February 22, 2025

The Middle Ages are having a Renaissance

Less King Arthur, more Peasants' Revolt

Modern Medieval

by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

A little while ago, we noticed that there was medieval stuff just popping up all over the place. Not just Chappell Roan, but room decor, super-popular fantasy novels, and trend pieces talking about how we’re all gonna be thinking “medieval” in 2025.

So, we did some digging and thinking and now you can read the fruits of our labor!

Just published on Slate, go read our new piece. Here’s a teaser:

If we accept the timeline above, and we see castlecore as a fantasy of luxury, wealth, and comfort, what is it pushing against? The other version of wealth and power that Western society has offered in the wake of COVID lockdowns is tech-bro futurism. ChatGPT rolled out at the end of 2022, and A.I. has been sweeping over every industry. The Cybertruck went into production in 2023 and immediately became a cultural flashpoint. Almost all of 2024’s attention was consumed by the American general election, which featured a Republican campaign that heavily relied upon tech bros and their allies in venture capital. This heavily gendered male culture advocates for unfettered freedom to poison the Earth, amass vast wealth, to move fast and break things. We see that at work right now in Elon Musk’s illegal takeover of the federal government.

The medievalism of castlecore offers people, especially women, a way to critique this tech-bro futurism… What’s more, it’s a way to engage in a kind of history that points toward a different kind of world, without being accused of being Luddites or becoming toxic nostalgics. This is a different way of using historical aesthetics than what you see from the tradwife community, which takes nostalgia for an imagined past seriously, or at least projects seriousness as part of its propaganda tool.

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