Middle Class Millennial Nostalgia Art
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- Опубліковано 28 лип 2024
- Have you seen this retro art everywhere lately? It's affecting visual art, as well as music, and UA-cam videos. It's a retro-inspired art movement in which people of the Millennial generation create art inspired by the material culture that affected their middle class lives in the 1980s and 90s.
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Andrew Morgan: / dreamfibre
da schlechti: / da_schlechti
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I think Vaporwave really resonates with people because the 80s represents the first truly "modern" decade - so much of the consumer technology that we take for granted now got its very archaic start in this decade. Plus, the full-on in-your-face branding of absolutely everything helped to sell it all as part of an ideal lifestyle. Paired with insanely creative design, fashion, music and aesthetics, it's no wonder it's remained so eye-catching and influential
that might also be why there's such a big connection to japanese consumer culture in a lot of vaporwave art, since japan is responsible for a lot of the most popular worldwide tech companies from the 80s to the present day (sony, yamaha, hitachi, akai, nintendo etc). that nostalgia can reach the whole world.
@@bogey oh definitely. That's also why Japanese imagery is so big in cyberpunk as well. Many people thought that Japan was primed to become the next global culture up until their economy crashed in the 90s. People reacted both positively and negatively to that prospect, even back then.
@larey94 I agree, but only because 'so much of the consumer technology that we take for granted' now is just personal computers dressed up in different ways, and the eighties was the beginning of the integration of computers into most things. other than that, very little eighties technology was anything more than updated versions of older technology no longer used today, like CRTs, tape and optical media, wired telephones, and carbureted cars.
the issue for me, though, is not how this is perceived by us, the millennials who actually experienced this stuff when it was occurring and recognize these portrayals as being sappy, idealized art for which JJ's Rockwell analogy was excellent. it's about the impact this kitsch is having on gen Z and in particular its effect on our notoriously poor intergenerational relationship with them. it's not a topic suitable for a youtube comments section, but I can summarize with this slightly altered lyric, with apologies to Mike Watt -
the kids of today should defend themselves against the 80s
it's not reality
just someone else's sentimentality
it won't work for you
The 90s was the best
The empty mall imagery is particularly interesting given how many of these giant shopping malls are dying out and becoming empty in reality as the conditions that supported them are changing. It feels like in the digital age, we all remember having shared communal spaces that we miss, no matter how tacky or artificial they were. We want to go visit them again, but they're not there, and we don't know how to recreate them as things have become more and more atomized.
Is like what AlternateHistoryHub said: "you can't be nostalgic for an old song if you always hear it, you can't be nostalgic for and old videogame if you still play it. That's just confort food, something you do to feel at home. Real nostalgia is the longing for things that aren't here anymore, those old places you can't go back to" I'm paraphrasing but that's the idea, Nirvana and Rick Astley are still here with us on our Spottify playlist, but the old malls, the old arcades, or the old videostores had left us and now live only in the memories of those who went to them and in the dreams of those who were to young or to poor to get to know them before the World moved on
@@Mario_Angel_Medina I disagree. You're not nostalgic for the song or video game per se, but how your life was when you used to play the game or listen to the song. Those earlier days in your life are just as gone as the malls and arcades. Nostalgia is not just about lost places, but lost times. Playing the video game is just a memory trigger, like photos of malls. The game is never as fun as you remember it, you can never go back.
@@primtones yes. But if, for example, you keep hearing a song from your childhood regularly, new memories start to pile up along with the old ones and the emotional meaning of that song changes for you. Thats why the most banal things are the ones who bring the most nostalgia, they are the first ones to dissappear from our lives after a while, becoming linked to an especific period
@@Mario_Angel_Medina I see, the torn down mall may be safer from the kind of nostalgia "corruption" we get from trying to relive memories. Perhaps true nostalgia is only the wonderful moment when we suddenly experience something we haven't experenced in decades. After that the thing beomes a part of our lives again.
@@primtones exactly
The vibe that vaporwave gives me is the uncomfortable feeling of how much time has passed. The art creates these spaces that feel lost and abandoned, like a ghost town but for a time rather than a place. We've all moved to the future but these past spaces sit there alone. Its cozy and familiar but its also sad and out of reach.
Well said.
Very much how it makes me feel. We’ll put
@@pastrojams7021 that was a major talking point of the video...
I feel like you put into words what I was thinking/ feeling while watching the video.
It's more "emo" than the emo we grew up with. As we get older, nostalgia is more emotional to me than songs about getting dumped.
👁️
Ayyyyy
🐐
Damn son, where'd you find this?!
🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐
Love u
Liminal spaces were always relaxing to me and I just realized why: When it looks like that I get to go home.
or, with noone there, you can do whatever you want!
They give you those summer and weekend vibes as well. When you're free and have time to sit back and relax.
It's strange how we look back at 80s aesthetics almost as a template for what we wish the future had become (cyberpunky).
Notice the parallel with idealism of design and the types of technology being explored in the late 1800s with Guns and engines that manifests itself in the Steampunk motif.
User pic checks out
The cyberpunk is there, just not in aesthetics
It's a refreshed topic actually, I'm not advocating for "comsoomer" culture, but I'm also already getting really tired of "you should be ashamed to like things"
Exactly, there's only so much "you should be ashamed of" that you can take, with it constantly being negative. People don't want to celebrate things anymore, they just want to tear things down. If they put there efforts into the making things better then worse, that self-esteem and enjoyment with everyday life would go up. Not to mention how all that negatively is affecting young people with sky high depression and suicide rates
After looking at the art in the video, it made me view my current interior decorations with more appreciation. The positivity of the art makes me reflect on enjoying things in the moment and experiencing the present as if it were already a warm nostalgic memory.
I'm honestly not sure of what this means exactly.
@@Hamsteak This seems fairly hyperbolic. I think that, mostly, the current economy and on-going social issues are the main things affecting depression.
No matter how much positivity you subject someone to, as long as they're living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to get sick, people are going to be depressed.
@@mechanomics2649 people will be depressed from low pay, but people have been struggling forever, that's not a recent thing. The whole cancel culture, and blaming people for what people say, loneliness and making people be ashamed is what's causing the increase in depression and suicide. Saying it's not is just ignoring facts and reality
There was a movement of nostalgia for the 1890s that kicked off in the 1920s. The decade was actually refered to as the "Gay Nineties" for a while. I bet people in the 1820s were nostalgic for the largely pre-industrial 1790s.
