There's a new subsubculture of vaporwave called simpsonswave (https://www.reddit.com/r/simpsonswave/)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTfa-9aCTYg

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1188-what-the-hell-is-simpsonw...

I really love the development of "internet culture".

I don't think they're inspired by Japanese culture as much as have random Japanese characters for no reason and sometimes random anime characters as some form of irony.

Vaporwave is inspired by hollow consumerism and the false promise of technology ("vaporware"). Vaporwave takes it aesthetic from dated software, corporate brochures, etc. of the 80s and early 90s and often takes samples from muzak that would've been heard in a garish shopping mall of that era. The Japanese artist names and song titles originate from, I presume, the tech and manufacturing boom in Japan during the 80s and 90s, a time period when Japanese products constituted a large part of the American consumer experience.

Hence the dramatic ellipsis before "inspired."

Full disclosure, I'm a pretty big fan of vaporwave "music".

Ah, my eyes somehow missed them! I've always wondered why Japanese characters of all things, but they do have good typography.

For those interested in vaporwave here's a "documentary" [0]. If you're interested you should listen to this album [1]. I like anything by t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者, like [2] and [3] are good albums. There's a related genre called Future Funk [4]. There's a few albums that mix trap with vaporwave like [5] (my all time favorite song right now) and [6].

Here are some more albums I like [7] [8].

If you want even more then here's a list of around 200 albums [9] and of course, if it's not your cup of tea, feel free to dismiss this as a bunch of hipster shit.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpP0mXOlWM although I think he's really stretching at times.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9L4q-0Pi4E ２８１４ - 新しい日の誕生/Birth of a New Day

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PdDI2swEaw t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 - 現実を超えて

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQxLkMZpqog t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 and Vincent Remember - ｉｎｔｅｒｓｔｅｌｌａｒ ｌｏｖｅ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki-fATpXa00 Saint Pepsi - Private Caller

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQxDM2K-hd0 Blank Banshee - Teen Pregnancy

[6] https://youtu.be/hDR7dWeEecs?t=3m11s VAPERROR - Mana Pool

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvU3JkngqvE S U R F I N G - Deep Fantasy

[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQjJnGCTf3w Vincent Remember - The Page Master

[9] http://vaporwaveultra.tumblr.com

Worth noting that the genre first started with Daniel Lopatin / Oneohtrix Point Never's work as "Chuck Person" and sunsetcorp. These are generally considered the very first vaporwave tracks:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFunvF0mDw - nobody here

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unN7QvSWSTo - Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1

Subjectively, I find this work (and Lopatin's other projects) to be superior to nearly all of the so-called "meme vaporwave" that popped up as a result. I do enjoy telepath/HKE/2814's ambient work, but it's not really vaporwave akin to either the Chuck Person style or the Vektroid style.

In line with the thread, all three of those styles were definitely initially signal boosted by 4chan and "meme culture" / Internet irony culture / "weird [X]" / whatever some media outlet wants to call it.

If you're interested in the music of 2814 and t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 then I highly recommend you check out DARKPYRAMID [1] and チェスマスター [2] too.

Also, a couple of great future funk albums I'm into at the moment are [3] and [4] - you might like them (if you haven't seen them already of course).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc6ldi6APWM DARKPYRAMID - A Heart Full Of Love [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mHUc0lIOM チェスマスター - I Am Chesumasuta [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cxKq9gvaOs Yung Bae - Bae [4] https://vantagenoise.bandcamp.com/album/metro-city Vantage - Metro City

I seriously hope that page is broken, for my own sanity.

Re: rant.

Yes, that page is insane. Started the fans spinning on my laptop.

A lot of this content originates from 4chan and other image boards.

Don't forget Turntable.fm which was ground zero for much of the original Vaporwave movement. Sadly the site itself is no longer with us.