Broken Reality, Vaporwave, and Irony 

Your video is responsible for me now being hopelessly stuck watching a seemingly neverending series of videos on dead malls.

Vaporwave is nostalgia for the past of a future we were promised and never got. For a moment we can look back and pretend we're back in our childhood in a world with infinite potential, and that by the time we're adults we'll have flying cars and robot friends instead of everything being exactly the same except everything is dirtier and older.

i love this video so much.

I absolutely loved the aesthetics (Geocity is such a beautiful place) but never had an issue with the memes/jokes because they're exactly what you would find in such a place. Even if they are problematic it's realistic and it certainly fits the theme of the game.

Something else I just caught on to... The "μ" in "μPay" is used as shorthand for "micro", as in "microseconds" (μs) or "micrometers" (μm). So it could be read as micro pay, aka, microtransaction.

The dead memes that you didn't like, to me, support the nihilism of the whole movement. A joke that doesn't work is the dead mall of today.

YOU WOULDN´T DOWNLOAD A CAR *literally downloads a car* Really enjoyed this game from start to end, also, there´s a hidden jumpscare, you must go out of your way to see it

Despite the preemptive warning, I think you've done a better job talking about what vaporwave is than most deliberately explanatory videos and articles on vaporwave. Really amazing seeing two of my favourite things come together, Your style of in depth video game writing, and my history immersed in the development of the vaporwave subcultures on the internet. Beautifully done. You have a knack for bringing ideas on a subject into consideration without reducing the subject to such ideas, which is incredibly refreshing.

Chronic the Hedgehog is almost as old as the Internet. I’m assuming he’s in there more as a reference than a joke...

Are they jokes or are they comments over saturation and desensitization. Jokes like the peephole and the loli sign could be metaphors for stumbling upon and diving down a whole and finding something unsettling or odd by accident. These things also are shocking to the uninformed but are known by people in internet culture.

I feel like if it didn't have jokes that were out of line or just kinda stupid, it wouldn't feel like a good representation of social media.

Something I'm surprised to see nobody else point out yet: This game is like an antithesis to a similar game with a similar aesthetic known as Cruelty Squad. They're both strange, incomprehensible games with equally incomprehensible themes and a very retro-inspired aesthetic. But they're polar opposites: Cruelty Squad is a tough-as-nails tactical FPS, Broken Reality is a fairly sedate exploration/puzzle/collectathon game. Cruelty Squad has an aesthetic designed to make you feel uncomfortable, uneasy and vaguely nauseous, Broken Reality has an aesthetic designed to be calming and nostalgic. Cruelty Squad presents a depressing, broken world with hope hiding at the end of a long tunnel of pain, Broken Reality presents a bright, colorful, and peaceful world with something dark lurking beneath it. They're so alike, yet different, that I'm surprised they are not made by the same developers. Both are quite good, though.

I'm convinced that the only way to discuss the very serious modern anxiety is with layers and layers of irony and self-referencial humor and I'm totally okay with that. This looks right up my alley.

I feel like I exclusively get into things when they are dying. This game might give me flashbacks.

I love vaporwave and this game is pretty good in my opinion, and I feel you really nailed this game on the head. Its as serious as you make it really. Because Vaporwave is hard to gauge in its level of irony and this is no different. I personally recommend you treat it how I'd recommend you listen to Vaporwave: Just relax and enjoy.

Thanks so much for the review!!. I Really like the approach/critique of it. I think more than trying to make a direct statement, the game was trying to portray the type of things you might stumble upon on the internet, and of course that includes some edgelord humor. In any case the most meaningful thing for me is to see how everyone makes their own conclusions out of the experience. Much love to everyone that played it ❤️

Critiques a game called "Broken Reality", and struggles to find a coherent meaning behind it. I like it.

tbqhwyf (to be quite honest with you family) the ambiguity about its meaning or purpose is what makes broken reality. If it were to have a concrete statement in one direction or the other it would be betraying what it set out ot do

I genuinely don't know why, but I end up rewatching this video at least once a month, if not more. Your writing is excellent, and I'm a "soft mark" for this style of game as well. Good stuff!

your comment about looking for meaning at 17:40 , reminds me of a Tarkovsky quote: “If you look for a meaning, you’ll miss everything that happens.”

