# Vaporwave Vaporwave started in July 2011 as an obscure Bandcamp microgenre built from pitch-shifted 80s Muzak samples, Japanese kanji track titles, and glossy mall-corridor atmospherics, released by a handful of pseudonymous producers. Its palm trees, Greek busts, and purple-magenta grids escaped music blogs to become one of the defining internet aesthetics of the 2010s. ## Origin According to a feature in the Chicago Reader, the genre began on July 1, 2011 with the release of the album New Dreams LTD. by the pseudonymous producer Laserdisc Visions, with the label 'vaporwave' later applied by Texas producer Will Burnett[1]. The earliest known printed use of the word appeared on October 13, 2011 in a Weed Temple blog review of the Girlhood album Surfs Pure Hearts, which described the record using the then-new term[4]. Early vaporwave records circulated almost entirely on Bandcamp and small blogs rather than mainstream outlets, with artists releasing under multiple aliases and often giving away or dollar-pricing their albums[1]. Adam Harper's December 2012 essay for Dummy magazine pulled the scene into wider critical view, naming artists like Fatima Al Qadiri, James Ferraro, Gatekeeper, INTERNETCLUB, and New Dreams Ltd. as part of a 'new faction within underground art-pop' working with the imagery of hyper-capitalism[2]. - **Platform:** Bandcamp (album releases) / music blogs (term coinage and spread) - **Creator:** Laserdisc Visions (first vaporwave album); term coined by Will Burnett - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview Vaporwave is built around a very specific sonic trick: taking 1980s smooth jazz, elevator Muzak, corporate training tapes, home-shopping jingles, and cheesy adult-contemporary ballads, then slowing them down, pitch-shifting them, chopping them into loops, and drenching them in reverb until they feel like a mall at 3am[1]. Track titles are typically rendered in Japanese kanji or full-width Unicode characters, album art leans on marble busts, dolphins, Windows 95 UI chrome, pink grids, and old Pepsi logos, and artist names like Laserdisc Visions, INTERNETCLUB, 情報デスクVIRTUAL, and 회사AUTO play with the look of corporate branding gone slightly wrong[2]. Critic Adam Harper framed the music as the sound of late capitalism eating itself, asking whether the artists were sarcastic anti-capitalists exposing the lies of techno-culture or willing accelerationists lubricating Capital with every pitched-down sax solo[2]. The joke, and the attraction, is that readers never fully know. Fans on Urban Dictionary described vaporwave more plainly as 'mall music, elevator music, ironic critique of global capitalism in the form of sample based infomercials and home shopping networks'[3]. As a visual meme, vaporwave spread far beyond its small music scene. The aesthetic became a Tumblr staple of bright colors and nostalgic 1990s imagery[3], then a design shorthand on YouTube, Reddit, and 4chan for anything mocking consumer culture, corporate optimism, or dead malls. The music genre and the aesthetic grew up together, and by the mid-2010s one implied the other[6]. ## How It Spread Vaporwave moved outward in two linked waves: the music scene itself, and the much larger visual meme it inspired. On the music side, Adam Harper's December 2012 Dummy piece was the pivotal moment of critical legitimation, framing the records as an accelerationist art movement and introducing a general reader to names that had previously only lived on Bandcamp[2]. By March 2013, music bloggers were already arguing over whether the microgenre had peaked, with one widely cited post titled 'The Verdict on Vaporwave' debating its status while fans in the comments insisted the scene was healthier than ever[5]. The genre kept producing new flagship releases through the mid-2010s. In November 2015 Rolling Stone named the duo 2814, calling them 'dreamy vaporwavers', one of its '10 New Artists You Need to Know' for the month[7]. Their album 新しい日の誕生 drew a famously stream-of-consciousness long-form review from Tiny Mix Tapes, which rendered large stretches of its own prose in the same full-width characters used by vaporwave artists themselves[8]. Early archival releases such as Laserdisc Visions' New Dreams LTD. are still hosted on YouTube in full-album form, where they racked up listens long after the Bandcamp originals disappeared[9]. As a visual meme, the aesthetic became a reliable Tumblr genre of bright gradients, marble statues, and 1990s nostalgia[3], then showed up on YouTube in dozens of recognisable formats, from full-album uploads of foundational records[9] to compilations and reaction mixes[10][11][12]. By the time one 2013 blog commenter wrote 'It's almost 2017 and vaporwave is bigger than ever', the word had stopped meaning only music and started working as shorthand for an entire late-internet mood[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Vaporwave? Vaporwave is a music genre and internet aesthetic built from slowed and chopped samples of 1980s smooth jazz, Muzak, and corporate background music, usually paired with Japanese track titles and 1990s mall-era visuals[1]. ### Where did Vaporwave come from? The genre started on July 1, 2011 with the release of the album New Dreams LTD. by Laserdisc Visions, according to a feature in the Chicago Reader[1]. ### What does Vaporwave mean? The word was applied to the scene by Texas producer Will Burnett and is often read as a play on 'vaporware', the tech industry term for products that are hyped but never shipped, which fits the music's satire of corporate marketing[1][2]. ### How do you use Vaporwave? Producers typically take a short loop of 80s smooth jazz or Muzak, pitch it down, drench it in reverb, and title the track in Japanese kanji, while visual artists use pink-magenta grids, marble busts, and 90s computer UI to signal the aesthetic[1][3]. ### Is Vaporwave still popular? Vaporwave is still an active online aesthetic and reference point; commenters on music blogs noted as early as 2013 that reports of its death were premature, and the sound stayed in regular use through major label profiles like Rolling Stone's 2015 feature on 2814[5][7]. ### Who coined the term 'vaporwave'? The label was applied to the emerging scene by Texas-based producer Will Burnett, per the Chicago Reader's history of the genre[1]. ### What was the first vaporwave album? New Dreams LTD. by Laserdisc Visions, released July 1, 2011, is generally credited as the first vaporwave album[1]. ### Why does vaporwave use Japanese characters? The use of Japanese kanji and full-width Unicode in track titles plays off 1980s and early 90s imagery of Japan as the imagined future of global capitalism, which fits the genre's broader satire of corporate culture[6]. ### Is vaporwave a critique of capitalism? Critic Adam Harper argued in Dummy that the music can be read either as sarcastic anti-capitalism or as willing accelerationism, and that the ambiguity is part of the point[2]. ### Who are the key vaporwave artists? Early critical coverage pointed to Fatima Al Qadiri, James Ferraro, Gatekeeper, INTERNETCLUB, and New Dreams Ltd. as central figures, with the duo 2814 later profiled by Rolling Stone[2][7]. ## References 1. [https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/vaporwave-spf420-chaz-allen-metallic-ghosts-prismcorp-veracom/Content?oid=8831558]() 2. [https://www.dummymag.com/news/adam-harper-vaporwave/]() 3. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Vaporwave]() 4. [https://weedtemple.blogspot.com/2011/10/review-girlhood-surfs-pure-hearts-holy.html]() 5. [https://anothercountyheard.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-verdict-on-vaporwave.html]() 6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vaporwave]() 7. [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/10-new-artists-you-need-to-know-november-2015-147133/2814-2-146036/]() 8. [https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/-65298-65304-65297-65300---26032-12375-12356-26085-12398-35477-29983]() 9. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t0fVy0Td64]() 10. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPXY4qjSUtw]() 11. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si1llfNXsI0]() 12. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nHiH4VihOc]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/vaporwave Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library