AESTHETICS IN VAPORWAVE
(computers and cassettes) and software (the Windows 95 logo, Nintendo logo, Sony logo, error message text boxes, etc.). The darker inserts of the imagery come from a Vaporwave predecessor, namely Cyberpunk, which is a genre of science fiction representing a lawless subculture in an oppressive society dominated by computer technology and big corporations. (reddit, 2016) Cyberpunk theory and visuals revolve around the idea of a society that is driven into a state of hollowness, of emotional lacklustre as a repercussion of its strong technological advances. It illustrates a dehumanised society whose inhabitants no longer empathise with one another, being driven apart by the suffocating digitalisation of their world. This sense of emptiness is a feature that was carried on into Vaporwave, and can be felt in many of its songs, as it was also a leading influence in the genre’s involvement in anti-consumerist commentary. The sense of serene loneliness has also been further backed by listeners who have compared it to muzak, which is the nondescript background “noise� generally played in stores. In essence, the visual side of this aesthetic is very closely related to the music that it stems from, being not just a collage of ironic nostalgia references and consumerist rants, but an illustration of the journey that Vaporwave promotes through its also heavily edited sounds. The 58