V A P O R W A V E A Retrospect On Internet Culture

[*start listening to our V A P O R W A V E Playlist before reading]

Vaporwave, what is it?

Despite how popular it is on internet forums - both as a genre and a culture, vaporwave still remains an “if you know, you know” sort of genre. A relic of early 2010s internet culture [though there are many who speak of an imminent revival], vaporwave still remains in relative obscurity. Enjoyed by niche groups on internet forums, circulated mostly over 4chan, Bandcamp and Soundcloud [and later YouTube], and never having made it to the music mainstream, it’s no surprise if one were to not know about what vaporwave is or even was.

Chances are if you know of vaporwave, you’re one of two kinds of people on the internet, those who came across it as a one-off thing and moved past it, or those who came across it, really liked it and have stuck around with it even past its heyday. And if you don’t know what vaporwave is, that’s ok. But, it would be remiss if we were to pass on vaporwave because of its obscurity, because in doing so, we would be discounting the widespread impact it has had on the cultural landscape of today.

A brief primer.

Created as an ironic subgenre of chillwave prevalent pre-2010s [read: stoner music], vaporwave parodies the manufactured low fidelity [lo-fi] sound of chillwave’s nostalgia-driven songs that often incorporate effects to mimic the limitations of pre and early 2000s recording technology. It serves as a critique of these “nostalgic” grainy, glitchy and scratchy sounds by doubling down on the nostalgia factor and making exclusive use of primarily 80s, and consequently 90s and Y2K motifs and source material.

James Ferraro’s FARSIDEVIRTUAL, Daniel Lopatin’s Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1 [under the pseudonym Chuck Person] and Vektriod’s Floral Shoppe [under the pseudonym Macintosh Plus], are often cited as the defining sounds and proponents of the original themes of vaporwave. Themes of consumerism and retrofuturism are abundant on FARSIDEVIRTUAL, with tracks making use of advertisement jingles, easy listening tracks like elevator music and muzak, evoking a jet-set 80s lifestyle.

80s pop anthems are sliced up, mixed around, slowed, looped and glitching on the chorus bits, like a stuck tape-recorder of the best times of one’s past on Eccojams Vol. 1, serving as bittersweet reminders of city nights of past in one's memory. Floral Shoppe, takes elements from both albums to create the definitive sound - a past youth, better, brighter, full of opportunity and excess. New albums in the genre, building off the same motifs would only cement the pseudo-philosophy of vaporwave - as an escape from the fatigue from this life, and nostalgia for a better past - for a time before the 2000s economic slump, a time most considered young now have never seen but only heard of, and the eerie sense of absence that this misplaced nostalgia accompanies.

Over its half-decade long prominence well into the late 2010s, as like any other genre, vaporwave has undergone many evolutions and encompasses a wide variety of sounds. Classic vaporwave made heavy use of 80s pop anthems set to droning down tempo synth-based sounds, like works from producers like Vektroid and Chuck Person. Late vaporwave offers a lot more variety, with producers like Windows96 and haircuts for men incorporating a lot of the sonic themes of classic vaporwave in original works and compositions, in a vein similar to 00s ambient music.

Subgenres like future funk and mallsoft opt for a more up-beat funk sound. Future funk and animecore bring to the forefront the undeniably jammy funk-jazz-pop from the lost 80s citypop era with remixes of popular songs by Tatsuro Yamashita, Airi and many more compiled in hour-long playlists by マクロスMACROSS 82-99.

Citypop influenced original compositions and mixes from Moe Shop and Vantage offer a retroactive modern take of an upbeat citypop soundtrack to dance along to. Mallsoft from artists like 猫シCorp and 鬱 are evocative of early shopping mall memories of in-store BGM and mallspaces, and the decrepit and hollow form these spaces take on when devoid of its inhabitants.

McCarran Airport in Las Vegas in the 80s

The works of Infinity Frequencies reminds us of the desolate and pitiful nature technologies and modern conveniences take on when there is no one around to interact with them. With varied distinct sub-genres focusing on the many connotations and by-products of consumerism and post-consumerism, there is a vaporwave for everyone, all it comes down to is the part of it you want to immerse yourself in.

So, what is vaporwave?

Is vaporwave a self-proclaimed ironic, somewhat limited, internet-based micro-genre that memes on consumer culture? Or is it a self-important pseudo-philosophical counter-culture that requires the observer to be on a higher plan of intelligence to understand its nuanced messaging?

