The Weird Appeal of the Bunker TikTok


Apartment flashes It plays as a song by Frank Ocean. We see a white sofa with throw pillows: white squares, pink square, ocher sphere, black square. Next come the quick cuts: a standing bookshelf (white spines only), pillows again, a see-through coffee table (an opportunity to really show off the plaid rug underneath). We see a pet dog on a bedspread, a coffee table, a TV stand, again a sofa, a dining area with Thonet-style chairs. Among these curated images is a shelf of curated objects centered on a Polaroid camera. Next comes the bedroom, the bar cart, the white Smeg toaster. Everything passes before we assimilate it, but we are not meaning to absorb it – only to have impressions.

This is a typical post I’ve come to think of in 20th century design and architecture magazines as Shelter TikTok, a spin-off in 2021. In Shelter Tok, you don’t move so much in a vacuum that you are attracted from one substance to another. The mainstays of the genre include zoomed-in images of carefully placed objects and a lack of interest in negative space. Everything flashes on TikTok; Why should houses be different?

Inside another videoWe watch a tattooed hand turn the gold lighting dial before hovering over an upholstered headboard. From there, we cut across wavy zebra stripes to the ceiling where a wooden pendant lamp hangs from the white sill. The camera turns to where we see the headboard is not a bed; supports a series of orange pillows. Nearby is an emerald rug with an orange border in the middle and a stylized cheetah image. We see a smiley face with a gilded frame. A projection screen that curves to reveal a mirror over a white brick fireplace. Hanging plants. An alcove with windows. Back to the hand on the dial; video loops.

There are people who will carefully review these TikToks like me. While not in their own homes, they will stop in each room to jot down details they can collect on their Pinterest board. They want to know where the sofa, the rug, the bookcase are from. “That’s just my style!” One commenter on the first video says maybe he’s happy to find a new way of describing himself. “What do you call it?”

First known use The term “shelter magazine” was first coined in 1946 when The New York Times reported that Jerome J. Brookman had been appointed as advertising director of Your Own Home, “a shelter magazine devoted to low-cost housing.” Brookman is a II. Fans like Elizabeth Gordon, editor of House Beautiful for 23 years, made the shelter category a blueprint for living. In 1960, Gordon’s two-number series on the Japanese concept shibui it was so popular that the set has been resold for up to $12 – the equivalent of over $110 today. When I visited Gordon’s archives at the Smithsonian in 2017, I found them filled with letters of praise for Japanese design issues. One woman wrote: “The doctor said, ‘This is a CHILD!’ Not since you said. am I so excited”; her husband was so impressed that she created a terrace and windbreaker inspired by the designs in the magazine.

He was able to do this because leading shelter magazines – House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, House & Garden – came with floor plans and building instructions along with photos. There were even competing model home programs. Shelter meant approaching the structural aspects of the house as something the occupant had control of: light sources, interior climate, ceiling height, landscaping.

It’s hard to pull off monastic minimalism when you have a popcorn ceiling.

In Shelter Tok such control is a thing of the past. The majority of American TikTok users are under the age of 29, a group that is too young to even consider young millennials (only 37 percent will own a home by 34), Gen Z (24 at most), and others. build a windbreaker. According to Bloomberg, 18 percent of millennial tenants have no plans to stop renting; many will continue to live in situations where you can barely get permission to repaint. Some Shelter Tok videos may result from actual renovations such as fixtures, appliances, wallpaper, but viewers are there to identify with the pleasure displayed, not to implement it.

Where function cannot be discussed, form evolves. Much like a teenager’s bedroom, Shelter Tok is all about masking a lack of control with personal objects and good vibes. It’s not just too far from old shelter magazines; even far from videos on other social media platforms. For example, YouTube – a platform with a plethora of DIY renovation content – is also home to Architectural Digest’s famous series “Open Door”; In this series, the viewer is greeted at the entrance of the subject’s house and is guided to experience the real flow of the space. . Shelter Tok has no such formalities.

Last year, a popular TikTok video teaser said, “The objects in my house/flat/bedroom are it just makes sense” This is the modern version of knocking down a wall to open up a room: logical Your identity in the home Recently, a conversation-starting variant showed the dangers of being a young tenant with distinctive tastes. “Things that I think make my home unique,” ​​its creator begins. Instead of a tatami mat and shelves, short stacks of books are displayed on the floor. There is a Rei Kawakubo chair but it is used for sweaters, not sitting. Decorations are sparse but include a single-bodied black vase, a bag hanging from a ceiling cup hook, and a closed garment bag.

These objects were presented with a flat face, but some wondered Could it be a joke? A friend of mine pointed out that it’s hard to pull off Rick Owens-style monastic minimalism when you have a popcorn ceiling. A bigger issue for me were the improperly placed electrical outlets, which reminded me of all the ugly places I lived in my 20s, as these were the best of the bad options. Then again, the Rei Kawakubo chair, which sells for over $7,000, is still cheaper than a mortgage.

Last year, after an appearance Architectural Digest’s “Open Door” series, Dakota Johnson’s the green kitchen went viral, with special attention paid to the lemon bowls artfully placed on the counters. Johnson later admitted that he had a mild allergy to lindens; the bowls were simply decorated, the objects arranged in such a way as to make an impression. I learned this information from TikTok, where, you guessed it, the platform itself is the architecture, and we navigate an algorithm, mixing it from room to room with our slippers.





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