This looks like something right up my alley. I wrote some stuff on Vaporwave last year. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

"what_can_i_say_but_yikes.jpg" is a great touch

These vaporwave video essays are the best form of entertainment on youtube for me💖🔮

I think there is a bit of love for L.S.D. Dream Emulator in this game ;)

I was curious about this game for a while, but had to play it after watching this, I just finished, and I gotta say, that was really worth my time haha. It seems on the surface like a memey walking sim, but there was some real heart put into this thing I feel. It was nice

As a genre, vaporwave seems bent on being as belligerently contradictory as possible, and for some reason that makes me love it even more. Like so much from the internet, it seems to have an almost zen-like humor towards being accurately described, and refuses to be so. Also, I want to play the fuck out of this game. I've never heard of it until now but this is my jam.

Out of all of the "experimental" indie titles that you've covered this is one I'll be picking up. It looks ingenious and hilarious. I know nothing about vapourwave but it looks like it has encapsulated the popular idea of the monolithic internet, "The Internet", perfectly. Even your criticisms of discordant tonal shifts and questionable humour that may be in bad taste fits within the overarching aesthetic (pun intended) of the game because "The Internet" is everything from everyone all at once. Also accelerationism sounds fucking terrifying and a horrible idea.

Isn't not being able to distinguish between playful irony and disturbing sincerity exactly the internet in microcosm?

Hey, the first Dan Bell video you showed is a local mall of mine (Marley Station) glad that we’re getting some representation here.

Alright your intro sold me already, this is a game for me. Gonna have to go form my own opinion before watching the rest of this video

"Everybody loud and clear But the truth comes out in riddles that are Safe enough to share" S.J. Tucker in Cheshire kitten

Spotted this video while I was still playing the game, pushed myself to finish the game so I could watch the video. I very much had the same feelings and conflicted emotion about the game while also in the bias of it playing to everything I would like on paper, but putting it into the deeper context of its genre makes it make a lot of sense. The sense of fond nostalgia and paralleled bitterness I felt by the end of the game feels like the essence itself of vaporwave along this definition. Thanks for this video! Your writing is beautiful.

I honestly can't put a finger on why I find vaporware so utterly enthralling. I've seen it being criticized as shallow, simplistic and devoid of anything meaningful to say, but I still enjoy it a lot.

This is just Dave Strider the Game and it needs to admit that it needs a hug

The adult jokes are a parody of what sort of stuff you can find in forums that are no longer moderated, abandoned by its creators

As a super huge Dan Bell fan, I love that you mentioned him and even showed a couple of his videos! When I think of vaporwave, one of the first things that comes to mind is Dan Bell's dead mall videos. This video of yours made me want to get steam and see if my PC is good enough to play this game.... it looks like something I would really like. Keep up the awesome work!

Aesthetics over values is vaporwave in a nutshell. Definitely giving this one a look, cheers!

As someone who's tangentially interested in vaporwave, I really appreciated your look at the genre and its themes!

I appreciate you deliberating some on the actual worth of this kind of ironic vapidity. Always comes off as a lack of ability to properly commit. "Is it a critique of capitalism?" It's not a critique of anything if it doesn't commit to a position.

I didn't take a lot of the sexual stuff as jokes. It seemed to be more of an acknowledgement that in online communities of bored or disillusioned people you'll casually encounter lots of weird sex stuff and nobody seems to care. A sort of commentary on the relaxed sensibilities of the users. That was my take, I'm not sure if that's what the developers intended, but I didn't really see it all as humor... Or at least not 'haha humor'. More like that sort of cynical humor response you express because the alternative is being sad and you're trying to stop yourself from being sad so you overcompensate and resort to irreverently coughing out a snarky laugh because that's better than crying.

floral shoppe's legacy is CRAZY. you can't find any vaporwave art that doesn't use at least one of the ideas from the floral shoppe cover (greco-roman sculpture, japanese, grids, or the pink and blue color scheme).

the rain drops turned into wifi symbols. i love it

Just imagine being the guy that helped invent an entire genre of music. The weight of that knowledge that, even accidentally, you created a genre.

