I'm obviously a huge fan of digital spaces. I spend a huge amount of time online: coding, chatting, learning, and lamenting. If it's a bad day, I might be shopping, but whenever I try and create a digital space that's truly cozy, I left feeling like I can never nail it.
I can get close. Pomodoro sessions with Spirit City: Lofi Sessions. Stardew Valley. CRT filters for old emulators. A good FujiFilm recipe.
They touch on cozy. They resonate with people for it.
But they are not the real thing. The same way the safer, flickering LED candle is not a candle. It's a cheap copy of the light a candle gives off. An optimized replication.
There is so much pressure to always be doing, growing, pursuing and changing. Cozy stands in opposition to that. I think cozy is only obtainable when you are given permission, even for a moment or afternoon to do less or slow down. Even a little bit. Where the optimization of everything takes a back seat to vibes.
It's also not *rotting*, the current TikTok trend of self-indulgence, where the exhaustion of life has become so great that the idea of leaving your bed becomes impossible and the simple pleasures of delivery food and binging the latest Netflix series become the only viable option as one losses themselves to the comforts of their bed.
The activity might be close to something that could be cozy, but it's not cozy. Cozy is restorative, it is not the side-effect of over stimulation and exhaustion. It is the intentional creation of safety and space. Where warmth and closeness with others and the physical world around us is prioritized over pure productivity and efficiency.
Ironically, I get more done when I work in a cozy space. I feel part of the space. Like space is asking me to think clearly and enjoy being in it. It's a feeling of reassurance and safety that I need to do my best work.
So why can't digital spaces be cozy? Well, they can reflect cozy like the plastic candle. Also, they can be cozy-er that other digital spaces. They can mimic coziness, but I think a big part of ~peak coziness~ is felt in the body. A deep settling into. Digital spaces, by their nature, remove us from our body. Detach us from it. This can be a good thing. I think immediately of trans-folk who feel misaligned with their body and through different digital experiences can present, sometimes without question or critique, as their gender.
For a person chasing cozy like myself though, I am looking for a balance, where my physical space brings me and my body back into it. Where I can use the extremely powerful digital tools we have to improve the lives we live outside of a screen, or at least compliment it well.
There is this idea online that the physical world is becoming a resource to gather. A thing to be extracted and polished to be presented online in exchange for social clout, envy, and praise, but I think we can flip it. The internet and digital tools can be used to make the moments we are together more connected, more intimate. Even if it means we turn them most of them off for a while.