Seapunk and vaporwave emerged

near one another in time as digital

subcultures (microcultures) each
identifiable primarily by particular
aesthetics. One could say they were
each fashion trends comprised of
certain graphic design approaches,
styles of dress, music genres, etc. Why
is it that seapunk suddenly ended
whereas vaporwave is still a strong
cultural phenomenon years later? It is
this authors contention that while both
microcultures were born of internet
fashion trends, vaporwave seemed to
develop a conceptual framework over
time which provided continuity,
coherence and resilience to the

movement whereas seapunk was not

able to do so.
Each culture was based on a network
of images and motifs, but not
necessarily explicit ideas. That is, they
had identifiable traits but no strict
underlying meaning or message. Over
time however, from vaporwave emerged
a sense of meaning, a message that
included a critique of consumer
capitalism, a reaction to globalization,
and a seeming support for neo-futurist
accelerationism. This platform of
vaporwave appears to have been an
emergent phenomenon of the
movement itself, not at any point (to the
authors knowledge) laid out in artists

statements, manifestoes, etc.

Vaporwave developed values, created a
world, embodied a narrative; seapunk
did not. This world ensured the
continued cultural relevance of
vaporwave, whereas seapunks lack of
narrative left it a mere trend and
ultimately led to memetic death. A
network of images was collaboratively
produced by a group of people, and that
image-network thereby generated its
own world, values, narrative.
The history of vaporwave is an
inversion of the traditional notion of how
art movements are born. Conventional
wisdom has it that an artist or artists
have a vision at the beginning of the

creative process which they attempt to

actualize through the work. When they
have actualized this vision, others
inspired by this actualized vision create
similar works and a memeplex is born
out of the collective value systems of the
artists involved, by way of a conscious
premeditated intention. Vaporwave
differs in that it was not born of a group
which consciously set out to build a
shared vision, but rather, meaning was
assigned to it over time by its
participants, both creators and
audience. This is the case with much
cultural production, yet with vaporwave
the production is different in that the
trajectory flows from a starting point of

pure aesthetics, to an aesthetics infused

with philosophy/ideology. What we have
is a situation in which a network of
images produces a coherent system of
ideas, rather than a system of ideas
which effects a congruent network of
images.
Imagine then, using this
interpretation as a tool for not only
producing better art (whatever that
might mean for each individual artist)
but as a way to articulate particularly
difficult ideas, by constructing
philosophies in reverse. This is
essentially an occult approach; the
manipulation of images/memes to create
a psychological effect either in oneself

or in others. Vaporwaves nonlinear

assembly can act as a blueprint for
finding congruency between ideas,
systems, etc. previously found to be
incompatible when the same attempt
was made via conventional top-down
declarative means, such as through the
authoring of manifestoes or by direct
discussion of ideas. Place two images
on top of each other, see where
couplings naturally form, and from there
a new memeplex is born.
A process as outlined above would
essentially be intuitive-rhizomatic
memetic engineering. Such a method
would be analogous to drawing a Tarot
spread, using the entire human universe

as ones deck.