#soft edits

bc Dean was like a father to Sammy ⋆｡°✩

Round 1, Match 112 — Heart Emoji Meme vs. Preacher's Daughter

Heart Emoji Memes (also known as Soft Edits) describe a specific digital editing style and internet aesthetic that peaked in the late 2010s. The aesthetic is characterized by the chaotic or decorative layering of specific emoticons (primarily red and pink hearts, sparkles, and pleading faces) over existing images to perform exaggerated affection. While the style overlaps with the broader concept of "wholesome memes," Heart Emoji Memes are distinct in their reliance on a maximalist and cluttered approach to visual editing, often utilizing specific mobile editing tools like PicsArt and Snapchat to create a "soft" or "lovestruck" feeling. The style originated within fandom spaces (specifically Wattpad and K-pop/"Stan" Twitter) as a way to create reaction images demonstrating overwhelming support for idols. It entered the general internet mainstream in early 2018, catalyzed heavily by the "Precious" Snapchat lens and the viral "Mine" by Bazzi video trend. The visual composition of a Heart Emoji Meme is characterized by visual noise and distinct layering techniques. The base image is frequently obscured by a "swarm" of emojis. Unlike Lovecore, which utilizes vintage or physical romantic imagery (lace, candy, Victorian valentines), Heart Emoji Memes are natively digital, relying exclusively on the Apple or Android emoji typeface. A defining technique of the style is the "Blush Edit," where semi-transparent pink circles or strawberry icons are placed over the cheeks of the subject, regardless of whether the subject is a human, an animal, or an inanimate object. This anthropomorphizes the subject and aligns it with anime tropes of embarrassment or infatuation. The aesthetic also relies heavily on text overlays. These are typically rendered in standard sans-serif fonts (often Arial or Helvetica) or default Snapchat text bars. The linguistic style associated with these images includes "keyboard smashes" (e.g., "ahhdjskal") to signify speechlessness, and "UwU" dialect. Motion blur is another common element, particularly in "shaking" images. This radial or horizontal blur mimics the physical reaction of trembling with excitement. When combined with the "Precious" filter, which adds sparkles and a soft, hazy grain, the resulting image conveys a sense of euphoric disorientation.

vs.

Preacher's Daughter is an aesthetic and fashion style based upon the visuals of artist Ethel Cain and her concept album Preacher's Daughter that was created in around 2020, and peaked in 2022. The aesthetic focuses on the imagery and hypothetical life of the teenage daughter of a Protestant Christian preacher in a small American town, typically (but not always) in the Southeast or Midwest. In Cain's story, the character Ethel Cain is the daughter of a corrupt Southern Baptist preacher in rural Alabama, who is sexually abusive to her as a young girl. As she grows up, she falls in love with a boy named Willoughby Tucker whom she is tragically separated from, a man named Logan Phelps who is killed while staging a bank robbery, and a man named Isaiah Abram who drugs her, sexually trafficks her, and eventually kills and eats parts of her. Before and during the album's release cycle, the artist behind the character, Hayden Anhedönia, posted edited, fuzzy pictures of herself and her house (which often contained things like crucifixes, old Bibles, and paintings of Jesus Christ) to Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr while making the album in South Alabama, which gained great popularity on the website, and inspired others to dress similarly and to take similar pictures. Many of them put these photos under the #preachersdaughter hashtag, despite not having anything to do with the album itself. At the time, the concepts of 'Catholic Horror,' 'female rage' and hysteria, and religious trauma were gaining traction on Tumblr, but had not previously had much association with Protestant Christian aesthetics until Ethel Cain became popular. Additionally, Cain's music and visuals, in part, revitalized interest in Southern Gothic on the site, which contains significant overlap with what is known as the Preacher's Daughter aesthetic, although it is not inherently dark or gothic, and many choose to focus more on the other parts of the Preacher's Daughter album's story and visuals. Preacher's Daughter visuals are nostalgic, sometimes carefree, but have great emphasis on both southern life and Protestant Christianity. Common visuals in the aesthetic include vintage homes with wood-paneled walls, churches (both interiors and exteriors), taxidermy, hunting gear, crosses, paintings of Jesus Christ, American flags, rifles, vintage and antique furniture, forests, swimming holes, old pickup trucks and vintage cars, cigarettes and cheap beer, bugs (especially flies, cicadas, crickets, and similar), old sheds, workshops, and tools, old Bibles and hymnbooks, old leather (such as in bags and books), diaries, highways and interstates, motels, high school football games, cheerleading, old pianos, abandoned houses and churches, swamps and alligators, meadows and wildflowers, and North American forest animals, such as coyotes and deer.

happy tzu day!!! 💌

this is an edit I made for my yt but i wanted to also post it on here ^_^ this is the first edit i made in a long time so it isn't that complicated but i hope tzu lovers like it<333 I'm not sure if I'm giving the arsthetic soft edit vibes I wanted to give with this edit so lmk what u think!!!

idol : chou tzuyu | twice

song : melting | kali uchis