There kinda was. Romanticism was nostalgic for pre-industrial life, such as the Medieval era.
There was also nostalgia for the 50's in the 80's. I have a 50's style diner near me, but it's like an 80's version of the 50's.
@@goldenhourkodak Yeah, It very much mirrors modern 80s nostalgia. Back to the future 2 was pretty spot on with it's "Cafe 80s"
@@goldenhourkodak But the really interesting thing is that 50s nostalgia actually started back in the 70s, with Happy Days and Grease, but then carried over into the 80s with movies like Back to the future. Kinda similar to how 80s nostalgia started in the 2000s and carried over into the 2010s.
@@bengercak8391 desegregation got the ball rolling early among certain segments of the US population.
I’ve come to notice a sort of “Twenty Year Effect” (as I like to call it), in which roughly twenty years after a certain era reached its peak people come to sentimentalize it, romanticize it, and look back with nostalgia.
You see it primarily in film and television. Happy Days released 20 years after the 50s, That 70s Show and Boogie Nights both capitalized on the “70s Nostalgia” of the 1990s, and now we’re seeing it again with millennials and Gen-Z-ers looking back at the 80s and 90s with dreamy eyes.
If this effect is real then around the 2030s we’ll be looking back at the 2010s with the same romantic melancholy.
If that is the case, i wonder what things would be so sentimentalized. Materialistic things like games or movies would be obvious, but the 2010s didn’t really have a specific type of building style like the 80s had
@@philipkorteknie4816 The 2010s may not have instantly recognizable architecture or aesthetics but it was truly the decade where globalization peaked. The Internet became truly mainstream and in some ways the main way of communication for young people. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and the sort all flourished in the 10s. So this is what we’ll remember.
Trends: The Dab, the countless Internet challenges, the Creepypastas, the Urban Legends and Internet mysteries
Memes: We Are Number One, Doge, Pepe, Harambe, and the thousands of others
As well as celebrities, mainly UA-camrs, TikTokers, and Streamers
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed this! I bet it's because many adults in their 30s bear nostalgia for their childhood, which is usually identified with a decade (i.e. adults of the 2010s-2020s were kids in the 1980s-1990s). Curiously there are also many young people who feel nostalgia for a time they never lived, such as the 1980s, which seems to be stimulated more by aesthetic than by memories.
@@philipkorteknie4816 I would say the Internet and early social media would become sentimentalized along with some cultural quarks and elements.
@@marcello7781 I can say the same. I was born 1991 and I remember the middle of the 90s more but even then a lot of the 80s culture was still strong. When I look at the deco design of the malls I remember still seeing that in 1995. Also Taco Bell and Target were designed that way up till the late 90s.
Another weird thing about the 80s/90s aesthetic is the fact that it sparks an odd sense of nostalgia in a person who grew up mostly in late 2000s/ early 2010s
Yeah but slot of popular movies are set in the 80s and 90s so you get the Hollywood version of what it’s like
I think it’s because people born in the 90s will always find it the most comforting. Notice how Y2k (yuck) is back for gen z rn
@@angelsunlight Y2K era is one of the best eras for video games and graphics design. Not to mention it was in the middle of the transition into the digital age, of a time when technology was still ambitious. Also it was a part of the golden age of kids' cartoons. So I don't get the hate.
@@ricenoodles632 that’s fair but the music and fashion sucked
@@angelsunlight Maybe you just searched early 2000s fashion on image search and a bunch of American celebs on red carpet shows up on the search. Yea, most of that looks atrocious.
Late 90s/early 2000s fashion is the most fun and positive I've ever seen. I grew up in Asia so most of the fashion I've seen in the early 2000s was from Asia. I'm also kind of a weeb, so naturally I'm a y2k Japanese enthusiast (i dont care about modern Japan, btw).
General motifs of y2k era fashion includes (can be mixed): late 60s/early 70s, flower power, y2k space age, retro 60s space age, late 90s Harajuku, "Asiatic" aesthetics (some ppl nowadays call it cultural appropriation; as an Asian, fk that, I want that era back), "the Matrix", etc.. There are more but I just named the ones I like and/or know.
this is a very smart analysis that touched on a lot of the sentiment and nuance that this art form explores. vaporwave's relationship with irony is another talking point all its own - "I unironically like vaporwave" is a common expression in these spaces.
“The next real literary ‘rebels’ in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to... treat plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue... Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval...Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh how banal.'” -David Foster Wallace on irony
The dude was truly ahead of his time in so many ways.
People like vaporwave ironically? I've always liked it with no shame.
How can you ironically like something?
That’s an answer I have never gotten.
It seems like a cope. I don’t believe you like things ironically. I believe you like things and then pretend you don’t _really_ like it, you are just paying attention so you can make fun.
But like…I’ve been a nerd through that entire era. I’ve always had to wear my freak flag, so to speak. I don’t ironically like Nintendo. I love their products.
To me, that is where vaporwave points to but doesn’t quite reach. Unirony gestures at love but it doesn’t quite get there on its own. Thus, this art form will fail if it can’t ‘get there’.
@@dstinnettmusic i feel like ‘ironically liking’ something is more meant to convey that someone only likes something in a certain context, like a meme or something. saying you ‘unironically like’ something means you like it regardless of context. just my interpretation
Why do I see you everywhere
Are we the same person
I was born in 87. Although nostalgia is a hell of a drug, I think you did a good job of explaining why the 90s was such an interesting time to grow up. There was such a specific feeling that's really hard to describe without having experienced it.
I think, as a Millennial, the genre of Millennial Nostalgia Art is interesting in it's duality: it is a reminder of something that we simultaneously find much-needed comfort in but are also intrinsically aware that we cannot return to. There is still a post-Recession trauma that taught the entire generation that much of what they understood of the society, and the degree of consumerism that completely saturated their entire existence, is unsustainable and that they need to look elsewhere for meaning in their lives. It's why, as that generation entered their prime earning years and started acquiring material wealth, they turned to minimalism, "natural" products and finishes, and mid-century modern design. In short, the shock of seeing the disposable, consumable world ripped-away from them created a sort of conservatism that made them crave the stability of more time-tested (or durable) goods, design, and means of consumption. Having said that, I still believe that as the generation ages further, we'll see more collecting artefacts of our childhood and affecting the look of that time, much in the same way that Baby Boomers did with the 1950s & 60s. One imagines that the market will be all too happy to cater to that nostalgia in search of that afore-mentioned disposable income we're finally coming into.
One thing I really find interesting is the impact Vaporwave had on renewing interest in a mostly forgotten musical style in Japan.
Vaporwave had an offshoot called "Future Funk" which mainly focussed on Japanese music from the Bubble Era in the '80s and early '90s in Japan, at a time when economists were predicting Japan would overshoot the US economy and in influence by 2010. The Future Funk style is much more upbeat and does a lot less to distort this music, which mainly fell into a unique Japanese genre called "City Pop". Over time, more people became enamored with City Pop itself, and names like Yagami Junko, Yamashita Tatsuro, and others who are still in the Japanese zeitgeist but were really unheard of overseas, suddenly saw a flow of interest.
What's funny about this is, Americans will know Japanese performers from very old, early works they did, while in Japan pretty much all of that music has been completely forgotten in favour of their newer stuff from the 2000s. So when I show Japanese people the songs I listen to, they actually say they are hearing a lot of this music for the first time in their lives, which makes sense since a lot of it is from before we were born.
But even more interestingly, a lot of City Pop music is getting remixes, covers, and interest in Japan currently. Moe Shop, a Japanese musician, for example is sampling City Pop in some of his work, and is making a lot of new music that captures the feelings of nostalgia kind of similarly to Home who has original music that has a nostalgic feeling to it as well.
Honestly I don't very much like Vaporwave anymore, but it was a catalyst for a lot of the music and things I enjoy from independent creators nowadays.
Have you heard Japanese jazz fusion from that era? Many "future funk" artists also remixed a lot of Jazz fusion Japanese musicians, and it also influenced a lot of the early Japanese video game music as well. You can give it a try.
I think that such a feeling of 80/90s nostalgia from this art scene can also resonate with anyone born even after the millenials, so like early gen zs. Simply because some of those styles and looks stayed around even in the early to mid 2000s, especially in places we have connections to or have been to multiple times. Those sorts of places include malls, schools (usually the first few grades) and whatever public transit stations and so on. Even if some people who can maybe very slightly connect to this art form even if born after the 2000s due to the fact that maybe some things that were from the 90s stayed around till their early years. In my case, I'm considered an early zoomer, and I can still connect to some degree with the art due to the previous thing I said, about stuff being around in my early years. For example, when I was in the 1st and 2nd grade we still had some items from the 90s around in our school, and lots (most) of the designs and architecture was still here and only started to reach it's end-of-life term, like those tvs on the carts that the teacher would bring in to watch a cassette during class (best time ever tbh). Some of the things I remember watching at one time was a school bus safety video (we used to watch them once a year in mid September, so like 2-3 into the school year) and that video was from 1992 I think, since I remember the copyright symbol being there and the year (1992) being right next to it. So I think that anyone who experienced this sort of life from their childhood in some form would definitely connect and even those older or younger could still make some connections and distinctions. Great video JJ! Absolutely well done.
What year were you born? I'm a baby millennial (25) and I agree. Most of this 80's/90's had crossover until about the mid 2000's. So us born in the 90's are the last to experience this stuff.
Yeah totally! I'm also 25, born in 96 and often feel like im sandwiched between generations... I totally agree if a kid has memories before 2006 or so they probably remember somewhere deep down what it was like... Its the small things, like elevator music, old unrenovated houses, radio stations, people who have old "crappy" wall art that hadn't been updated (for instance patrick nagel wall art which is pretty damn cool but was considered trashy in the 2000s), parents' old photos, these things can often be found up to 20 years later sticking around and they all gave us a semi accurate idea of the eighties and nineties.
I'm 16 years old, and I'm sure I never had any contact with that 80/90s American middle class material culture, hell, I'm not even American, I'm from Uruguay. Yet this art scene fills me with an immense nostalgia of something I never got to live myself. It's weird, I don't have that level of nostalgia with Punk Rock culture from around the same time, even though my dad raised me showing me much of that, stuff I still love to this day, but it doesn't give me that same sense of nostalgia that this 80's material culture, it's so weird. It's amazing, It makes me wish the world would go back to that time so that I could live and be part of that world, and it makes me sad that I'll never get to live in that world I strangely desire so much. It's amazing, in a weird sense.
I can relate to this. The blue squiggly line that was always on the cups at school cafeterias is forever seared into my mind
Vaporwave is so good at evoking nostalgia, I don't think you even need to have seen the world like that to feel nostalgic for it. It's so powerfully sentimental that anyone is transported to "the good old days."
mark fisher talked about this in a more cynical way; a certain hopelessness to the fact that we can’t imagine new futures. but that’s just me (‘99 gen Z-er)
You’re not alone
Derrida talked a bit about this in the last 5-10 years of his life, too, I think. He referred to it as "Hauntology." In French, funny enough, the word, supposedly, "sounds the same" as "ontology", which makes it a very-interesting pun, too, I think? I think it's called "hauntology" because these ' "awesome" imagined futures that never came' were "haunting" the present (and the past, perhaps, to some extent), hindering progress
Retrofuturism, esp. in cyberpunk, is also, to some extent, said to be 'part of hauntology', I think?
In fact, if memory serves, Derrida first proposed this "hauntology" in a book he called "Spectres of Marx" (his last or second-to-last book, I believe). And this was in 1993, over 2 decades ago, interestingly enough
Postmodern crew unite :D
@@Whoo711 I think vapor wave and a lot of the old school tumblr liminal vent art is a great example of hauntology. As a young millennial (96, the cutoff varies but I often hear it based upon whether you remember 9/11 or remember getting your first computer lol but also I resonate more with the culture and values of gen z) ANYWAYS I think it also gives me simulacra vibes... like vapor wave being a xerox of a xerox.. the work on Jean Boardicannotspellhisnamesorrix
I find it interesting how he is so set on it being middle class and not just working class though? Idk maybe it’s a culture difference (I’m in the US), has to do with his more right liberal view, or his own bias feeling as though he grew up highly middle class .. but it’s insane to me how he’s reading it as being a middle class thing (ESPESH the Japanese-American hybrid stuff) and not considering a PM analysis
No, it's not just you. We are truly damned. Vaporwave is cool but those "left wing magazines" he cites as basically being overly cynical bummers are bummers for a reason.
god i love the vaporwave aesthetic. it’s just really cool to me.
When were you born?
@@JJMcCullough 1986
@@maldarchives7995 Uh...thanks?
Same, but wasn't born until 2000
@@JJMcCullough 2001
To me it's very interesting to see Millennials age and have more influence over society. The oldest millennials are around 40, and soon enough they're going to be the largest generation in power in America. Seeing the culture of the 1990's and 2000's becoming the most idealized nostalgic recent era will be interesting.
nah man, elder generations would find a way to f* them over, millenials control so little wealth in proportion to their overall population in these days, that they're comparable to the silent.
Millennials are like 25-40 right? because if so I'm one of them!
@@fuosdi64 yes 1980ish-1996
@@ipadair7345 They will die though. At least some of the lucky millenials will stand to inherit power with time.
Baby Boomers are just getting most seats now, so that will have to wait.
Meanwhile, the Balkans remembering the 90's be like: PTSD
**turbofolk intensifies**
DEPRESSINGLY SMART COMMENT
Rwanda too.
When you're both and see where shit's going now and no one listened...
Boy, I never realized how much of a weird creep I was for seeking out empty parking lots, after hours school hallways, and depopulated public transportation hubs as a teenager and young adult.
Liminal space art isn't unsettling for me, its relaxing. It is *actually* nostalgic for me. I have memories of quietly walking through those spaces, alone and in artificial twilight, feeling like I could finally breathe and see.
Agreed. I like photos which just look like they were taken using an early 2000's digital camera.
Ironic how you and Drew Durnil always post at the same time. The competition continues beyond Spaghetti Road's quiz...
I'll get that smug paintbrush one of these days!
He seems to be done making all of his shitty Hearts of Iron IV videos and jumped onto other shit.
@@JJMcCullough I never expected this crossover
@@AsukaLangleyS02 that's on druwu now
@@JJMcCullough gg
My favorite UA-camr talking about Vaporwave, couldn't get any better, I'm a Gen z but the aesthetic of this movement and the artificial nostalgia it creates is really interesting, you should listen to a song called Resonance by Home
*vaporwave
@@JaredtheRabbit waporvave!
resonance is an incredible song, although it's not vaporwave
I think we've all heard that song by now.
Resonance is a great song, but my slip for best vaporwave song is "the burn marks on my epiano won't go away". One of very few songs that somehow gets an emotional reaction from me
Funny that the in the 80s you had artists and musicians that were inspired by the 50s. Now in the in the 2015s and 2020s you start to see artists and musicians who are inspired by the 80s and 90s.
Don't do this. Don't remind me of how old I am. I don't want it.
Nostalgia and anemoia are hardwired into us, it's a natural reaction the the disappointment of adult life.
Surely, JJ won't miss out discussing "The Sims" in relation to this topic? An early aughts game about middle class nostalgia, escapism, and consumerism that has some mid-century influence on it?
When ever I pass through the Owings Mills subway station outside of Baltimore, the whole station gives me a very strong vaporwave vibe. The music on the speaker is more or less just 80s or 90s era easy listening and the whole design and artwork is very much from the 80s. Not to mention being near a once famous abandoned mall. Now the whole area has been redeveloped to be more modern and I haven't been their since about February 2020 so I don't know what's going on right now.
I sort of get that vibe from some of the DC and Atlanta MARTA stations, too.
@@mutestingray They were built around the same time.
Its weird hearing a Maryland location being referenced in the wild
A place that gives me that vibe in Canada is Mirabel Airport near Montreal. An airport that was built and never reached its full potential, so most of it has been torn down or reverted to cargo facilities and a hub for aircraft manufacturers like Bombardier.
My hometown, a historic port city called Saint John, suffered a rather economic downfall when I grew up, so there's a lot of nostalgic, outdated malls, buildings and a cool bowling alley still in service which has those special things you love from the past.
@@jessmstephens My younger sister is going to art school in Milwaukee. I also came back and i came back to that metro station. It’s still the same pre-pandemic. The Baltimore metro very 80s like how the New York subway is very much a product of the explosion of American cities at the turn of the century and the Washington Metro is that of the sterile, borderline dystopian brutalism of the 1970s.
Graphic design major here, not that it has anything to do with the video but just a little fact.
The "squiggly lines and shapes" type of design that you see in a lot of these was inspired by (or even a direct continuation of) the Memphis postmodern design movement that started in 1981 in Italy. Designs like that are making a comeback just because of the nostalgia that people experience when seeing those things.
I'm too young to be a Millennial (20 years old) and to indulge in this specific type of culture, but I think it's really cool people can take the time to remember these mundane things, whether it's things we bought, places we've been. It's a window to another time for the younger generations, and it'd be amazing to think that 20-30 years from now we'll have art that embodies the early 21st-century middle class culture of social media and technology.
9:13: That 'bass heavy music with significant audio distortion' is possibly a throwback to how a cheap cassette player sounded on cheap tapes that hadn't been played for years.
Loving all these art videos you've been doing lately. Obviously you shouldn't pigeonhole yourself into any one type of video, as I know you've talked about wanting to take a break from political videos, but I can see a light blaring in you whenever you're talking about these kind of subjects. Will be watching more of your stuff anyways but I just wanted to note how impressed I have been with these videos :)
Interesting parallels can be drawn between this current art movement and the Biedermeier movement in 19th century Central Europe. Both are very much informed by a clear sense of depoliticized middle-class nostalgia. In Biedermeier’s case it's as much for an idyllic rural lifestyle as much as for consumer comforts; an interesting contrast to the more urban liminal spaces of today. A significant portion of classical music still popular today is informed by this aesthetic.
Absolutely
Such a great and comprehensive overview of this topic; If Andy Warhol lived through the years up to today, I wonder what he would say about Vaporwave and other nostalgia art. I truly think it's the internet's form of pop art.
The 80s represent a “how good things can be” mentality. We all want that 80s retro time period. Walking through the mall, with all of the people and stores and smells of food and products. We all really want to experience a better life and with everything going to shit right now, we just crave that fun time where we could not only work and earn money but still be able to enjoy our lives. That burst of technology and architecture just let every human know that we as a people can truely come together and share a beautiful world together. We must put aside our differences and work As a unit.
I love this art style and it deeply connects with me.
It has often struck me growing up that the internet was were you could go to escape people, the world, corporations etc. It had a sort of dysfunctional Wild West feeling.
Now it’s the place where everybody is. In most objective ways corporate money has made it better, UA-cam is a great example. And of course if you asked me then I would have loved to have an internet with things like Spotify, UA-cam, iPhone and the like.
But it’s sad to me, in a way I can’t really control, that there’s no going back. We will never go back to that time.
It was also a time when my life was simpler and more happy, so it’s also hard, if not impossible, for me to extract these ideas from one another.
I do wonder if this art may be a part of the birth of a new kind of millennial-style conservatism, which yearns for a "golden age" much like some older conservatives yearn for the 50's and 60's. It's a compelling argument, through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia the political, economic and social environment of the 80's and 90's seems safer and saner that what we have today. 9/11, 2008 and now 2020 have really dampened the middle class optimism that I think was very prevalent in the pre-2000's US. Some may argue the corporatised world was without heart or soul, but I think for a lot of people, they didn't care. These corporations gave them enjoyable things to buy and exciting places to go. They really did make a lot of people happy. So what if I'm a "consumer drone"? I'm happy being a consumer drone! Go live in a cave and leave me alone!
Today with doom-mongering TV news (yes I know that was a thing in the 80's and 90's, but it's worse now), constant reminders of the moral failings of corporations and politicians fed into our social media feeds, and a level of political, economic and social instability that hasn't been seen for near on 40 years if not longer, it's no wonder there's a call to return to what seems like a better and more optimistic era.
I would support a conservatism based around that. I’d have to think a bit about how it would translate into a political agenda or philosophy.
There definitely is a bit of a space these days for someone willing to promote corporations, who are kind of under fire from all sides these days. Corporations have never been more consumer-sensitive or socially progressive than they are now, and yet people on the mainstream left, and increasingly right, still loathe them as if they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I guess it would be interesting to see an agenda that emphasizes the need for a middle class consumer-focused economy that appreciates corporations as an important ally.
@@JJMcCullough I think there is a lot of "damned if they do, damned if they don't" when it comes to what's generally called corporate responsibility. Support a social cause and get accused of profiteering, ignore a social cause and get accused of not caring. I can see how many corporations feel like they can't win.
@@JJMcCullough sure but, like... there are some pretty glaring reasons *why* those people dislike corporations. Heck, even at the time, a lot of media from these eras was skeptical of corporate power and their failure to address their own problems.
Perhaps something more middling, where corporations are supported in their ability to bring enjoyable consumer products, but held to higher standards in doing so than they were, would be more appropriate. An acceptance with just enough skepticism to keep things from going poorly.
@@PilkScientistYeah, given what we've seen out of corporations even in the present day, this pro-corporation sentiment in this comment chain is really, really strange
@@JJMcCullough Maybe corporations have never been more consumer-sensitive or socially progressive than they are now [citation needed] but that doesn't mean anyone should be letting up.
Firstly, these corporations have largely gotten this way through social pressure.
Secondly, given a lot of anti-consumer practices and, just as importantly, anti-worker practices that are still in place, corporations should remain under fire.
It seems like an exaggeration to try to say that people loathe them as if they have no redeeming qualities, I really don't think many people think that way. People are rightly critical of corporations for the demonstrable harm they've done.
It seems like you're making them out to be some kind of victim, which is incredibly strange to me. They're capable of doing a lot of good and to an extent they do. They also do a lot of harm.
A version I like a lot is sovietwave. It's similar to vapourwave but designed with the intent to instill "nostalgia for a future that never came" specifically from a Soviet view. All pictures of it are in space and utilise Soviet art styles and symbolism. The music itself takes vaporware in a more uplifting direction, but with a tinge of sadness that it never came to be
Hey, I’m a pretty new viewer and I’ve mostly just watched your videos analyzing pop-culture. I was pretty blown away, this was like going to an art-talk back in my art school days.
I want to let you know, in case you don’t already, you’re a really good art critic. Not everyone can do this style of in-depth critique of images. I hope you make more of these!
Thanks Ashley! I guess art was my first real passion in life.
Liminal spaces have always particularly fascinated me. I'm an archaeologist. My day job is long abandoned places that were once as banal and everyday as a mall or a train sation or a school. And thus when i see these liminal spaces It gives me the same feeling I'd imagine an ancient Roman would feel if you showed them today's Colosseum. How a medieval monk might feel seeing the remains of his monastery as I do, partially collapsed and half buried. Its a glimpse of how our civilisation may be seen in a thousand years, empty and devoud of life, the material culture all that remains
very well researched and presented. Although I thought I might not be interested in the topic, you gripped me. Born in 98 in the middle east, I don't think I quite fully relate to all of this art, but yet I also feel like maybe I should
Anyway, good job JJ
The evolution of vaporwave! This has been around for about a decade already.
What I liked most about the 80s and 90s was a feeling of passion,mutual respect,freedom,and emotional connection you don't see much of nowadays, I never thought much about whether it was pro or anti consumerism because it was just about having fun and while material goods may add to the experience the most important things in life are self respect,happiness,and treating others how you'd want to be treated.
I'm just now realizing that one of my favorite artists, photorealist painter Richard Estes, was actually at the forefront of liminal art decades ago, before we called it that or even had a separate noton of it. One of the most striking things about much of his work is that it depicts highly photorealistic scenes which would normally be bustling with human activity, instead completely devoid of people or action.
Your appreciation for middle-class culture is refreshing and greatly appreciated. This is my favorite type of video that you do.
Totally agree, I love this perspective.
You know your video really struck home with a lot of people when nearly every reply is a paragraph long. Well done JJ!
I think a lot of this artwork really shows how alienated and lost the Millennial generation is in today's world. From 9/11 to the War on Terror to the Great Recession to the political turmoil of the 2010s to COVID, we yearn for a more innocent time when the world was stable and prosperous.
We all do.
During the 80s and 90s, boomers had their pre-middle-age nostalgia spell about the 50s/60s. The huge economic downturn in the early 80s and the "radicalness" of the 80s pop culture sent them looking for a more "stable and prosperous" time.
*we* were more innocent. Because we were children. The world meanwhile was Operation Desert Storm, Rodney King, the WTO, ecological devastation, the Bosnian Genocide, acceleration of mass incarceration, and the total collapse of civil society in a global superpower. The United States experienced temporary prosperity and a surface level optimism in the late 80s and 90s that declared an "end" to history because the neoliberal model could envision no way forward.
Vaporwave is now old that I'm getting 2010s nostalgia with the 80s nostalgia
I was thinking about mall nostalgia the other day, and how it compares to the critiques of mall culture of the past like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. These old takes on consumerism seem to be somewhat outdated, but in many ways very much still valid. While it may be true that the mall and Blockbuster pushed small businesses aside, those things have also now been replaced with larger corporate monoliths like Amazon or Google. Its important to remember that while some things may be get better or worse, most things simply change.
Check out "Sal" on UA-cam and "this is Dan Bell" lots of dead mall content and history.
Me: Sees new JJ McCullough video...*rushes to watch*. I do love this style as well as your analysis of it!
Yeah this is an especially good one. i guess maybe cuz im a gd millenial
It just wouldn't be Saturday without a J.J McCullough video
JJ, king of explaining and unpacking ideas with detailed accuracy 🤯
"just buying some niche need shit while the world crumbled around us" I saw a tweet like this.
I have often pined for the stability and hopefulness of my 90s early childhood. The general outlook of the culture, to fight climate change. The weird PNW fern forest / Dinosaur / Save the dolphins / Magic School bus world that feels like a dream to me (b. 1995)
I guess a lot for that changed with 9/11 and the world kept growing.
I'm not sure what I'm pining for. I've always enjoyed vaporwave style art. I never associated the current set movement with millenials pining for the stable recent past.
Great video JJ
Vaporwave idea: Growing up in the 90s, I had a sense that computers were magical and powerful devices but. But, as a child, I couldn't don't completely understand why the computer was so important. When kids in the 90s started using computers, computers they were weird and obtuse. You got the sense of vast possibilities weighed down by their limitations, and the imposing presence of a beige tower that was ambivalent to your needs (maybe represented by the vaporwave statues).
Kids could use the internet, VCRs, etc. but the internet wasn't really designed for them in mind. Some have called the vaporwave art style 'faux nostalgia' but I think what it really captures is that feeling of trepidation and discovery that those born in the late 80s and early 90s had about digital technology; as something they were native with, but that nobody in their life (them, or even most adults) fully understood but were still captivated by. That may be why some of the art doesn't feature any people.
I believe there is a greater level of nostalgia for the 90's in particular because it was before 9/11. We remember a world before, and watched it change after.
They're a glimpse into a world that is no longer
I was never alive in the 80s, but I love Vaporwave.
you littraly plucked this video from my mind. This is such a fascinating culmination. I wonder how future generations experiences and lives will manifest. Awesome vid jj
“Middle class architecture”
Shows picture of a hospital.
‘Murica
"That guy who did the rooms" has been bingewatching '80s and '90s sitcoms LOL
As always, a very interesting video, and I enjoy the aesthetic. I will say that at times as a Zoomer who did not have a particularly happy childhood, I do have a hard time relating to this sort of nostalgia at times. There's definitely a cynicism among people my age that's a problem. They've been fed all these apocalyptic talking points about a shrinking middle class, climate catastrophy, and a rise in authoritarianism that I think is blown out of proportion. You get the sense that they feel as though they missed out on some sort of age of prosperity, so they just kind of embrace the dysfunction and chaos associated with today's society. I think you can see this in meme culture where there's this sort of lampooning of consumerism that you talk about. However, that's also why I've always liked your takes on things, and how you try and put things into perspective for people who spend all their time in the fake internet world. There's definitely value and enjoyment you can derive from more simple enjoyments in life, and people relate to each other through these shared experiences. No generation ever spent every waking moment of their life dedicated to militant political activism. As Pam from the Office once said "There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point?” I guess what I'm trying to say JJ is, did you ever get 100 super jumps in Super Mario RPG because I'm convinced it's impossible.
I actually did. It baffles me how as a child I had this kind of patience .
"No generation ever spent every waking moment of their life dedicated to militant political change." Of course not, cause things change, and so do the people. But that doesn't mean we should just be complacent and ignore things that need improvement.
Something I've always loved about that Vaporwave album art is how it references the 1914 painting, Canto d'amore (Giorgio de Chirco). I don't know if it was on purpose but you know. Probably.
I do miss growing up as a child in the 90's. Was such a good decade where your played with your electronics, but you also hung out with friends outside or climbed trees, going for bike rides and playing in the dirt. Things that kids nowadays don't really do
I mean, you don't do that anymore, because you're an adult
@@lilwerner1518 lo, they weren't saying that when i was a kid because we all hung out outside
If u weren’t informed, there has been a rise in Y2K and 2000s aesthetics recently in Gen Z spaces, like on Instagram and Tiktok. Fads and fashion from 1999-2009 had a resurgence specially in girls fashion, in someway breaking with the minimalistic sleek 2010s style. There are some people selling old kids clothes from their childhood on Depop, let’s see if this trend goes mainstream 😅
Y2K seems to be the logical next step in Nostalgic Art/Vaporwave, i believe in 15 years time most Nostalgic art will be about the 2000s and eventually the 2010s
The start of GenZ is now in the workforce. The oldest of us are 24-25.
@@graffiti9145 what are we going to be nostalgic about in the 2010s specfically? theres no real change or anything unique imho.
@@johncam8420 that's because we're still in the 2010s, you need to wait at least 15 years for the indentity of a decade to become clear.
I used to think 2000s Nostalgia would never happen yet here we are in 2021 and people are trying to bring the 2000s back
@@thotslayer9914 people said the same thing about the 2000s but now they're trying to bring the 2000s back.
And I'm pretty sure they said the same thing about the 80s and 90s, yet here we are
Amazing video. I sometimes shoot film around Toronto and my favourite images are the untouched liminal spaces that exist on the fringes of the city. My partner calls my photos "nostalgia porn," but this video does a better job at explaining the aesthetic than I can. Born in '82.
