Vaporwave in the context of "Memphis Group"

A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre, often used to describe narrowly defined subcategories within music, literature, film, or art. The term has been in use since at least the 1970s, particularly in the context of music, where it refers to specific stylistic offshoots of prominent genres, such as the many sub-subgenres of heavy metal and electronic music.

Originally, microgenres were labels retroactively applied by record collectors and dealers, often to increase the perceived value of rare or obscure recordings. Early examples include Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop.

Internet aesthetics are visual styles, subcultures, and thematic trends that originated or proliferated primarily through the Internet. Originally emerging out of the early online blogosphere among Millennials in the late 2000s and gaining significant cultural traction throughout the 2010s and 2020s amongst Gen Z. Internet aesthetics encompass a wide range of niche communities and visual identities associated with contemporary youth subcultures defined by their digital circulation, curated imagery, and symbolic references to technology, nostalgia, and alternative culture, typically blending elements of fashion, music, visual art, and memes.

These aesthetics were originally often associated with early blog-based platforms such as Tumblr. By the late 2010s to early 2020s, they evolved to encompass social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, with the COVID-19 lockdowns being linked to the wider proliferation of these aesthetics online. Notable internet aesthetics include Seapunk, Vaporwave, Cottagecore, Goblincore, Gorpcore, E-girls and E-boys, Dark academia, and 2020 Alt.

James Ferraro (born November 7, 1986) is an American experimental musician, producer, composer, and contemporary artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes related to hyperreality and consumer culture. His music has drawn on diverse styles such as 1980s electronic music, new age, drone, lo-fi, sound collage, and R&B.

Ferraro began his career in the early 2000s as a member of the Californian noise duo the Skaters, after which he began recording solo work under his name and a wide variety of aliases. He released music on labels such as Hippos in Tanks and New Age Tapes. Ferraro received wider recognition when his polarizing 2011 album Far Side Virtual was chosen as Album of the Year by The Wire. He has since pivoted to releasing projects independently.

Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American electronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter. His work experiments with tropes from an eclectic range of musical genres and eras, and has featured sample-based composition and complex MIDI production. He began releasing music in the 2000s, and received early acclaim for the synthesizer-based compilation Rifts (2009) as well as the influential vaporwave side-project Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010).

Lopatin signed with Warp in 2013, and has since released studio albums on the label to positive critical reception. He has also contributed production work to various artists, most extensively the Weeknd, Moses Sumney, and Soccer Mommy. He has composed scores for films such as Good Time (2017), Uncut Gems (2019), and Marty Supreme (2025); the first won him the Soundtrack Award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Ramona Andra Langley is an American electronic musician. She has released music under her primary Vektroid alias, as well as others, such as dstnt, Laserdisc Visions, New Dreams Ltd., Virtual Information Desk, and PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises. Langley played a prominent role in the popularization of the vaporwave subgenre with the release of her ninth studio album, Floral Shoppe, under the alias Macintosh Plus. Since then, she has continued to release music through Bandcamp and other online platforms.

Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 is a 2010 album of remixes by American electronic musician Daniel Lopatin under the pseudonym Chuck Person. Its tracks consist of chopped, looped samples of various songs—including popular songs from the 1980s and 1990s—processed with effects such as delay, reverb, and pitch shifting; the results highlight mournful or existential moments from the sources. The album led to the emergence of a style known as "eccojams", which later influenced the internet microgenre vaporwave and came to be regarded as one of its early progenitors.

Prior to Eccojams Vol. 1's release, Lopatin posted a series of videos that he called "eccojams" to a YouTube channel named "sunsetcorp". The album was released under the label The Curatorial Club in August 2010 on 100 cassette tapes. By the time an official remastered version was released for digital download in November 2016, recognition for Eccojams Vol. 1 had grown, with the original tapes selling on Discogs at three-digit prices.

Far Side Virtual is a studio album by American electronic musician James Ferraro, released on October 25, 2011 by Hippos in Tanks. Conceived as a series of ringtones, the album marked Ferraro's transition from his previous lo-fi recording approach to a sharply produced, electronic aesthetic that deliberately evokes sources such as elevator music, corporate mood music, easy listening, and early computer sound design. The album has been interpreted as engaging with themes such as hyperreality, disposable consumer culture, 1990s retrofuturism, advertising, and musical kitsch.

Far Side Virtual was met with polarizing but generally positive reviews, with most critics commending its conceptual underpinnings and noting its ambiguous relationship to its subject. It was named album of the year by British magazine The Wire, a decision which was met with contention from some journalists and readers. The album has since been cited as one of the forerunners to the internet microgenre vaporwave as well as its offshoot utopian virtual.

Floral Shoppe (Japanese: フローラルの専門店, Hepburn: Furōraru no Senmon-ten) is the ninth studio album by the American electronic musician Ramona Andra Langley, released on December 9, 2011 under the alias Macintosh Plus by the independent record label Beer on the Rug. It was one of the first releases of the 2010s microgenre known as vaporwave to gain popular recognition on the Internet.