Hello and welcome back to picsandportraits.
It’s finally October.
Officially the spooky season and we are kicking things off with a bang.
For years now, we’ve had certain traditions this time of year, especially around Sleepcore.
There is the Screamathon, which is longer, very nostalgic and Halloween-focussed.
and then there is Nightmarecore, which
is basically full of the things that keep you up at night.
Nothing too edgy or upsetting.
It’s still fun, but for some, it will be an unsettling or even distressing experience.
Putting this together is something I look forward to all year.
Nightmarecore 2022 is now available for free, over on our Patreon.
I will post a link here.
Stop listening to me.
Go watch it. If you are into that sort of thing.
I’m not posting it because I know that some of you are not here to be scared and that’s
what this video is going to be about.
Now I tend not to talk about Sleepcore a lot, outside of March, the anniversary, but I wanted
to make this video not only to hype Nightmarecore ’22 but also to address some comments I’ve
been getting recently.
A lot of you, especially newer viewers, are maybe asking, why nightmares?
Sleep is in the name.
Why can’t Sleepcore just be cozy and quiet?
I’ve talked about this before and I understand why people feel this way but Sleepcore is
not designed to help you sleep.
I get that people use it for that.
That’s awesome.
I’m happy it helps.
The slow, drab media is often used for that effect, but for many, including myself, sleep
is rarely cozy or quiet.
The period assigned for sleep can be alienating, anxiety-ridden, frustrating, and sometimes,
sleep is terrifying.
Sleepcore is recontextualised media.
It’s taking clips from all different periods and locations and placing them in the context
of late night channeling surfing, falling asleep in front of the TV, a very 20th century
idea, drifting in and out of dreams.
It’s media for insomnia and meant to compliment or replicate a hypnagogic state.
In some episodes this is more blatant, like the hypnagogia ones, or the recent Dissociative
Dreams, which was basically a warm up for Nightmarecore in a lot of ways.
It’s very good.
Check it out if you haven’t.
There has been a bunch of different ways I’ve described Sleepcore in the past.
Like a TV broadcast from memories that are not your own, but you recognise them, vague
familiarity.
Sleepcore grew out of vaporware, so the idea of experiencing nostalgia for a period you
never lived but you feel like you have memories of or trigger memories in you, that didn’t
happen.
Media has a huge effect on how we dream and how we remember.
The aesthetics of a time will inform the memories made during it and if you're trying to make
something, that’s a very powerful tool.
Nostalgia is a subjective thing, not only in what we feel it towards but also what triggers
it.
I think it’s most purely experienced when you revisit something adjacent to or something
unfamiliar to you from a period you are familiar with.
I won’t say a period you hold dear, because honestly I don’t think nostalgia is all that
pleasant of feeling.
Nostalgia as a form of grief is a major theme here.
I know some of you prefer clips all to be from a certain period but really, what is
time, especially when talking about futurism or retrofuturism.
I am very interested in rhythms and finding patterns, both conceptually and aesthetically.
Multiple ideas connecting in a way that can be interpreted multiple ways by different
people.
That’s the format, and there has always been the issue with Sleepcore of content vs
format.
Given that they are themed, if someone is interested in retrofuturism or sci-fi or arcade
games, worldwide weirdness with a bunch of clips that look like this may not go over
the best.
The degraded tape and film can be used as a way to signify breaking away from consciousness.
That’s what I like about it.
It’s also distressing.
It can be hypnotic, relaxing even.
But if you’re here for information, you would watch it and “what the hell is this?”
And I wouldn’t blame you.
Personally, I love it.
I make dozens of episodes of Sleepcore every year.
Some will flop and not every one will be for everyone.
Making people nostalgic is a pretty easy thing to do.
There are thousands of channels on this platform, hey, remember this, remember when things were
better, which is what I hate about nostalgia.
I’m not dunking on anyone or anyone else’s content, but my goal is use nostalgia to evoke
the feelings
Personally, I wish more people were into sad Sleepcore.
It’s my personal favourite to put together but with Nightmarecore, we are attempting
to use nostalgia to unsettle people.
It’s easy to scare someone with a jump scare.
Using memories or aesthetics to unsettle someone is much more satisfying.
To make nightmares, or curate nightmares.
Some of you may be asking why you would want to do something like that.
’Tis the season.
I myself experience awful nightmares regularly.
I actually just woke up from an active shooter situation framed around a family gathering.
That is not in Nightmarecore, again, nothing too heavy but I totally get why someone would
not want to watch it.
It’s not for everybody and it’s not forever.
But October, being associated with horror, Halloween, we can explore these darker ideas,
that are always present.
Sleepcore is always pretty weird, but Nightmarecore takes it just a bit further.
Obviously, all of this is subjective.
What scares someone, will be goofy to someone else, but that’s why Sleepcore, or Nightmarecore,
is the way it is.
Hopefully that clears some things up.
Feel free to chime in, let me know what you think.
If this sounds appealing to you, Nightmarecore 2022 is available, for free, over on Patreon.
This is our fourth year doing it.
You’ve been seeing clips mainly from past years.
I will post links to all of them in the description if you want to binge them.
We have a bunch of great stuff coming up this month, and all of it is made possible by our
patrons, over at patreon.com/picsnportraits.
We do not run ads, we are 100% viewer supported, and in exchange offer a ton of exclusive content.
So if you like what we do and want to help make it happen, please consider supporting
us, patreon.com/picsnportraits.
As always, thank you so much for your interest in this channel and thanks for watching.
Stay spooky.