New comment by yazomie in "Utopian Scholastic"

yazomie — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 05:31:05 +0000

The originators of vaporwave - like James Ferraro, Lopatin, Vektroid/Macintosh Plus - didn't exactly "celebrate" uncritically that feel-good phase of capitalism, their takes on the plundered material featured quite a bit of darkness, eeriness and liminal feels in between the cracks... which may seem non-inexistent or sanitized with other vaporwave producers who followed, but make no mistake... Early on, music journalists framed vaporwave as implicitly an ambivalent critique of the '80s-90s, where: 1) as a child, that era seemed to be so exciting; 2) as an adult now, not only that culture did turn out to be an empty promise, but also a lot of it is dying or dead by now. In the US there are even dying shopping malls right now, which might seem weird in other countries, but that might partly explain the minor popularity of vaporwave in the US among Internet youth - even young people who aren't very "woke" can tell something's wrong at the heart of capitalism. Current techbro capitalism? Who really likes it?

Being nostalgic is one thing, endorsing "fashwave" - which not for nothing was just a microniche within vaporwave - is another. Long story short, if you go past the surface fascination with the products of 80s consumerism, vaporwave is generally not really in praise of consumerism and it most certainly disrespects copyright, which is that fundamental to that economy, isn't it?

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New comment by yazomie in "Utopian Scholastic"