If you still think that in 2018, vaporwave is a "postmodern critique of hauntology and capitalism" or some bullshit like that, you are in complete denial. Vaporwave has done more to fuel hauntology than any other concept simply because it leaves a sense of nostalgia in the average listener, not a sense of skepticism towards consumer culture. Just go outside and you might see the "A E S T H E T I C S" of vaporwave being used in corporate decoration, advertisements and overall as expressions of capitalism, and it's only going to become more commonplace over time. I've seen many videos of Youtube "philosophers" trying to prove that vaporwave is a brilliant leftist smackdown on capitalism but they're all extremely pretentious due to the fact that they simply point out things that nobody other than ivory tower pseudo-intellectuals like themselves would give a fuck about when listening to the actual music simply because 99.9% of people listen to music because it sounds good to them, not to analyze every note of it and find a hidden meaning. Literally no average person who hears a vaporwave song will think about how soulless capitalism is and rile them up for revolution, in fact it is more of a sedative as people seem to listen to it more to calm down, further evidenced by how it popularized the "chill music" trend. Vaporwave originally set out to critique the flawed way we viewed past decades, but has instead encouraged this way of thought by many magnitudes, just look at synthwave/outrun and the general portrayal of retro media nowadays.
Vaporwave is the prime example of why irony as a means of critique almost certainly is guaranteed to backfire by the end of the day. It works in smaller groups where the context is a lot more obvious, but when it eventually reaches other people that context will get lost extremely fast. There are countless examples of irony backfiring, but vaporwave is by far the most far-reaching one. Irony is not even a double edged sword, it is a gun pointing back towards the shooter, and is unfortunately the absolute favorite weapon of the western internet left these days it seems.
Yeah, I knew it would have end up like this this vapormeme started. It's been trash since the beggining, I don't know why people thought otherwise
Josiah Johnson
dubious reasoning. furthermore even if people latch on for the wrong reasons, vaporwave is a progressive cultural alternative to the reaction inherent in synthwave, which is rooted more in 1980s nostalgia (one dominant cultural mould) than the amorphous and foreign technological future shown in vaporwave. even were we to oversimplify vaporwave to the stupidest, most basal components of irony it becomes irony for the 1990s, a period which for all it's flaws lacked the sheer speed and power of reaction found in the 1980s.
also of the few people i know who like vaporwave nearly all of them intuitively understand the lost-futures element to it, which is the basic building block from which all fights against the present are made.
Wyatt Nelson
Ever heard of the "30 year cycle"? It's the idea that nostalgia goes in cycles and gives tribute to decades and generations that came 30 years prior. Just like how the 1980s had nostalgia for the 1950s the 2010s has nostalgia for the 1980s. Not to e-celb shill but Lindsay did a really good video on the 30 year cycle using the IT movie, but she just went into how we critique or give tribute to decades. youtu.be/Radg-Kn0jLs
It was in 2009. Vaporwave died in like 2014, hardvapor stumbled on for a bit longer before degenerating into an imitation of early 2000s electronic music, and all that's left of vaporwave now is futurefunk, which is just a rehash of french house with it's heavy disco samples.
Noah King
Witch house was always better than vaporwave
Asher Lewis
I'd like to steal vaporwave aesthetics and incorporate it into my space communist manifesto.
Okay memes aside I honestly don't care for whether or not vaporwave is stimulating capitalism or satirizing it, I just want something to trip out listening to and gawking at while stoned out of my gourd
Jaxon Cooper
The theory, the video and the statistic fails to mention how it made sense a long time ago. See those drops ? Those are the years were sound and colour were invented or war happened
Josiah Smith
I will never understand music elitists. I mean are you seriously suggesting that you often listen to shit music just because you like its "message"? Because you don't and if you claim that you do you are a liar. Really though, music serves best as propaganda, not as analysis.
You're reading it wrong, that chart shows that more remakes of movies come out 20-30 years after the original. Basically the people who grew up in the decade are now in the directors chair and are feeling nostalgic.
