Vaporwave and Internet Meme Culture Influence

It's likely that if you're reading this right now, you understand that Vaporwave is not a "serious" genre. That with every song that takes some alternative creative risk, or maybe just does something different in general, that there's also something else there in the audio or in any accompanying visuals that promotes thoughts or comments in the form of "A E S T H E T I C," "F E E L  T H E  V A P O R," or "I M  J U S T  A  K I D." That every song or video that conforms to the Vaporwave genre comes with the attitude either from the audience or from the work itself that it isn't being or doesn't want to be taken seriously. Vaporwave is one part self-indulgent joke and one part experimental music genre. What makes things more interesting is that the joke part is consistently in an almost always present state of exposure that can make it difficult for newcomers to understand what exactly is going on with the genre in the first place. If they raise their hand for help the only responses they'll often receive are things in the vain of "T H A T S  H O W  V A P O R W A V E  I S  S U P P O S E D  T O  W O R K." This is due to the large part of the Vaporwave audience present on media sharing sites that is very much involved in participating in the joke, or meme culture, of the Vaporwave genre. The meme culture here holds a fair amount of responsibility for creating how we think of Vaporwave today in terms of visuals and vocabulary but also for how the music itself sounds. The joke part, the meme part of this genre has strongly affected how Vaporwave sounds and has sounded in the past, even going so far as to help introduce and sustain micro-genres. You can just take a look at Chuck Person's Ecco Jams Vol. 1, considered one of the founding Vaporwave genre albums that was also  produced as a joke, as an example of this.

So what is meme culture? What even is a meme exactly? Let's define it basically. Think of a meme simply as a fad joke that lasts for a limited time, is generally exclusive to the internet, and requires the internet to pass along and grow. The fad joke only ends when the general public decides the joke has gotten old, thus it is named a "dead meme." The second part of this is that these are almost entirely done with a dry sense of humor (whenever one is posted or interacted with.) To not approach it or respond with completely unsubtle dryness would be the contrary of a point. You post or respond with something completely absurd, but you do it because you don't care, it isn't important enough or "serious" enough to be taken seriously. If there is a general tone for being "memey," unsubtle dry absurdity is a short way to put it. This is where Vaporwave comes in. Frequently referred to as a "meme genre," Vaporwave promotes this same sort of attitude among a select number of it's audience. This is most likely because either some of the musical ideas are so weird or simple (like having an entire album that's almost entirely slowed down old songs) or the accompanying visual aesthetic is so stylized (everything being themed thickly in old tech and media from the 80s, 90s and sometime 70s) that it can't be taken seriously. Vaporwave is so recognizably Vaporwave, so ridiculously and densely involved in its own audio visual scheme that it has to be taken more as a joke by certain community members. Maybe because some of these decisions in the audio visual department are seen by some members of the consuming audience as silly or non-serious decisions and thus taken as jokes. But despite the reasoning, since the beginning of Vaporwave's musical appearance, the "memey" side of things, the joke side of the audience and creative population in the genre have been a closely connected part of it. The meme culture surrounding Vaporwave since its birth has helped change and evolve the music itself.

Vaporwave wouldn't be here without Youtube. Youtube helped push Vaporwave to peak popularity and a majority of Vaporwave consumption is done through this platform. This isn't because all of this music just so happens to be on this platform en masse, it's due to the fact that Vaporwave's visual aesthetic is so completely vital to what Vaporwave is (mashing old tech and media of the 70s, 80s and 90s.) Because of this the visual aesthetic that so closely accompanies this music is not just vital to the sound and tone of the genre, but it's inclusion in most (if not all) Vaporwave media consumed makes it subject to "memery", or parody. Audience sees it on Youtube, creates parody (of the audio, visuals, or both) that goes back into Youtube. A great example of this creative process in action is the micro-genre "Simponswave."