J.J. is trying to grow that Omni-Man mustache 😳
I'd feel quite overwhelmed in one of Rachid Lotif's rooms, which you described as cozy... I do have a strong desire to *direct* my reverance for material goods right at them. And I feel like I can only *be* thankful for them, if they're not drowned in excess. It's the whole art gallery effect, where you need a white wall to fully appreciate a painting.
Calling the 80s the Golden age of the middle class is a really good way to put it I'd never considered before
As someone who was born in 1997. The 80s and 90s were always this fantastic fantasy era that I never got to experience. The old movies and videos of the time were almost dream like. Familer yet alian to my own time. These artists perfectly capture what my young self thought the 80s and 90s were like. For those who lived in the 80s and 90s I'm kind of jealous of you. It looked like a really interesting time to live.
Very deep analysis JJ. Never heard of this art before, I’ve really been missing out, it’s very beautiful!
I’m in my late 50’s, I came of age at the dawn of the 1980’s and the golden age of mall culture and all the visuals and sounds of the era. I do find the vapour wave concept quite fascinating after watching numerous present day abandoned American mall videos.
As always JJ, your analytical ability is a marvel.
I'm one of those late 90s/Gen Z types whose attraction to this type of music and art isn't based on any true nostalgia as I never lived these things. To me it's somewhat escapist, a reprieve from the barrage of an altogether different consumer culture to which I and I suspect many others like me have that disdain and aversion to. A kind of "wasn't it all simpler back then?" type of nostalgia, if you can call it that.
We all would want to be that kid in that's Pepsi's commercial.
Vaporwave gives me a bit of a depressed feeling, like it's some sort of anthem for people who are stuck on the past and can't move on.
2:53 in "Nintendo 64" the child has the nerf elite disruptor. that nerf gun is not one of the 90s/early 2000s as it was released in 2017. The entire elite series of blasters didn't even exist until 2011.
Anachronism doesn't even seem wrong in this style. I could see a Gamecube connected to a flatscreen in a 70s wood-panelled finished basement and it would seem perfectly at place.
@@vaguesoft8445 i think the further we get from 2000, the aesthetics of the 20th century will kind of mash together
Vaporware was all the rage like 5-6 years ago. Anyone here remember when FrankJavCee used to upload?? Man I have nostalgia for nostalgia now lolol
Thank you for this. I've been trying to define this on my own. Malls will live again!
Millenial nostalgia seems so strong because of how much seems to have changed so quickly. Nothing seems familiar or long lasting anymore either. So the late 90s is that time were everything was last the same for everybody of a certain age.
the Citroën BX and the Lamborghini Countach are epitome of 80s car aesthetic (there is other exemples but you can guess the rest)
JJ, you could make a 90 minute video about dog poop, and I would still watch all of it. Thank you for the great videos and the wide variety of information you provide us with on a weekly basis.
JJ would do it with style and authenticity.
There are things in the world which make me want to run from the room screaming "in God's name, make it stop!!" more than someone talking about art... it's meaning, significance, importance; analysis of it, commentary on it, etc..... Just not very many.
That J.J. could do so for nearly 17 min and not only keep my attention but also my interest says a lot about his ability as a presenter. Well done, sir. I commend you.
Lonely images. I was born in the 80's, but feel deep nostalgia for these images. I think the images represent a peak time when we made emotional connections with products and fantasies instead of other humans. This is still a thing we do, obviously. But the 80's may have been the last time we weren't collectively aware that this is unhealthy behavior. It's hard to heal and make real connections. It's easier to feel nostalgia for a time when we didn't realize desire for a specific toy was a filler for missing out on our parent's loving attention. Our parents had just been collectively damaged in several wars, they found it easier to buy us toys than to emotionally connect with us.
This is, without doubt, one of your best and most insightful videos of yours I've ever seen.
"Liminal Spaces" art is just damn creepy. I love it. They evoke fear and loneliness. Makes you feel like a ghost.
Being a Gen Z on the cusp of the later age of Millennials really gave the weird cross over for me that possibly is the reason why I enjoy the sort of Vaporwave/Corporation Art style of content. I got the end of the cheapness of the 90's while growing up with both analogue and digital devices. It felt like you could dip in to your grandparents world just by picking up a few particular items they may have lent your family or had lying around the household. On the other hand, you felt miles ahead of them when picking up digital devices. Particularly as the rising affluence of families in the 00's meant that we could afford something nicer than cheap furniture, outlet stores clothes, and prone to breaking electronics.
As I have seen others talk about, I find it interesting how my generation (gen z) interacts with this sort of art. I myself was born in 2004 and have grown up in the American Midwest. While I have very early memories of interactions with the technologies of the 80s and 90s, such as watching movies on VHS as a small child, most of my childhood was spent in the digital era we find ourselves in now. However, what I find particularly interesting is the physical spaces depicted in these art styles. For example, malls. Many malls from the 70s-90s still exist today and I can remember going to them a lot as a child. But as we have grown up, most of these malls, especially here in the Midwest, have been dying since at least the financial crash in 2008. So while this art depicts these malls as being empty and devoid of life, many of us have grown up going to malls that were also empty and devoid of life themselves. To the point where an empty or dying mall can almost make us feel nostalgic on its own, regardless of the uncanny feeling from a usually full space being empty. I just find that really interesting, and personally much of this art almost makes me long for a time I never got to experience. Being reminded of how empty a mall is makes me wonder what it must have been like to experience that place in its heyday, bustling with people. It's nostalgia for something I never saw, and I absolutely love it.
Plus, on a related note, there is just something about analog media that feels different to the digital media I have grown up with. The feeling of putting in a VHS or even a DVD and watching the same commercials they put before the movie every time has a different feeling than streaming the exact same movie online. I think it puts the movie into a certain timeframe. For example, my family has a lot of disney DVDs from the early 2000s. I could simply turn on Disney+ and watch that movie, and I will get an HD version of that movie which is almost objectively better than the DVD version. But if I watch it on DVD, I see trailers for movies that came out 20 years ago in a low quality video format, and it gives a feeling like you are travelling back in time to view a piece of the 2000s frozen in time. Plus there's just something about physically putting a movie into a device rather than having it already on there. I suppose it feels more like a ritual when you do it.
Anyways, enough ranting about my obsession for the 80s-00s.
