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.
