How seapunk went from meme to mainstream

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Published 2016-02-29

An underground art movement makes a splash on SNL.

Seapunk is an underground art movement that officially began in 2011 via a twitter hashtag. It's inspired by the colors and sounds of the ocean and computer graphics of the late 1980s and 90s. Here's how it became mainstream.

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All Comments (21)

@FrankJavCee 8 years ago

Looks up into camera while there's a slow zoom on my face As the camera gets closer the frame shakes violently and the colors distort into pastel blues and greens The sounds of dolphins crys distorted and echo increase in volume
8 years ago

I've never heard the word seapunk before watching this video.
@xylophone897 7 years ago

Don't you mean, ｖａｐｏｒｗａｖｅ?
@wthilmi 8 years ago

What the fuck is seapunk?
@minurali980 7 years ago

The weird thing is, I genuinely do Love V A P O R W A V E. Like it's a genuine genre of music i appreciate.
@fablespartan 7 years ago

Vaporwave came in August of 2010, with the release of Chuck Pearson's Eccojams Vol. 1. Subsequent genre-defining albums include Far Side Virtual by James Ferraro released in October 2011 and Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus which was released in December 2011. Vaporwave did not sprout from Seapunk. While I would say the opposite, I think it's fair to make the argument that they came up around the same time, playing off each other in the process. If you want a good foundation for where Seapunk came from, it would be good to look at its underpinnings in early Vaporwave, which is not captured in this video.
@Jeremy-hx7zj 8 years ago

such rage towards hipsters. Without people seeking out niche, new sounds, you'd all still be listening to yourselves banging rocks against other rocks.
@redj1101 8 years ago

Did they really just call tame impala vaporwave
@Shadowstar1922 7 years ago

I wouldn't say Azealia Banks took it, I think she expanded and contributed to it. Her lyrics and music matched with the aesthetic, unlike Rihanna and Lady Gaga who's seapunk stuff didn't really add to anything, it just imitated it. Azealia Banks' mixtape Fantasea is totally seapunk. On top of that, during Azealia making seapunk music, art, lyrics etc she was also an underground rapper and artist, she wasn't popular at all.
@IanSwart 8 years ago

Change title to "How seapunk went from nobody knows to nobody cares "
@01MIA09 8 years ago

what the hell is a seapunk
@rizzat 8 years ago

V A P O R W A V E
@alyxandergonzalez9824 8 years ago

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WERE TRYING TO AVOID FUCK
@marwingillett1452 8 years ago

Same ol Mistakes isn't a sample - she covered Tame Impalas song.
@pdempw11 8 years ago

Macintosh Plus
@ArturoStojanoff 7 years ago

It sounds like she's cold. Her voice trembles at times. Somebody give that girl a blanket.
@rcreynolds6186 8 years ago

Vaporwave is dead... except the hundreds of people who still listen to it or use it as an art form.
@pres2598 8 years ago

Normies that's what
@mykioto 7 years ago

Don't bring Gaga into this. She never rode the seapunk wave
@TABBYMUSIC 6 years ago

Oh for the love of god, I finally found a genre I genuinely liked and now it’s getting killed