![]() "This is people who live more on the internet than in the real world. “Every other genre has started off small and grassroots, but it’s usually local communities that do it," he enthused. In between a demonic cut-and-paste set by Chris††† and the languid hypnagogic pop of FM Skyline, I bumped into Miguel Ramos, a UX Engineer from Miami who I met at the last George Clanton show I’d attended. They could trust that he’s going to understand this, and that he’s going to represent it well.” And as the vaporwave community finally gathered at Elsewhere, a line stretched around the block from the moment the doors opened, with attendees greeted at the entrance by a cardboard cut-out of Keanu Reeves waving and wearing a 100% Electronica T-shirt (an item that’s taken on a Thrasher-level ubiquity among the vaporwave community). “He’s somebody inside of this community that everybody knows and respects, and I think that’s one of the reasons that it took off. “No one could have done this festival like George did,” says Lindsey French, who also creates and performs music as Negative Gemini. ![]() But despite growing further out of the genre with each release, Clanton has leaned more into using the term as a marketing tactic to bring fans into a new era, maintaining a fervent following that includes a fan club where members pay for exclusive access to music, merch, and Clanton himself. The bleary-eyed, phone-selfie cover for his 2015 album 100% Electronica encapsulated the prototypical alone-online vaporboy of the past, and his most recent album Slide encompassed '90s rave, indie rock, and shoegaze, beckoning internet-native millennials and Gen-Zers with interests too broad to fit into vaporwave. In some ways, Clanton simultaneously embodies vaporwave’s past and future. With the help of a small team, Clanton booked many of the genre’s most celebrated artists - including Telepath, death’s dynamic shroud, Vaperror, 18 Carat Affair, and NxxxxxS - admitting, “It takes a workaholic to pull something like this off.” But charisma, internet savvy, and a deep connection to the scene has also enabled Clanton to become what some have half-jokingly deemed a “vapordaddy.” As a charismatic live performer and social media personality, his ability to bring the community together while promoting his work and others' is unparalleled after he fell off stage and broke his leg while touring with Beach Fossils earlier this year, he put a photo of himself with his leg in a cast on T-shirts and billboards across Los Angeles, effectively turning himself into a meme. “No one wanted to back me, but now it’s bigger than I ever thought.” The festival quickly ballooned into an immersive experience featuring special vaporwave merch from popular online stores, a custom chat app, and decorations inspired by memes. “We knew what we had on our hands, but it was hard to convince the gatekeepers to make this happen,” he tells me the day after the festival, sitting in a friend’s backyard in Ridgewood, Queens. He'd clearly identified an underserved niche in a subculture overflowing with product - cassettes, vinyl records, merchandise, videos - but lacking in communal experience.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |