Vaporwave — Anti-Capitalism Internet Music
Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v3i4.1036
Abstract
Vaporwave is a music genre that appears in the 2010s and it lives on the internet. It remixes clips from the 1980s or 90s music and electronic sounds, which gives people a strong sense of confusion, emptiness and dislocation of time and space. The unique characteristics of vaporwave actually represent the attitude against capitalism and consumer culture. This essay emphasises how vaporwave utilises its features and ideas to criticise capitalism. Specifically, there are three parts that discuss the meaning of names, the ideology of vaporwave and the visual aesthetics of vaporwave.
Keywords
Internet music, vaporwave, anti-capitalism, consumerism
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[2]Schembri, Sharon. and Jac Tichbon. Digital consumers as cultural curators: the irony of Vaporwave. Arts and the Market, Vol. 7 No. 2(2017): 191-212.
[3]Nowak, Raphaël, and Andrew Whelan. Vaporwave Is (Not) a Critique of Capitalism: Genre Work in An Online Music Scene.” Open Cultural Studies 2, 1 (2018): 451-462.
[4]How Vaporwave Was Created Then Destroyed by the Internet, Esquire. Available from: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a47793/what-happened-to-vaporwave/.
[5]Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
[6]McLeod, Ken. Vaporwave: Politics, Protest, and Identity.’ Journal of Popular Music Studies, 30(2018), pp. 123-142.
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[8]Gilbert, Jeremy. Capitalism, creativity and the crisis in the music industry, openDemocracy.net. Available from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/capit alism-creativity-and-crisis-in-music-industry/.
[9]Born, Georgina and Christopher Haworth. Mixing It: Digital Ethnography and Online Research Methods — A Tale of Two Global Digital Music Genres. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography, edited by Larissa Hjorth, Heather Horst, Anne Galloway and Genevieve Bell, Routledge (2017): 70-86.
[10]Kevin, Wong. The Rise of Vaporwave & New Age Aesthetics, Steemit.com, Available from: https://steemit.com/vaporwave/@kevinwong/the-rise-of-vaporwave-and-new-age-aesthetics.
[11]Koc, Alican. Do You Want Vaporwave, or Do You Want the Truth? Cognitive Mapping of Late Capitalist Affect in the Virtual Lifeworld of Vaporwave. Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, vol. 1, no. 1, 2017.
[12]Simpson, Paul. 2814, AllMusic, Available from: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/2814-mn0003536656/biography.
[13]Chandler, Simon. Escaping Reality: the Iconography of Vaporwave, daily.bandcamp. Available from: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/vaporwave-iconography-column.
[14]Glitsos, Laura. Vaporwave, or Music Optimised for Abandoned Malls. Popular Music 37, no. 1 (2018): 100-118.
[15]The Tomorrow That Never Was: Japanese Iconography in Vaporwave, neonmusic, Available from: https://neonmusic.co.uk/japanese-iconogrpahy.
[16]Wenny, Teo. Cannibalism, Capitalism and the Cross-cultural Politics of Eating People. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 11:2-3(2012): 173-192.
[2]Schembri, Sharon. and Jac Tichbon. Digital consumers as cultural curators: the irony of Vaporwave. Arts and the Market, Vol. 7 No. 2(2017): 191-212.
[3]Nowak, Raphaël, and Andrew Whelan. Vaporwave Is (Not) a Critique of Capitalism: Genre Work in An Online Music Scene.” Open Cultural Studies 2, 1 (2018): 451-462.
[4]How Vaporwave Was Created Then Destroyed by the Internet, Esquire. Available from: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a47793/what-happened-to-vaporwave/.
[5]Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
[6]McLeod, Ken. Vaporwave: Politics, Protest, and Identity.’ Journal of Popular Music Studies, 30(2018), pp. 123-142.
[7]McIntyre, Richard. Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism: Beyond Marx and Veblen. Review of Social Economy 50, no. 1 (1992): 40-60.
[8]Gilbert, Jeremy. Capitalism, creativity and the crisis in the music industry, openDemocracy.net. Available from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/capit alism-creativity-and-crisis-in-music-industry/.
[9]Born, Georgina and Christopher Haworth. Mixing It: Digital Ethnography and Online Research Methods — A Tale of Two Global Digital Music Genres. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography, edited by Larissa Hjorth, Heather Horst, Anne Galloway and Genevieve Bell, Routledge (2017): 70-86.
[10]Kevin, Wong. The Rise of Vaporwave & New Age Aesthetics, Steemit.com, Available from: https://steemit.com/vaporwave/@kevinwong/the-rise-of-vaporwave-and-new-age-aesthetics.
[11]Koc, Alican. Do You Want Vaporwave, or Do You Want the Truth? Cognitive Mapping of Late Capitalist Affect in the Virtual Lifeworld of Vaporwave. Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, vol. 1, no. 1, 2017.
[12]Simpson, Paul. 2814, AllMusic, Available from: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/2814-mn0003536656/biography.
[13]Chandler, Simon. Escaping Reality: the Iconography of Vaporwave, daily.bandcamp. Available from: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/vaporwave-iconography-column.
[14]Glitsos, Laura. Vaporwave, or Music Optimised for Abandoned Malls. Popular Music 37, no. 1 (2018): 100-118.
[15]The Tomorrow That Never Was: Japanese Iconography in Vaporwave, neonmusic, Available from: https://neonmusic.co.uk/japanese-iconogrpahy.
[16]Wenny, Teo. Cannibalism, Capitalism and the Cross-cultural Politics of Eating People. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 11:2-3(2012): 173-192.
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