Simponswave came around in in early 2016 and with Vaporwave starting up in 2010, this is far from the genres 2012 grace period in internet time. Most audiences were calling Vaporwave a "dead meme" by 2014. Simpsonswave is a series of still-growing Youtube videos that are based on a pretty simple formula. Take classic The Simpsons episodes, stitch and edit them together to portray a simple story or theme, add vaporwave or soft electronic music on top, and add claasic Vaporwave visual attributes over the video such as VHS lines, codeine purple, and cheesy or glitched visual transitions. Simponswave was started up by a Youtube user called Lucien Hughes with a video called Sunday School which utilizes Blank Banshee's "Teen Pregnancy" off of the album 0. It grew in popularity then and there and drew in a big following for a few months. What's interesting about Simpsonswave is once creators mixed the tracks with a light stiched together story from older Simpsons episodes it radically changed the tonal atmosphere and really created something different. Songs could get more sad such as in "Crisis", but songs could also become hopeful or nostalgic like in the video "Millhouse 1996." This along with the addition of periodic quotes or audio clips from The Simpsons used as well really topped off and made Simponswave into its own transformative creative experience. Once the fall of 2016 swung in, the micro genre had lost a lot of steam with a fair amount of people already throwing it into "dead meme" territory. Though Simpsonswave has so soon already been claimed lost accounts like Lucien Hughes still do occasionally put out Simpsonswave audio visual pieces.

So what happens when somebody wants to do a parody of really just the music alone? It's simple, you get mash-ups and edits. People wanting to take the music and alter it so it becomes something different in order just to tease at it or maybe to actually insult a certain aspect. Just searching "Macintosh Plus" and "Blank Banshee" on Bandcamp's website causes a massive influx of audience created parody material to pop up. Everything from "Floral Cop" to "Death Banshee" appears. "Floral Cop" takes the opening themes from classic cop or detective procedural television programs, much in the vein of Macintosh Plus' Floral Shoppe. Then "Death Banshee" Mixes an assortment of Blank Banshee and Death Grips tracks to create something new. Once again, these follow in the same kind of meme tone. It's done for fun, don't take it too seriously, this is silly. Which is what makes something that works out very well musically but starts out as just a joke very interesting.

As an example, look at the Youtube video Resonance/80808. It's a mash up of a Death Grips and ambient electronic song called "Resonance" (a track also later used in short Simpsonswave videos) from the artist Home. Looking at how the video is flared with the classic Vaporwave visual aesthetic, flashes of purple and the hand-drawn face of Death Grips' lead Vocalist, MC Ride, we can see this video falling in line with the host of other similar Youtube videos that are also kind of done as a joke. What makes this one different though is that the mash-up comes out as a high quality musical example that exceeds the expectations of the Death Grips mash-up video meme. The audio in both songs is only tweaked minimally but is done in such a way that causes both tracks to synthesize beautifully. It gets more interesting when you see that the comments section, that on this kind of video would normally filled with comments like "D E A T H  G R I P S" and "A E S T H E T I C" has audience members genuinely taken back and appreciative of the track in the video. What it does here is sort of break the meme you could say. It breaks the tone of the meme culture in these videos and has people participating in appreciating the musical form. Of course there are still spaced lettered comments and absurd humor still present in this comment section, it is Youtube after all.

The last example here is the album "Vapor.wav" from December 2016. Currently audible on Bandcamp the album comes from Odaxelagnia. What this album does is fuse the the meme culture reception of Vaporwave over the last few years with the creative, more direct, not-so-memey side of the Vaporwave genre. What comes out is an album that on one hand knows, right down from the visuals to the music, that sometimes Vaporwave is silly and can be taken very, very lightly, but on the other hand makes an effort to create something that sounds great and is unique within the genre. "Vapor.wav" is a quality Future Funk album that feels different, feels like it understands the genre, and has an opening track with a sinister edge that knocks the socks off.

Meme culture is ingrained and intertwined in the Vaporwave genre. The jokes and the parodies produced by this will be around as long as there is Vaporwave to listen to and to watch. People constantly want to reinvent and recreate, this causes the music to undergo constant transformation as well in response. Vaporwave reacts to the meme culture surrounding it and is manipulated because of it, but sometimes Vaporwave is just a meme all on it's own and happy accidents occur. Looking back at Chuck Persons' Ecco Jams Vol. 1, the album produced as a joke that some say helped create the genre, maybe Vaporwave is the happy accident.