Z Generation tra nostalgia e meme. La rimediazione dei movimenti Vaporwave e Aesthetic = Z Generation between nostalgia and memes. The remediation of the Vaporwave and Aesthetic movements

Abstract

This paper reports on the subcultural movements of Vaporwave and Aesthetic by examining digital practices and products such as the creative and sound projects specific to the culture of the web, which are immediately welcomed by member of Generation Z through social media. Generation Z gives life to its own subcultural movements that cannot be analyzed according to the canons of the past, even if they look and are inspired by the past. In the context of the remediation under discussion, fluidity is seen as a starting paradigm, the techno-expressive boundaries mix until they are unrecognizable and perfectly integrated, and digital is an increasingly concrete dynamic. As a result, creative processes become increasingly fragmented and prismatic. The aesthetic recognizability of subcultures today is radically broken down by the logic of digital: the aesthetic canons on the web are less structured, less recognizable, more fragmented. The medialogical path informing our analysis of youth subcultures focuses on two main perspectives: nostalgia and the expressive processes of memes. 1) The movements that we will examine constantly revolve around the concept of nostalgia, which is an essential element of social media. Nostalgic subcultures listen to ultra-digital music that is imbued with elements of the past, buy vintage clothes with an affective value (those that parents bought for them as children), criticize the ""priority"" models and practices of their generation, and form their own identity on the net, growing up in a world where they feel disoriented and uncomfortable. These processes are carried out through the web, despite the widespread and inconsistent idea that the internet has "flattened" and destroyed youth subcultures. 2) The feelings of irony and lightness typical of the subcultures of the past come from the members of Generation Z completely supplanted by a condition of hidden inadequacy that is substantiated in a constant process of remediation of the past: from hashtags to communities, up to the typical product of these subcultures, which is memes.