I think vaporwave gives the perfect experience of what the childhoods were of people born from the ~80's-2000 (the millennial generation and maybe the first 3 years of gen z 1997-2000) because we were ALL able to experience this "neon lights" "green sage" "brass sign" era of the 80s and 90s as kids. even in the earlyish-mid 2000's alot of the design was very familiar and same. Alot of the crossover happened from the 20th century.
The video game covers/film posters/cartoon art is also very distinctive from that era and it was around that we started growing consciousness.
@@forthrightgambitia1032 absolutely. I was born in 1996 and I remember the early 2000's having a VERY 90s esque feel to it.
@@fuosdi64 Maybe up to 2003. I remember around then things started changing, subtly at first but then rapidly.
@@forthrightgambitia1032 ehh I wouldn't say 2003. Maybe around 2005/2006 is when it all kind of was wiped out.
I remember Someone much smarter than me once saying that there is this theory that comes from Derrida that our nostalgia soaked culture comes from a sense of longing not for the past itself but the sense of possibility that people felt in those times, ie not a longing for the past itself but a longing for the future that people in the past felt was coming, not sure how true it is but it is a very interesting idea conceptually
Liminal space photography always gives me the kind of otherworldly feeling of encountering places for the first time at 3am
This video is amazing. For years I have been exploring these separate topics, noticing some of the commonalities and themes you mentioned, but never have I found a video which so expertly combined them. I love your style and ability to express information.
I remember talking to a friend once about this golden millennial era and thinking about why we enjoy the consumerism-ness so much given our, now as middle aged adults, distaste for it. We talked about it a lot like a drug; a fond addiction in a time when its negative effects were not known or misunderstood especially in our formative years. It was like taking a pill that made us feel amazing, and the culture around us reflected it: In '91 I'm playing this game that blew my mind, Super Mario World, and two short years later in '93 I could play doom on a 486, but in '96 I was playing Quake with full 3D on my 3dfx Voodoo with a Pentium. That was just computers, but as a child, everything changed so much every year and it felt like everything was always getting better. I saw the world as that: A fast moving, highly progressive, integrating world that pushed forward by leaps and bounds.
And then it all stopped.
It feels like the precipice when we pushed everything as far as it would go and popped the balloon. As an adult, I realize now that what gave me comfort: my little pizza hut pan pizzas and all the fun little hyper-branded window decals that it came with, my genesis with its 32x addon, all of these pogs and demo discs and junk that made me happy had a lot to do with why the world may not be as good now. It may have perversed my understanding of the world in one of the most critical points in my, and millions of other's, lives.
Because of that vaporwave fills this hefty spot in my head. It reminds me of the good times, but it also reminds me that it might have been its own poison.
This is a really cool explanation, thanks. When would you say it felt like the progress stopped?
There are some nostalgic reasons why I love the synthswave and vaporwave aesthetic and musical movement, but it's mostly down to taking the best aesthetic properties of the 80s and 90s, and mixing them with modern techniques, to create the most visually and sonically pleasing art possible. I feel there was a tinge of cynicism in this review, but I feel that it's one of the only artistic movements I've ever had such an interest or emotional investment in. I can understand why someone would be skeptical of it, however. I've always been a fan of "social/populist art", and I think that's what it is, with its progenitors in artists such as El Lissitzky.
I don’t think I was cynical at all
A 16 minute dissertation on "A e s t h e t i c s"?? Sign me up!
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
I kept thinking of these final lines of TGG as I was watching this. It’s uncanny how nearly 100 years ago Fitzgerald perfectly captured that bittersweet feeling of modern nostalgia.
I'd love for a sequel to this video, exploring vapourwave, city pop and nostalgia art more generally. I know it's a big topic but this video was awesome and I'd love to hear you explore this even deeper
As someone who loves color, particularly pastels, neon, and brights, I love this aesthetic. I got very sick of the super curated, overly polished imagery that was dominating social media, youtube, art, architecture and interior design for a while. Once something is discovered to sell, everything begins to mimic that style and it leaves little room for individuality. I enjoy things that are weird, human, and imperfectly designed.
I find JJ's ability to eloquently rip apart every single thing we experience into a few distinguishable components to be deeply unnerving. Like an omnipotent alien interested in how we think.
I've been following vapor art for years now and I'm very happy to see that its messages and themes are still used and explored upon today.
i kinda miss this whole "era of vaporwave music" it was pretty cool
I didn't know it existed or what it was called until recently.
It was good but got over saturated fast
This is the first time ever that I have seen a comment section where the first six comments are more than one line of text
I’d like to thank you for helping me discover vaporwave as a whole, I now know what to listen to when I feel depressed
I think one of the reasons that there is a sense of longing for 80s-90s is that the end of the 90s marks a transition into much more isolated lifestyles for many people in the first world. The spaces and products not only remind us of material comfort but of the increased social contact and the comfort that brings.
This video made me think of "City Pop", a genre so powerful that makes me (a millennial-zoomer) nostalgic for a time and a country I didn't live in.
City pop is indeed a very pulling genre, the pure embodiment of the japanese optimist before the bubble burst and the lost decade.
There is actually a genre of music called Future Funk that is descended from both vaporwave and city pop. It is remixes of old City Pop songs into a "vaporwaveish" style and I absolutely love it.
Yeah, it's kinda funny. I live in Japan and I often ask Japanese people about this genre and most of them have no clue what it is. If I mentioned someone like Takeuchi Mariya they say "Oh! I remember her!" but most of them have no idea about the others in the same genre.
@@ALeaud Yeah I bet its like someone asking an American like "Oh have you ever heard Paula Abdul? Her music is so enchanting." Like yeah I kind of remember her.
@@jetfire1099 Yeah, that's basically it haha. I think a lot of older Japanese people might think "It's interesting that you know that... but why would you be listening to that?" while younger people just think "Huh? That music is lame. Why aren't you into bands like Radwimps instead?".
This is a fantastic breakdown of modern millennial art and culture. Great stuff from JJ, as usual.
One thing that the fantasy objects you were talking about reminded me of is Sbubby edits, in which people take logos and edit the letters to say something else, sometimes to criticize the company behind the logo, sometimes for general “lol random” reasons
Those paintings are how things look when one is spaced out-the familiar as eerie and infused with the light of another world.