The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi has been memeified in recent times. Late last year, audio from an old King of the Hill scene explaining wabi-sabi as the idea that imperfection has its own beauty found a viral new life over the top of TikTok videos about acne and crooked teeth. Makers use the phrase to sell all manner of ever-so-slightly-wonky handcrafts. Cake turned out a bit lop-sided? Fear not: it’s got wabi-sabi.
Like most Western appropriations, this one misses much of the conceptual heft. Grounded in Buddhist concepts of impermanence, wabi-sabi encompasses a love of simple aesthetics and a sweet melancholy at the transience of things. Wabi-sabi is built around an acceptance that nothing is perfect, nothing lasts forever, and nothing is ever truly finished or complete.