Would be interested in hearing your critique of Hypnospace Outlaw relative to this game.

I have a habit now of just buying the games you review before I watch the reviews. I love finishing up a game and coming to see your thoughts on it. Thanks for all the videos!

Still one of my favorite videos. The prodding at themes that he is still processing makes this so easy to just be walk through his thought process and that's a really cool thing that a lot of other essays don't do. So often video essays are "Here my unique and fully formed take on this thing," so much of the process to get to that opinion is lost and it's the confusion and internal debate that's interesting that campster brings. I feel like this reads like an insalt but it's a writing style that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Finally someone’s talking about this game. I need a reason to not be mad at the ending.

If there's one thing I'd add to your thoughts on vaporwave, it's vaporwaves reliance on nostalgia. It's a genre about simpler times in the past, about memories, and obsolescence. It's a layered statement about missing the past, acknowledging that the past wasn't great, and making it better. For me, it especially evokes a sense of processing pain. As a side note, if you haven't already, check out Sunday School simpsonswave.

What a great episode. I'm so thankful for this channel. Thanks for sharing your insights.

Great video! I absolutely loved this game, my favorite of 2018. I kinda blew my mind, and there was some deep weird/glitchy gameplay at the end I think really elevated it. Like you, I'm into the glitch-hiking feel and exploring dead worlds, and less into the meme & pop culture stuff. But, to me, that's just the layer of trash you gotta sort through on the internet to find the stuff you are interested in underneath..like the video game equivalent of closing pop-ups or skipping youtube ads. As someone not especially aware of vapourwave, except through games, I especially appreciated your rundown. I recently discovered your channel and really dig your style and the time and care you take with everything!

"Because there's no earnestness, because it's so dedicated to its own aesthetic trappings above everything else, one doesn't get a sense of what Broken Reality actually values" I feel like a lot of people on the internet are guilty of this, because for a long time, actually caring about things would get you bullied, no matter what it was you were actually caring about. I don't know why this happened, but I do know that it developed into a cycle of "new person expresses opinion on topic, gets shut down by people spouting forum's consensus on topic, begins to parrot forum's consensus out of survival, shuts down other opinions to 'prove' they belong." Eventually it becomes easier to just ridicule opinions immediately as performative detachment. Of course, once that becomes your entire online persona, any opinion you *actually* hold has to be tinted with this detachment, otherwise you blow your cover. So you start professing to like stuff "ironically." And when people start catching on to you as the guy who likes X Thing, you go defensive, like "oh you're just thinking about it too much" or "I like it's surface-level presentation, but it's deeper messages really don't matter." And it's still happening. There are people doing it in the comments section right now. Stuff like "wow u put way too much thought into a meme game," making fun of the phrases "irony poisoning" and "toxic memery" because they disagree with what you're saying but don't want to let on that they even have an opinion about the game at all. And I'm sure some of them will retort to this comment the same way (along with "wow ur reaching so hard" and "here's that attention u ordered" because I'm addressing them directly and they know it.) And I'll give it to them, saying you don't care doubles as a very easy way to "win" without actually putting in any effort. But I think the difference between sincere celebration of a decaying era and performative nostalgia is an important distinction, and I think it *does* matter which one this game is. Even celebration or critique of irony can be done sincerely, but this game refuses to actually commit to anything, because I think it knows that its intended audience's first reaction would be to scoff at any sincerity or hint of a message.

17:56 this looks like a pretty clear parody/reference to 80s supermodel and Bond Villain Grace Jones, known for her high-top haircut. You're overthinking it beyond "Grace Jones existed in the neon-soaked 80s and had a super-distinctive look, therefore put her in the vaporwave game"

I need a review like this but for cruelty squad, it almost seem like sibling games

So you're saying it's Vaporwave Dark Souls

I've had an interest in Vaporwave over the last few years, but not from an angle of irony, social jamming or political critique, but as a source of nostalgia. I rocked that rainbow cursor back in college on my Mac LC, and have a Sega CD collection I run in emulation on my current PC/Mac hybrid setup. I've not yet developed a "get off my lawn" mindset, but your mention of the subculture's more recent "accelerationism" tone is making me wonder if my developing a sense of crankiness about how my own life is being shadow mocked is inevitable.

