You’ve undoubtedly seen it somewhere. Maybe it was a print-all-over-me T-shirt covered in Roman sculptures, a computer wallpaper resembling the pattern on every paper cup made from 1990 to 2005. Maybe it was through the neon-and-glitch overdose that was the 2015 VMA Awards. But no matter where you’ve seen or heard it, vaporwave is everywhere, and there is no escape from the mid-'90s aesthetic that has limped out of the dumpsters of abandoned shopping malls and into the Etsy and Redbubble stores of 2016. But what is vaporwave, and why is it so compelling? I asked these questions myself many times, and I’m still not sure I have definitive answers. But I can at least provide some insight.
The first time I heard vaporwave, one of my friends posted a link to a YouTube video on Facebook. It was titled リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー, and as I clicked to play the oddly-named video, a strange and almost familiar tune started to play. It seemed slowed down, hypnotic, and strangely yet smoothly jarring as parts of the song began to loop over and over and over. But I pretty quickly closed the tab. It wasn’t really my thing.
One week later, iTunes showed that I had played the song 13 times. Almost twice a day, on average. But I didn’t know why! It was just some Diana Ross song, played at 33 RPM, with some stock photo art thrown on top and a little use of Google Translate and Wikipedia for a title. Why was I still listening to it? And why did I feel the need for more?
One conclusion that I have come to is that my love of vaporwave comes largely from a sense of nostalgia. The artwork, filled with neon and pastel colors, archaic technology and advertisements for products long forgotten, reminds me of the late 1990s and early 2000s, smack dab in the middle of childhood, before the intrusion of the adult world. Combine this with the fact that the music sounds almost exactly like the sort of thing they would play in a shopping center filled with KB Toys and Circuit City, and vaporwave’s musical and visual aesthetic is a time machine by way of mp3.
Finally, through the lush, sedated sound and color palate, it allows the listener to calm down, to relax. It’s the musical equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket, getting a hot cup of cocoa and watching "Seinfeld" and "Simpsons" reruns after school on a cold winter’s day. There is nothing that puts you on edge in vaporwave. Only relaxation.
