sheep WRITER The question has been floating around the community — is it just a meme, is it a serious subgenre under the vaporwave umbrella? Arguably, the simplest way to describe vaporwave 2, or glo-fi as some prefer to call it, is vaporesque music that utilizes real instruments and vocals. While not necessarily entirely sample-free, it harkens to a sound similar to vaporwave, but dreamier and somehow with more feeling. If vaporwave is the machine, then its second iteration would be the attribution of emotion and feeling to said machine. As for the origins of the term “vaporwave 2,” we look to Dan Mason. “I’m going to be real with you, ‘vaporwave 2’ was kind of a joke name I made and it stuck with some people...The main reason I came up with VW2 as a name was to make it seem like it [was] the next wave in the genre.” There seems to be a reluctance to accept the movement among some consumers and contributors of the vaporwave scene. Even in my own efforts to learn what vaporwave 2 could be considered, I was met with fewer facts and more instances of witticism and chiding. Looking outward towards the community for any sort of commentary on vaporwave 2 was more than a daunting task — a lack of genuine responses and an abundance of jokes (as to be expected due to the nature of the genre’s birth) had me on a field trip in search of artists who considered themselves, or were considered by their peers, to be creating within the subgenre.
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“If vaporwave is the machine, then its second iteration would be the attribution of emotion and feeling to said machine.”
