. Rosy blogs had an aspirational effect; you wanted to afford the same luxuries as the girls you reblogged images from.
The majority of rosy blogs switched aesthetics or became inactive in 2015, right before the height of 2016 glam capitalism (but I did find one that kept chugging away until April 2021). I see this change as a response to the shift that Instagram went through during this time pioneered by Kylie Jenner
—suddenly, warm Valencia filters were out and VSCO was in. The images were still perfectly composed and featured on-trend makeup products and outfits, but they had a more minimal and modern vibe.
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| r-osellaa.tumblr.com is a prime example of this shift—rosy blogging stopped right before 2015, then posting began in April 2016 with a VSCO-inspired aesthetic |
As to how the rosy blog aesthetic started in the first place, the answer is, of course, Instagram. In 2012, Instagram reached 27 million users and was acquired by Facebook—it was the social media app during this time. The rosy blog aesthetic borrows directly from the warm, vintage-inspired filters and square images that the app popularized. The most popular themes for Rosy blogs often featured a simple, multi-column design with a white background that resembled an Instagram grid.
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| This style of theme was very popular among rosy blogs. Some other popular elements are a collage header (likely made with polyvore), a row of links, and subtle pink accents. |
Beabytheseaxo-blog is the earliest example of a rosy blog I could find, so I date the origin of this aesthetic to January 2013. If you look through her archive, the rosy blog begins forming in 2012. Suddenly, the warm sepia filter begins to crawl in. The images switch from DSLR perfection to iPhone 5s haze, and rosy blog heroes like Marina and the Diamonds also make several appearances.
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| Beabytheseaxo's July 2012 archived compared to her August-September 2012 archive. Note how the images begin to feature some of the hallmarks of the rosy aesthetic, namely heart bokeh and Instagram filters |
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| By the end of the year, her blog would look like this.... |
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| ....which would become a full-fledged rosy blog by January 2013 |
The Rosy blog is an extremely basic aesthetic that revolves solely around consumerism. Nearly every photo is focused on some kind of product, makeup from M.A.C., Nars, or Benefit, Starbucks lattes, Yankee Candles, Victoria's Secret loungewear and body mists, Philosophy body wash, and rose gold jewelry were popular fixtures. I imagine that most bloggers either aspired to some kind of upper-middle-class suburban white girl fantasy or lived out that reality themselves. To participate in the rosy blog aesthetic and create content as a rosy blogger, you needed proximity to wealth to a.) afford the products in the picture and b.) have access to a mall or store that sells them in the first place. It's an exclusive aesthetic.
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| this shit is not cheap!!! |
While I was never really a fan of the rosy aesthetic, I can’t deny that I felt a bit nostalgic as I reflected on its prime. I remember assembling all the bracelets from my jewelry box as a middle schooler because #armcandy, slapping a Valencia filter on it, and adding an egregious amount of heart bokeh; the rosy blog reminds me of my first forays into social media. I also remember when the mall was still fun and had lots of stores open, not a reminder of late-stage capitalism, shivering to stay alive. At the same time, at an an era where Starbucks is blocking its employees from protesting genocide and corporations are making record profits at the expense of working people, it's hard to imagine a return to this aesthetic—though I'm sure influencers will try to convince us to go back there for the sake of capitalism.
//**THEME NOTES**//
Name: Rosy blog
Status: Extinct
Date of origin: January 2013
Date of extinction: April 2021
Prime years: 2013-2015
Related aesthetics: Organic, bubblegum, coquette, tropical
Patron saints: Ariana Grande, Zoella, Cara Delevinge
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