Train Station in Singapore

It’s hard to say - with vaporwave, it’s hard to separate the meme from its actual message. Early works can be looked upon both as [1] a critique of the symbiotic relationship between our lives and the ever-increasing commercial nature it tends to take on, and [2] a manifestation of changes in the socio-economic atmosphere in the mid-2010s of the global collective youth via desires of nostalgia for a time of adolescence and easy access to creature comforts.

80s media is quite fitting in its function as a genuine response to vaporwave as a largely post-consumerist movement The 80s were unarguably the last time [the western world, and the rest by way of trickle-down] saw a time of economic ease - a period of all-round growth and development. Everyone was buying things, companies were more than happy to be making things and selling things, consumer technologies were now cheaper and more fun than ever, people had greater access to media, games and music.

People born into these times grew with these technologies, they grew with the internet, and these memories, both learnt or lived through, remain fresh in the minds of the current global youth. The adoption of 80s media to offer up critique as to how obsession with these memories is but a hollow activity, by presenting a deliberate sad sound, with no lasting impact really drives home the fact that all that remains in reality now are obsolete technologies, empty spaces and a massive back catalogue of sounds from the past of an imagined future.

Even as an ironic genre, as a parody of consumer culture and extreme nostalgia, vaporwave stands out from other internet based cultures in the sheer volume of people it attracted. It offered to the listener soundtracks of many fleshed out niches comprising mixes of lo-fi, ambient, funk-jazz, citypop and synthwave, such that there was a sound for everyone. Furthermore, since vaporwave lent itself so easily to memes, anyone with access to softwares like FL Studio or GarageBand could make their own vaporwave. This memeable nature of the genre contributes to perhaps its biggest selling point, the community it fostered on the internet.

r/VaporwaveAesthetics/

Sites like Bandcamp, YouTube and Reddit worked as the medium for many to both share and discover new and continually changing sounds in vaporwave, as well as a medium for discourse on the themes of vaporwave. Unsurprisingly, somewhere along the way owing to the large-ish, mostly anonymous collective it garnered, and it being a niche genre, it attached to itself a backstory of being birthed from a longing of a better past, of simpler times, from a collective consciousness tired of the capitalist nature of this present time, while at the same time fully cognisant of their own participation in the very same system, either in the past or present.

Taking both sides of the vaporwave coin into account - the genuine counterculture and the massive meme, it is still difficult to discern the message of vaporwave. A genre initially mocking the hollowness of nostalgia for a time one has never lived in, with the visuals and themes emphasising the shallowness of surface-level deep thought - music that was meant to be enjoyed ironically. With no clear authority to define what such a genre meant, vaporwave has since taken on any form depending on what the listener wanted of it.

Its self-referential and ironic nature lends easily to reuse, variation and as it grew as a genre, the source material, as well as the thematic tones it took on, began to vary. Vaporwave has long since moved past its anonymous beginnings of irony, post-consumerism and retrofuturism, and often finds itself in direct contradiction to the irony it once stood for. It has gone from ironic music limited to gatekept circles to a moderately well known, unironically well-liked and a-somewhat misunderstood genre.

Vaporwave is dead?

In retrospect, it’s perhaps easier to look upon vaporwave for its many cultural contributions than to actually tie it down to a single definition of what it is, in a manner akin to an open to interpretation sort of ending. It can be looked upon as a signifier of a changing social climate, of a collective movement spilling forth into reality the voices of an unsatisfied youth, of a woeful celebration of past joys denied, or of a reminder of the desolate reality of past goodness. If we want to celebrate the revival of forgotten past media, we have the hyper-pop dance jams of future funk to move along to.

Mallsoft and its darker counterpart of liminal spaces evoke a bittersweet, eerie memory of one's fun youth that has been locked away with the passage of time. We wouldn’t have the current retrofuturism revival without vaporwave, citypop would’ve still remained a niche part of Japanese culture limited to esoteric groups on Discogs, nor would we have the newfound appreciation for the contribution of now abandoned mall spaces and obsolete technologies.

Despite its obscurity, it's undeniable that vaporwave’s sad internet jams have completely altered the global cultural landscape and it would be a massive shame if it were to remain slept upon any longer.

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About The Author:
Mishma Toppo is self proclaimed jack-of-all-trades. After authoring an A-grade graduation thesis about something completely unrelated, they’ve moved on to their day job of telling people about niche albums on the internet and exploring visual media.