Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelbuckbee | Hacker News Reader

My mind just can't accept that this isn't a parody / publicity stunt.

It's an aesthetic, or as they call it, an a e s t h e t i c. There's nostalgia in that style, when internet was 90s and simpler. When malls were flourishing and it looked like we were heading towards a comfortable consumerist end of history rather than a hyper-optimized automated dystopia. The Windows 95 phone could be considered vaporwave:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17405219

Small correction - ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣ (e.g. Fullwidth unicode latin caps) would be more canonical. I believe it's intended to evoke use of fullwidth romaji in Japanese as a bit of a play on Japanese use of english words to sound cool.

When I read text with the fullwidth latin unicode like that, it certainly feels more dreamlike. I think Vaporwave appeals to me a lot as tapes and the aesthetics of foreign-made (eg: Japan, Taiwan, etc.) electronics feel vivid in the fuzzier memories of my childhood.

If the film Inception was made today, the photograph in the vault could have been an old VHS tape.

And yet it's a sub with 100,000 followers:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Vaporwave/

There's a sub-genre that dubs Vaporwave songs with Simpsons clips that has tens of millions of views on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpsonwave

It is indeed very real. Surreal, even.

Simpsonwave is one of those things that reminded me just how great having the Internet is. I'm not in the community by any means, but as soon as I learned about it, I was so happy that it existed and that it had a community putting out work.

Simpsonwave really brought back my love of Memphis Horrorcore.

Come & Get Yo Wig Split! (heavily sampled in one of those Ryan Celcius videos)

If you think that Simpsonwave is weird, just wait until you discover fashwave: https://thump.vice.com/en_uk/article/mgwk7b/fashwave-trumpwa...

It's literally the same as vaporwave, but with fascist titles and graphics. Reminds me a lot of neo-Nazis appropriating metal and punk.

Vaporwave is a weird genre. It's really popular on the internet, but it never quite hit mainstream, I don't see clubs playing it and most of the artists seem to be self-releasing. A vaporwave artist had a gig here in Melbourne a couple of months ago (I can't remember who it was now), and I thought about going along just to see what kind of people actually listen to it in real life.

Well now I have Cybernazi in my Youtube history, guess I should read the article before clicking the Youtube link and then blithely clicking "okay" on the notice informing me that the video content has been flagged. Though I'm mostly just annoyed that they have replaced an "a" with a delta instead of an alpha.

You can't see the imagery when just listening to the music.

There's no message in the music, just the YT video. If you like the music, so what? No need to be ashamed.

A lot of the fashwave stuff sounds great, and no one is going to know why it's considered "bad" by listening.

The Trumpwave/fashwave stuff is often other songs with only the music video changed c.f. the original Trumpwave video https://youtu.be/_k1zJV0DSvc

CybernΔzi is an original artist.

Another original artist is Xurious, who does sometimes include spoken word in the tracks (I recall at least one with Woes in it).

I also wouldn't conflate Trumpwave with fashwave. Trumpwave imagery is of course popular with the TD crowd, fashwave not so much when they realize the associations.

None the less, if you like the music, no need to self flagellate.

The video in question though has its backing track by iamMANOLIS

I really didn't even notice the vice article had an embedded video (the wonders of video blocker extensions). I had assumed that the OP had gone down a youtube rabbithole much in the same way I discovered fashwave from looking into synthwave and retrowave.

Edit: wait the Trumpwave video isn't fashwave, and isn't CybernΔzi. I assumed you were referring to the vice article.

Yeah but by sharing the music with others youre helping spread propoganda. Even juust watching the video probably helps it spread on YouTube with the recommendation algorithm. Gotta be careful.

You're doing the same thing with Vice articles, and my goodness who are you calling your acquaintances if they are so easily swayed by imagery on a youtube video?

New Orleans has a whole vaporwave centric Krewe (parade and party social club) led by one of the Arcade Fire frontmen. They threw a pretty awesome party modeled after the 1984 World’s Fair earlier this year.

I thought the same thing when all these punk and indie groups were releasing cassettes. Then I found out that most people didn't play the cassettes. They bought them because they look good on a shelf. The cassettes have a download code printed inside (Bandcamp will spit out a CSV), so when you actually want to listen to the music, most will redeem the code (or just stream it).

So it's still pretty silly, but not as silly as I thought. I have to presume Floppy releases are similar (Who even has a floppy drive now a days?)

Not only similar, but exactly what the guy selling the floppies thinks:

> "And a lot of these people, I don’t even think a lot of ’em play the shit. They just kind of put it on their shelf."

It's art and nice to display. People do the same with vinyl records, comics, etc., definitely looks cool to have for collectors and lovers of old tech.

Yes. I actually kept some of the cassettes I was given, and they do look nice on a shelf. Plus it's a way to support the band.

I once considered releasing a tape with no music on it. Just nice cover art. I wonder if anyone would know?

SOPHIE did that with a CD once, right?

I have a copy of this "LP". It's just the cover art, no actual record inside. I guess that made some people pretty mad who actually bought it. https://www.discogs.com/Pigeon-Religion-Why-Do-You-Hate-Pige...

Punks, at least, most certainly do listen to cassettes. Cassettes are cheaper to run in small quantities than vinyl. Cassette players are cheap and easy to find. Punk music sounds good on cassette.

I'm not so sure about floppy releases. But there is probably some overlap between retrocomputing enthusiasts and vaporwave fans. Maybe they're the target market. At least floppies are thin; a shelf full of cassettes will fill up quickly.

Punks, at least, most certainly do listen to cassettes.

And my wife, as well. She's not a punk, but she buys cassettes and listens to them, too. I assume because it brings back memories.

Duran Duran, Beck, Prince, Police, etc...

Used ones from the record store she picks up for about $2. New releases run more, but I don't ask.

But she listens to them. We picked up a huge box of blank 90-minute NOS Maxell tapes at an antiques store recently, and she's busy recording her records to tape so she can listen to them via Bluetooth in her car (via battery powered BT dongle).

She picked up several brand new tape players and boom boxes in Japan recently to make sure she has something to play her cassettes on. Though I've seen some at Amoeba, too. But they're just way more expensive in L.A.

Never try to understand the logic of a hardcore music fan.