Robert Young
Any theory or analysis that neglects IP laws is worthless. People do not make decisions in a vacuum.
Colton Foster
Woops. Sorry
Isaiah Moore
Nothing wrong with analizing music, cinema or books. The problem are the pseudo intellectual elitists the surround these groups.
Nolan Myers
What does this have to do with anything? I'm talking about nostalgia and how it goes in cycles
Wait niBBa… are you telling me…. Capitalism has… commodified something? But yeah you are absolutely retarded if you think vaporwave is riling people up for revolution. Its just kooky shit that sounds nostalgic.
Jaxon Anderson
Are you telling me that producers of products in a capitalist system number one goal is to make people consume their product and make money?
most vaporwave is free though or maybe they're raking in youtube adbux in which case gulag the fucking lot of them
Owen Miller
The thing you're missing about vaporwave is that a lot of the people that consume it are younger. (15-24) So there in a way they're nostalgic for a time they've never seen that will never happen again. They may soon come to realize they're nostalgic for a time that's never happened. Capitalism's broken promise. Just a thought.
From wikipedia: Originating as an ironic variant of chillwave,[17] vaporwave was loosely derived from the experimental tendencies of the mid-2000s hypnagogic pop scene. The style was pioneered by producers such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin, and Ramona Xavier under various pseudonyms.[18] A circle of online producers were particularly inspired by Xavier's Floral Shoppe (2011), which established a blueprint for the genre. The movement subsequently built an audience on sites Last.fm, Reddit, and 4chan while a flood of new acts, many operating under online pseudonyms, turned to Bandcamp for distribution. Following the wider exposure of vaporwave in 2012, a wealth of subgenres and offshoots emerged, such as future funk, mallsoft, and hardvapour.
All the guys they listed there have albums out. If they never made it off of the vaporwave even more reason to change producer names when they get the contracts to produce for the big labels and all their fans are none the wiser.
So shows, last.fm, itunes, youtube, are all ways to make money for indie music producers to make money.
Either way they're all trying to get paid even if some of them never make much or any money.
*So shows, last.fm, itunes, youtube, are all ways for indie music producers to make money.
*and bandcamp of course
But who cares whether they make money or not? That's the point of all production. To make money. What the fuck world do you guys live in? Only people that don't need money are trust fund kiddies.
Brayden Perry
You're overthinking it. All that fits in with the trends of all hipster culture going back half a century or more. People lift from the past. Sometimes from things from their adolescence, childhood, early childhood sometimes from things decades before they were born.
Adulthood is just being bored of everything. We have experienced all our lives have to offer. Until, that is I win the lotto or something and then I could afford to just live.
David Morales
Yeah, there's a lot of snakeoil salesmen out there, you're not dropping any kind of mindblowing knowledge bomb here. That doesn't mean that the occasional work with a genuine left-leaning message doesn't exist.
Tyler Evans
I bought my first Lottery ticket when I went out shopping with my mother one day. We stopped at Ralph’s where I noticed the Lottery machine. I didn’t know anything about the Lottery, so I asked my mother about it. She told me how it works and taught me how to buy a ticket. Each ticket provides a very small chance of winning millions of dollars, and the jackpot could rise to the hundreds of millions. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know such a thing existed! After buying my ticket, I felt thrilled with the prospect of having a chance to become a multi-millionaire. That ticket, of course, didn’t win. And neither would any of the tickets I buy after it, but they would give me hope. I never thought nor cared about money before I turned 18, because I was still living like a child, with my parents handling the money and giving me the things I needed. However, the more older I grew, the more I realized how important money was, and the more obsessed I would become about getting rich. This obsession, which was barely taking root at the time, sparked a long relationship the Lottery that would only end in disappointment and despair.
I'm not even disagreeing that it's exceedingly rare but to say it flat out doesn't exist period is a bridge too far IMO.
Evan Lopez
in such a world suicide is the only option. here's a radical idea: drudgery to make money, production for use as a hobby. when you commercialise you kill.
