Genuine appreciation for the ironic

You know, vaporwave started out as an ironic critique of 80s/90s capitalism. I was told I wasn't meant to love the vapid worlds it displayed, the shitty 3D, the soft muzak, the VHS quality advertisements. I wasn't supposed to love the Click Now! ads or the dorky look of the 90s/early 00s.

But I fucking do, I fucking love this shit. I want to shape my entire life around those things. I want to live in a mall, I want to blast Fatboy Slim and wear chrome pants, I want the Headspace windows media player skins, I want realplayer and the return of Vortex, the Arkanoid clone from the iPod Nano. I want a Gateway PC, a Siemens Xelibri, and the return of drum and bass.

Are there bigger problems in the world? Sure. But things felt more hopeful back when things looked like anything was possible, back when things weren't designed for optimized profit. I miss the clunk, the jank, the futuristic vision. Give me THAT world. You can keep your fucking iphones and Galaxies, your chromebooks and your iMacs. Give me that "Congratulations you've won!" and that aquarium screensaver. People may call that shit soulless but to me it's got far more soul than any of the shit from today. Give me web 1.0, this 3.0 shit's for the birds.