Cozy Media

Cozy Media brings together interdisciplinary voices to explore the rising cultural and aesthetic significance of “coziness” in contemporary media. Over recent years, the term "cozy" has gained traction in journalistic and social media discourse, describing everything from video games and lo-fi playlists to ASMR videos, TV shows about hobbies, and lifestyle influencers who romanticize the everyday. This book examines how cozy media offers comfort, connection, and care in uncertain times, while also looking at the darker sides of the aesthetic. It asks what defines cozy media, where it comes from, and what it offers its audiences; if coziness is a genre, a feeling, or a fantasy? The author scrutinizes how social media, especially TikTok and Instagram, are used to articulate social comfort, govern mood, and mediate intimacy; offers a closer look at culture-specific examples, tracing coziness in Finnish and Chinese television, as well as the impact of Studio Ghibli on global aesthetics; and explores games to examine the intersections between coziness and politics, how coziness engages with queerness, how it facilitates the representation of grief, and bridges discussions of consent. Cozy Media maps this emerging field, offering the first comprehensive look at coziness as a cultural phenomenon.