Anthony Allen
But your pic isn't vaporwave, it's synthwave. Vaporwave is barely used in mainstream culture still. Synthwave is reactionary/fascist 80s nostalgia. Synthwave was kicked off by the fascist movie Drive (2011).
Evan Richardson
Iirc zero books did a pretty good analysis, there's a good point to be made that modernity cannot help but look at the past to blot out it's problems.
Wyatt Hughes
I and I bet most people here even know what synthwave was before the vaporwave craze happened.
Gavin Rodriguez
didn't even*
Zachary Martinez
The amount of vaporwave content out there is actually incredibly small and niche compared to synthwave stuff. There are dozens of popular movies with neo-synth soundtracks, but can you name a single one with vaporwave?
Jordan Powell
more like vaporgrave
Isaiah Gutierrez
I just make music that pisses everyone off. As long as I'm happy idgaf if I have fans or not
Jonathan Garcia
Link us, comrade
Colton Young
Do you have any red-pilled articles on how Drive is fascist?
Angel Anderson
I posted about it months ago in leftytrash, the movie is about an Aryan ubermensch ("real human being") defeating a bunch of usurious Jewish mobsters and saving a white woman from them and her colored husband. The head of the Jewish mob uses kosher slaughter methods to kill his debtors. There's stars of david hidden in the movie sets (see pic).
I mean I was skeptical of that but then I watched the movie and holy shit does it hit you in the face real quick
Gavin Fisher
Keep in mind this movie was insanely popular with 4chan too, /tv/ wouldn't shut up about it for like two years straight. I think it actually played a subtle but major part in the shift to full-blown fascism.
Aiden Cooper
alot of people (me included) blame GG and the rise of /r9k/ for the slow strangle hold that fascism gained on 4chan, but I'm starting to think it was doomed to become that way from the start and it was instead up to the poster on whether they'd follow suit
Logan Sanders
All of the Tumblr/SRS psyops also started in 2011, if you search all their terms like "intersectionality," they all took off at the same time. I think the culture war shit is a deliberate fascist strategy of tension.
I never was on 4chan back when the movie came out. I read the script before it got filmed (because people in the film industry were ranting and raving about it) and thought it was trash. Still went to see the movie for some reason and thought it was even worse trash. The musical cues were just so fucking sappy and melodramatic and distracting/annoying. The color grading and visual style were garrish. I don't particularly like the gooseling, never got the hype over him. Just so very bland and boring as an actor. I was talking shit to my mother during most of the film and this African American film snob dude actually followed us out of the theater to complain to us that we'd ruined his movie watching experience.
Never picked up on the "Nazi" bit. I remembered the mobsters as being Italian so I think you're overemphasizing whatever anti-semitic message you're getting from the film. The white man's burden bit was definitely their but that's a staple of so many films even in recent years (Gran Torino comes to mind.) Also the screenplay was written by an Iranian man, although, I guess they are the true Aryans.
Lol they are Jewish, one even goes on a rant that the Italians keep disrespecting him and calling him a kike.
Nolan Hughes
*I meant the opposite.
I believe you. I'm just saying to my recollection it wasn't that important of a plot element. If anything it was probably put in as a shout out to the Jewish media. Like:
Luis Stewart
Nah, you'd have to actually watch it and pay attention to get it. It's nothing like that. Refn is definitely a good old Nordic fascist, probably Gosling too.
Michael Sanders
You are a fucking idiot. Only one of the mobster is jewish. The main villian is called Nino for fuck sake. Also the one trying to off the girl are italians. Also the girl husband is a latino and he helps him too. You are saying a lot of stupid shit, it's no different from a Zig Forumstard sperging about star wars.
