Weirdcore × Yami-Kawaii

Uncanny low-resolution photography against polished, cute vector illustration.

From the research on Yami-Kawaii (Sick-Cute)

Mix them and make something Weirdcore Yami-Kawaii

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Yami-Kawaii, their arrangement from Weirdcore, the finish from Weirdcore. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Weirdcore & Dreamcore Yami-Kawaii (Sick-Cute)

Type from Yami-Kawaii: Rounded sans
Hand-lettering
Colour from Yami-Kawaii: Pastel
Flat fields
Form from Yami-Kawaii: Rounded & pill
Stylised figuration
Composition from Weirdcore: Full bleed
Isolated object
Surface from Weirdcore: Grain & noise
Glitch

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Yami-Kawaii

Fiesta

Zen Maru Gothic, standing in for Rounded gothic sans (maru-gothic)

Text · Weirdcore

An internet aesthetic popularised on Reddit, TikTok and YouTube in the early 2020s, with dreamcore as its softer, pastel, cloud-filled sister. Found or low-quality snapshots of empty, half-familiar places (playgrounds, classrooms, malls, corridors) are crudely edited: disembodied eyes in clouds or darkness, faceless figures in doorways, and short captions such as 'nothing is real' in red or inside black voids. The aim is anemoia, a nostalgia for places one never knew, turned into unease and the feeling of being watched.

Instrument Sans; Weirdcore used Short captions in out-of-place red text ('are you lost?', 'nothing is real'), typed in whatever plain default face the editing app offers and dropped onto the photograph and White text inside black rectangular voids pasted over the picture, the void heightening the message

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Yami-Kawaii, with a counter-accent from Weirdcore. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Weirdcore & Dreamcore Yami-Kawaii (Sick-Cute)

#ffffff ground · 36%
#3b3350 ink · 14%
#e0457b accent · 18%
#ff0000 accent · 14%
#bfeedd accent · 10%
#cfc07a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #3b3350;
  --accent-1: #e0457b;
  --accent-2: #ff0000;
  --accent-3: #bfeedd;
  --accent-4: #cfc07a;
  --font-display: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Instrument Sans", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Weirdcore & Dreamcore: Weirdcore's found snapshots are other people's photographs, often of real homes, schools and playgrounds (the Backrooms photo was a real shop interior in Wisconsin, identified only in 2024): shoot or license your own places, and leave identifiable children and private interiors out. Its makers describe it as built to unsettle, from 'existentialism and derealization' (Nylon, 2021) to an 'aesthetic that can cause a panic attack' (a @unttochable video quoted by i-D, 2021), so take care before aiming it at children or using it near mental-health subjects, and keep video cuts to three or fewer flashes a second (WCAG 2.3.1).

Yami-Kawaii (Sick-Cute): The imagery refers to mental illness and self-harm, and it is contested whether it raises awareness or glamorises them. 'Menhera' is Japanese internet slang for people with mental health problems, used from about 2001 among users of a 2channel mental health board, and often used dismissively; creators in the scene describe drawing on their own mental health experiences. Treat the motifs with care, avoid using them to mock real conditions, and follow safe-messaging practice in any commercial use.

The two styles

A grainy image shows an empty swing set on a muddy grassy playground bordered by houses and a chain-link fence. An enormous eye appears among pink clouds in the blue sky and is reflected in a foreground puddle, with small red text reading “still here.”

2019–present · Global / networked Weirdcore & Dreamcore An internet aesthetic popularised on Reddit, TikTok and YouTube in the early 2020s, with dreamcore as its softer, pastel, cloud-filled sister. Found or low-quality snapshots of empty, half-familiar places (playgrounds, classrooms, malls, corridors) are crudely edited: disembodied eyes in clouds or darkness, faceless figures in doorways, and short captions such as 'nothing is real' in red or inside black voids. The aim is anemoia, a nostalgia for places one never knew, turned into unease and the feeling of being watched. 2013–present · East Asia, Global / networked Yami-Kawaii (Sick-Cute) A darker variant of kawaii that keeps pastel pinks, lavenders and rounded characters but fills them with medical and self-harm motifs: pills, syringes, razor blades, bandages and tears. Drawn as cute stickers and goods, it is both ironic and sad, and observers disagree whether it opens talk about mental health or glamorises illness.