I honestly thought that Simpsonwave was a joke,
and then I was like "Is Simpsonwave not a joke?" and now I'm like "Simpsonwave is not a joke!"
...probably
My introduction to Simpson wave came be a FrankJavCee video titled "HOW TO SIMPSONWAVE" that I assumed was satire.
"With the ever-growing virus known as vaporwave
influencing internet artists around the globe, it was only a matter of time 'till the sub-genre
Simpsonwave was birthed out into the millennial childhood wonderment that is known as early 90's primetime television."
It's an amazing video, and there is a link in the description, so please,
take some time to watch it, but I just assumed this whole thing had come out of Frank's broken horrible brain.
[singing] Happy birthday, Anthony Fantano, you were born approximately three decades ago
This is the same guy who just posted a video called "How To Swamp Juice" to celebrate Shrek's 15-year anniversary.
[sips juice] Bon appetit.
Um what else did Shrek say? So I just filed
Simpsonwave away in the recesses of my mind and went back to thinking about
Fast-food Metal or whatever, and then one day
I saw a tweet for one of my normie friends to the effect of
"I just can't stop watching Simpsonwave videos", and I was confused and then before I knew it. I just couldn't stop watching Simpsonwave videos.
That video,
ＳＵＮＤＡＹＳＣＨＯＯＬ, has almost a million views. And yes, for the astute vaporwave fans among you,
that's just a Blank Banshee song, whose original Bart-free upload from 2012 has less than half as many views.
And that is essentially the beginning in the end of the mechanics of Simpsonwave.
Consisting, basically, of wavy,
trippy Simpsons clips overtop of
someone else's vaporwave tracks, Simpsonwave is very much rooted in the mashup culture that gave us hits like "Freelance Hellraisers
2001 - A Stroke Of Genie-us."
Recently we have seen musical master culture evolve into a more contemporary form. As - and
I'm so sorry that I'm bringing this up again -
Soundcloud. Soundclowns are not full songs.
They're jokes or experiments or snippets of an idea that are more often than not under a minute long.
 
For some context, that video got me trolled super hard and quite effectively by an entire scene of Hardcore Irony Bros.
But where Simpsonwave fits into this evolution is quite fascinating, because it takes the ironic
extreme of weird Soundcloud super short mashup joke culture, and rather than one upping it,
Instead dives super hard into super sincere territory.
The Simpsons is the greatest show in the history of television, not only because it contains the best jokes ever written,
but because of the undercurrent of human emotion and pathos that drives its best episodes.
It's why it is very offensive to some people to compare it to the talking dog show. This same concept with a
wisecracking baby is just a glitchy meme that you clicked on by accident. And yet somehow the
combination of the deliberate and manufactured nostalgia of vaporwave with the actual real nostalgia of seeing
Lisa's trip to Ned Flanders as Beach house on the 4th of July is
genuinely emotionally stirring.
Most of these videos are by Lucien Hughes, who has definitely made the most shared Simpsonwave videos on this site.
But some time spent snooping around the internet makes it appear that the first Simpsonwave video actually showed up on
Facebook in January 2016, and then later that month a
"Simpwave" video was uploaded to Youtube by Solid's Cardboard Box, the proverbial first man on the moon.
Then came a torrent of videos from Hughes, Frank's video and a
surprising number of sincere participants in this blip of a new subject.
It is interesting that vaporwave is the genre being played with you.
And while I am willing to concede that the actual reason for this is that people making these videos are meme lords who love genres
created on the Internet, there's something to be said about a new emotional resonance being added to a genre of music that I would argue
exists specifically to mock the commercial and corporate vibe of mall type music.
I have argued as much on this channel before.
Vaporwave is a play on Vaporware,
a non-existent product used by a company to hype up its image or its value. And the aesthetic of album art and music videos tends to
either mimic your old GeoCities website template or the VHS tapes that you hide in your mom's basement.
Vaporwave tracks themselves detune and Scramble Lounge Smooth jazz and musac,
mocking the emptiness of this hyper capitalist music by
recontextualizing and reimagining it. That a new visual spin on a genre born of such a specific aesthetic
could then become so emotionally resonant is -
surprising. But stranger things have happened. Like Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin.
Just as useful.
What do you think? Is Simpsonwave real, or just a joke? Have I totally clowned myself?
And do you agree that there is an emotional resonance to just pairing a pre-existing vaporwave track and, like, Homer driving in a VHS effect?
Let me know in the comments, and while we're hanging out,
my very good friend Bobby who is responsible for the aesthetic of the show - does a lot of the graphics, does the thumbnails every week -
Just started the new pin company and made this
extremely relevant pin to your interests
So if you ever cruise, or use the pin game hashtag on Instagram are a Simpsons fan -
maybe you're looking to get into the pin game - definitely check out Bobby's new pin company
There's a link in the description and these are extremely sick enamel pins. Which is a hot vibe right now
So, you know, do that. Support Bobby
like he has supported you all these many years
Subscribe for new episodes of This Exists every week-ish. Be excellent to each other.