John Brown
I looked it up and I think the guy who wrote the original book might be a Jew.
brother of
And how many of these people are undoubtedly Jewish: Produced by Frank Capra III … co-producer Garrick Dion … co-producer Joe Fineman … associate producer David Lancaster … executive producer Bill Lischak … executive producer Michel Litvak … producer Linda McDonough … executive producer Jonathan Oakes … co-producer John Palermo … producer Marc Platt … producer Gigi Pritzker … producer Chris Ranta … production executive Peter Schlessel … executive producer Adam Siegel … producer James Smith … co-producer Jeffrey Stott … executive producer Gary Michael Walters … executive producer
Jose Wilson
Dude why are you even responding to that retard? Alex jones tier "MUH SUBLINAL MESSAGE" it's not fucking welcome.
Seriously fuck you all with this bullshit.
Dominic Jones
I dunno, maybe he(or whoever else thinks like him who reads it) is open-minded enough to escape his paranoiac delusions.
Maybe he'll eventually see: Not everything that could in the slightest way be perceived as making a Jewish person look bad is part of a grand conspiracy to ignite the next shoah. Especially when it's made by the Jews themselves.
Will their persecution complex ever end?
Samuel Parker
We are getting lots of this threads latley "x thing is fascist" is lowest common denominator thread.
Ethan Parker
can't it be a non-fascist script filmed by a fascist director? like the background star of davids would seem like something the director puts in, not the script.
Jayden Jenkins
Or maybe it's just a fucking coincidence? How's this different from nutjobs reading the word sex in lion king? C'mon for fuck sake
Jayden Stewart
boy i bet you'd have loads of fun watching kubrick films.
you'll have plenty of time to do it *drags you off to brutalist prison*
What are you on about? Anti zionism in hollywood is the equivalent of doing a comedy about child rapist everywhere else. Also why don't you post the full frame instead of a cropped image in the wrong format? Also since when anti semitism has anything to do with fascist? Since when the ruling ideology is anti semitic in america?
Are you trying to say that kubrick is fascist too? I don't get it. Are you one of them nuts who buys into the whole kubrick staged the moon landing? Because one thing is analizing backgrounds ecc. Another is taking symbolism to this vulgar one dimentional interpretatio. Also what would be the meaning of putting a star of david there?
Isaac Hill
no kubrick is socdem
Aaron Torres
He always gave me the idea of a guy who wanted a benevolent despotism.
William Phillips
Maybe they are fascist. I'm not an expert in Mussolini. I don't think Mussolini had much of a bad opinion on Jews before he started fucking with Hitler though.
Or maybe something the people who built the car garage put in as structural support and Refn filmed next to it because he wanted Gooseling to be backlit for the shot.
I live in italy. I've read mussolini, marinetti and the futurist manifesto. No one even mentioned jews or race in those. Mussolini was a massive opportunist. Thank you, there is another sane guy itt.
Ayden Perez
sure but anti-semitism is ok with imperialists, hence why they dump billions of dollars on Nazis in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Gavin Gonzalez
not him, but the opposite is the case. all of Kubrick's movies have overt and subtle messages about underground ruling class nazism.
Nolan White
Also because other poster is a massive cocksucker, here's the actual frame and not a convinently cropped image
This I agree with. While I think Kubrick was a reactionary, I don't think he was a fascist. He always used Fascist imagery as de humanizing
Yeah but they don't actual shill for it. Also look at the frame in its entirety not the cropped image
Brandon Nelson
IDGI, how does the uncropped image disprove my point? It's the same, it's a star of david. actually, it brings another point, which is that none of the other doors have that pattern. It was plainly deliberate symbolism when you take into account the rest of the movie. Look, I don't know what you think movie directors do during shoots. Skilled directors like Refn painstakingly try to put meaning into every shot and every line of dialogue. It's their fucking job. So what's the meaning of Drive? It's a fascist myth. I don't know how you can protest that he'd neeeeever get to make a movie like that when World Peace aired on Adult Swim. Fascism depends on the active support of liberalism.
And? You have to put Jewish symbols on doors that have windows? You have to frame your Jewish characters with them?
Leo Jenkins
Those bars weren't put in by the filmmaker. You really think they built or altered that garage for an indie movie?
