Definition of "vaporwave"

Largely ignored by the mainstream press, vaporwave has instead flourished on websites such as Bandcamp and SoundCloud and on Reddit […] Because vaporwave exists almost entirely outside the sphere of PR and the music industry at large, it has tremendous “underground” appeal. […] Vaporwave is critical of Western culture's preoccupation with the past, but it is not the only art form to call our collective regression into question.

2016, Grafton Tanner, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave And The Commodification Of Ghosts, John Hunt Publishing, page 7

Vaporwave arose in reaction to huge economic and social forces that are still very much a part of our lives: globalization, runaway consumerism, and manufactured nostalgia chief among them.

2016 August 18, “How Vaporwave Was Created Then Destroyed by the Internet”, in Esquire‎

Recess’s website features the charms of vaporwave internet art and Lisa Frank-style nostalgia, while their Instagram account evokes the combined look of “Endless Summer” with “Floridian retiree” and the summer-camp psychedelia that has replaced “Lifestyle Lumberjack” as the default millennial style choice.

2019 January 8, Kate Carraway, “How to Make a Millennial Feel Cozy in Just One Beverage”, in New York Times‎

The haunting affect of Vaporwave's ghostly music is clearly seductive to a political moment which revels in dystopia, the golden years of the 90s and the sounds of the 90s: financial boom, pedestalled American Dreams and […]

2019, Emile Frankel, Hearing the Cloud: Can Music Help Reimagine The Future?‎, John Hunt Publishing