This month, a fresh adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved Little House on the Prairie arrives on Netflix.
The reboot’s timing is auspicious. 2026 saw the apex of the tradwife discourse. And if the Brooklyn streets are anything to go by, a certain prairiecore aesthetic refuses to go quietly.
Pioneer nostalgia has tended to spike when conservatives are in power, which is no coincidence. When the cities are called dangerous, the enterprising are still told to make their own way in the wide open spaces. To go west. But as Dr. Paula Read wondered in a recent op-ed for Teen Vogue, “Is there anything new to be said that hasn’t been covered in the original nine books or the first TV adaptation?”
In other words: why haven’t we hit the end of the west?
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