This is starting to feel like a Zig Forums roleplay or something…
Connor Bell
That's just structual support you fuck. Also it's literally the opposite of a Zig Forums fantasy. The guy was ready to die for a half latino child, a race mixer and a latino ex con.
Robert Cruz
You have to put those beams in there because the door made of corrugated tin needs more support when you cut out a large section of the middle of it.
Gavin Williams
Don't sage you fag. This one you eat. It structual support and doesn't even resemble a star of david. Also why would he put that there when the character is explicitly jew? Why a skilled director would repeat himself like so? Also how about the fact the protagonist nearly died to defend a race mixed, a latino child and an ex con?
Carter Harris
why would you use a star of david for support that would be like asking the PLO to create a jewish state or ⛏️rotskyists to the committee for socialist unity.
Grayson Harris
First of all, it's irrelevant whether they modified the door or swapped doors. But the movie had a $15 mil budget and lots of expensive cars, you really think it'd be beyond them to mod or replace a fucking aluminum door?
What, like when Zig Forums analyses liberal movies and (shock!) finds liberal messages? Are you against all analysis of movies or what?
Yeah I'm against dumb PoMo shit no matter who does it.
Adrian James
I don't know why I love debating retards:
Picture Car Warehouse is the film location for Shannon’s Garage. It was the first location chosen for the movie by Refn himself. “It really came by chance; I was out there looking at some of the picture cars that we could use in the movie, and I just loved the location,” shares Refn. “I said, ‘This is where we’re shooting the mechanic’s! This is going to be Shannon’s place.’ And there was just one rule to the production team: Do not move a single thing. It was completely, leave it as it is. The only thing I did was I had the production designer paint the wall blue instead of green, because it stood out more in contrast. I’m color-blind, so everything has to be very contrasted for me to see.”
I'm just refuting your ridiculous argument that fascists didn't like Drive. They loved it.
Where have I once advanced a postmodernist outlook in my analysis? I am a dialectical materialist, do you think Marxists can't analyze art you fucking idiot?
Wow I wonder why he liked it so much???
David Flores
Wtf i hate vaporwave now
James Lewis
Alright, I'm just chalking this up as an episode of Zig Forums roleplays as a communist and moving on.
Bentley Carter
Alright, I'm just chalking this up as an episode of a liberal roleplays as a communist and moving on. Watch this: youtu.be/Pg9xgJc2efc
Dominic Thompson
I guess there is no option other than suicide. Debord talks about this, in commodity culture everything is a commodity and a representation of what is real (like writing, art, etc) so even the things used to destroy commodity culture (proper propaganda and writing that rallies radical change) are instances of commodity culture. This isn't always a bad thing, for vaporwave though obviously it no longer represents anything radical.
Nathaniel Martin
After you
William Nelson
Because it was popular and seeped into the mainstream. Capitalism adopts anything. If BLM had its own aesthetics, capitalism would adopt them - I just did a rudimentary search to see if Wal*Mart carries ACAB shirts. Check it out:
Granted, the Archive didn't save the back side of the shirt (which has "ACAB" on it), but this is some band's shirt. They could probably actually get sued if the store ran anything more blatant.
That said, I do think it's true that vaporwave evoked "nostalgia" of sorts - or at least a sense of beauty encompassed in ruined malls and "futuristic" 3D art. Dead malls are beautiful, in the same sense as dead houses and cemeteries and ruined cities. And likewise (but for different reasons) old websites and vanished software - together with the malls, they evoke a future which never came - made up of both cynical false promises and authentic passions. Capitalism strikes all of it down, and retards the progress of technology and the pursuit of community to a crawl. We look now on the cities of the "future," where there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to know.
Aaron Harris
How is art class?
Christian Campbell
I dropped out years ago.
But, yeah, I'm pretty sure that particular sentence is more-or-less verbatim of something someone else has written about the appeal of vaporwave. But sometimes more than one person agreeing about something doesn't make it false.
Josiah Rodriguez
Holy God user! Do not you worry about making so many cuts in so many frames?
