Anti-Annexative Tendencies In Internet Aesthetics
I think it’s interesting that Seapunk and Vaporwave artists were so quick to defer ownership and definition of the genres (don’t get on me for calling them that). Refusing to self-define and self-possess is internet culture’s evolved defense mechanism against being mainstreamed and resold. If Rihanna doesn’t know what Seapunk is, she can’t copy it (and thereby kill it). If nobody claims to be a Vaporwave artist or everyone rapidly moves on to Casinowave, Sciwave, Bitwave etc., it becomes hard to capitalize on the trend.
This makes room in the community for early lurkers, curators and creators, but alienates critics (who rely on defining, comparing, and commenting on things) and more traditional consumers (who must be oriented to a new aesthetic via definition).
In practice, the trick only half-works. Both Seapunk and Vaporwave were pinpointed by The Mainstream, and both spooked like foxes under a spotlight.
Excluding critics and lay consumers (versus active curators) is freeing rather than limiting. Aesthetics are fun to participate in. They’re like rounds of a grand internet game where people help others find a little facet of their taste, create their own approximations of that style, and ultimately move on.
Culture has always evolved through iteration, transformation, and departure. Genres swell, crest, break like waves on the mainstream, stagnate, and recede into new concepts. But the internet has upped the clock speed on the cycles of culture. Like some kind of manic whirlpool, it skips breaking and keeps finding different ways to crest. Because it is ephemeral, it lives.
This natural resistance to being quantified (and thus commodified) reminds me of observer effects. In fact, it seems a lot like quantum physics’ uncertainty principle:
If you just go with an aesthetic, you can sense where it’s going and feel its momentum. But in order to measure it, to describe it, you must stop its movement. Why do that? Not cool, man.
It will continue to baffle newspaper columnists. It will deny its own existence to survive. It will ironically rename itself seven times. It is quantum culture.
