One of my favorite elements of the internet is how different eras can intersect within a single piece of media. With an inventive mind at the helm, an arrangement of ancient clips from failed sitcoms or niche commercials can find a second lease on life in artistic edits on the internet. Vaporwave videos take this concept and elevate it to absurd levels of interpretative brilliance. By stitching old footage from Simpsons episodes or Japanese ads from the 90s, all while a pulsing, funky banger scores the hodgepodge of clips, Vaporwave artists can plunge you into two disparate eras at once. The music and visuals of vaporwave are a time capsule for Gen Xers and Millenials.
Why am I digging through my proverbial YouTube crates to excavate some vaporwave classics? It's not like the genre is new or anything. If anything, vaporwave conjures as much nostalgia from Gen Z kids who grew up in the 2010s as much as the Gen X and Millenial centric clips contained in the music's related videos. This specific brand of nostalgia is precisely why I'm craving Saint Pepsi's Cherry Pepsi. I suppose I wanted to cast my mind back to a simpler time. A simpler era where I was oblivious to the cynicism that pervaded commercials for multibillion-dollar corporations like Pepsi.
So, in the spirit of washing away your negative feelings, whatever they may be, I offer you this auditory Cherry Pepsi from Saint Pepsi. I hope it goes down easy.