Vaporwave and Tokugawa Japan
Jul. 11th, 2019 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
princeofdoomHaving researched Tokugawa/Edo period Japan a lot recently, it might be a stretch - but I don't think it's that much of a stretch - to say that vaporwave today is to the 90's as Edo period fashion and aesthetics were to the Heian. While the people of the Tokugawa period didn't grow up in the Heian (unless maybe some youkai actually existed), there was this yearning for another time that we also see in vaporwave. Because of the laws and changes to social structure, both in the modern world and in Tokugawa Japan, things could not really go back to that other time, so this longing has a melancholic quality to it which lends to an escapist nature, and lots of art, music, poetry, etc giving a substance to these feelings.
We do our best to recapture the feeling of the 90's and early 2000's, our childhoods, with the full knowledge that we can't stop or even slow time. In Tokugawa Japan, many of the laws about dress and conduct to act or dress like their ancestors in the Heian, and they didn't try to mirror the clothing much at all. But in art, motifs and themes of the natural world away from the city became more and more popular as Japan became more urbanized, and pictures heavily relied on Heian symbolism with slightly new meanings for the time; In theater, stories set in the Heian or ambiguously "in the past" became popular; Nobles and samurai and even many wealthy merchants took up pastimes that had been popular with the Heian nobility.
Even if you aren't a fan of vaporwave, can you say you haven't thought about the transitory nature of life? About what it means to be a person? Do your feelings have meaning? Why is nostalgia such a strong force in our lives?
This will all happen again. In the future somewhere, people will become nostalgic to a high degree for a time they can't go back to. It will be a time of great social change. It will be a time when people will be redefining the values of their entire society, when they aren't sure what is important, or if they are important, or if we make our own meaning.
Whether there is meaning in any of this, we're all floating along the same river to an ocean we can't make out. We may as well enjoy ourselves while we're here.
We do our best to recapture the feeling of the 90's and early 2000's, our childhoods, with the full knowledge that we can't stop or even slow time. In Tokugawa Japan, many of the laws about dress and conduct to act or dress like their ancestors in the Heian, and they didn't try to mirror the clothing much at all. But in art, motifs and themes of the natural world away from the city became more and more popular as Japan became more urbanized, and pictures heavily relied on Heian symbolism with slightly new meanings for the time; In theater, stories set in the Heian or ambiguously "in the past" became popular; Nobles and samurai and even many wealthy merchants took up pastimes that had been popular with the Heian nobility.
Even if you aren't a fan of vaporwave, can you say you haven't thought about the transitory nature of life? About what it means to be a person? Do your feelings have meaning? Why is nostalgia such a strong force in our lives?
This will all happen again. In the future somewhere, people will become nostalgic to a high degree for a time they can't go back to. It will be a time of great social change. It will be a time when people will be redefining the values of their entire society, when they aren't sure what is important, or if they are important, or if we make our own meaning.
Whether there is meaning in any of this, we're all floating along the same river to an ocean we can't make out. We may as well enjoy ourselves while we're here.
