BY MARIAH ESPADA AND MOISES MENDEZ II
GOOD QUESTION
AUTUMN DIDN’T OFFICIALLY BEGIN UNTIL SEPT. 23, but for TikToker Chasitey Pounds, it started in June. Pounds, 26, is one of many content creators who cultivate followings with comforting autumn visuals like pumpkin-spice lattes, candles, and chunky sweaters. The online niche has amassed major traction, with hashtags like #autumnaesthetic and #fallaesthetic collectively gaining over 7 billion views on TikTok. “I want to create stuff that emulates the feeling of coziness and brings people some comfort in everyday life,” she says.
Fall has been Pounds’ favorite season since she was a child. Now, sharing seasonal videos has enabled her to leave her day job. The internet and its fall enthusiasts have played a big role in the commodification of the season: NielsenIQ data shows all things pumpkin-spice-market produced more than $800 million from July 2022 to July 2023.
If Christmas stores can do business year-round, the North Carolina–based creator sees no reason to limit autumn to the three-month bracket of a calendar. She’s realized that the internet is interested in cozy content in any season. “I’m really good at emulating that autumn feeling even if it’s like 90° outside,” she says.
THE INTERNET’S LOVE of foliage content started long before the emergence of TikTok, in the early days of Pinterest and Tumblr, and on platforms like Instagram, where influencers used “fall presets” and filter apps like VSCO, whose colors imbued their images with the feeling of fall year-round. Lifestyle YouTuber Bethany Mota became the face of the video platform thanks to her seasonal content, in particular a 2013 video with 17 million views in which she shares a fall morning routine: making tea, applying plum-hued makeup, heading to Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. One TikTok user recently referred to it as the “fall vibes big bang theory.”
Today, no one exemplifies the internet’s love for the season more than Caitlin Covington, a blogger who became the subject of the “Christian Girl Autumn” meme after her annual Vermont photo shoot went viral in 2019. Covington, 33, has embraced the meme, even if it’s s