I kind of feel like whether vaporware is a joke or a serious genre is the bad faith arguer turned into music. No matter how you think or talk about it, you are wrong and people will aggressively tell you you are wrong by using any angle they can understanding it isn't about finding truth, it's about proving the other false.

So two things... 1) Before watching this video, I thought vaporwave was only a visual medium. I had no idea it was also a music subgenre. 2) Vaporwave - both audio and visual - fits the neo-Dadaism aesthetic that has become so popular throughout internet culture, and this game fits the look and feel of that perfectly. If you're unfamiliar with Dadaism, neo or otherwise, this Tumblr post does a great job describing it. aint-that-kind-of-blog-bruv.tumblr.com/post/150209646443/bebeocho-mustangsally78-fringnubs

You can harvest my like. Well done tying things together.

This is by far one of the most interesting game critiques I've watched in a while. Well done

"Aquí es donde vengo a llorar." translation: "this is where i come to cry." that joke killed me x'd.

One cool thing here is that you don't have to choose whether you're "lamenting" or "embracing" vaporwave when you participate in creating it.

Mate, may I recommend you reading "The Argentine writer and tradition"? It might give you a better undestandng about how we, South Americans, deal with what we perceive as an hegemonic culture, and how we read those cultures. I think it's on PDF if you Google it.

I would like to thank you for this video - without it, I probably would have never found out about this game, and I absolutely love it. So much, indeed, that I played through it with at times, like, four frames per second because my computer couldn't handle it. Which was pretty hard considering the platforming stuff in the Intranet. It took many, waaay too many tries and luck that after the lag I would be positioned corecty. But in the end it worked out.

A Magical Katana, a bookmarker that lets you teleport, a hookshot, a weird credit card, and just a camera

I am watching this on 360p.

It's weird how different and similar synthwave/outrun is from vaporwave. I'm thoroughly enjoying my dive into the retrowave culture's.

Thank you for this great video. It really helped me out a lot on my final paper for "Introduction to game studies". Cheers!

I also played Broken Reality and I think its a great game, its like the definition of "Vaporwave game", colorful graphics, atmospheric sound, relaxing and non violent gameplay.

I vaguely remembered this video and it had eventually lead me to paradise killer.

That likes mechanic... Attention is the currency in the marketplace of ideas.

Really enjoyed the game up to the point in geocities where everything breaks apart if you don't find the mariachis in the correct order and you have to restart your entire game. I made the mistake of not asking the DJ for the tape first. The only game with a game breaking issue so common and big that I gave up beating it at all. To anyone trying to give this a chance, look at a walkthrough for geocities to not get locked out of the last chapter.

I knew when this game was announced people would be making 20 minute long video essays that would be recommended to me by the RU-vid algorithm that I wouldn’t watch anyways, but good on you for promoting this cool game

I dont' think I will ever forget the moment you went into aquanet

This video is the only worthwhile thing this game produced. The game has nothing to say, but it sure does reference things.

the NPC's remind me of the current dead state of Habbo Hotel and it's really depressing

This makes me want a video on Hypnospace Outlaw.

dont worry about trying to understand it. vaporwave is more about the aesthetic and mood. the music is just the background theme to it all.

I feel like this video was about a year too early.

ＭΞＴΛＭ♢ＤΣＲＮＩＳＭ　（ぎ演ヱ）

This is one of the few products where "It's not a bug, it's a feature" is probably serious.

This episode links in with some of the things talked about in *The Alt Right Playbook*. Where whether or not something is meant to be taken as 'just a joke' or 'actually serius' will depend solely on who the audience is.

Someone should make a game where you start out 8-bit and slowly progress to photo-realistic 3D. You can have this idea for free. If you make a mill with it, pay me.

Ah, for heaven's sake. I was just trying to get back to a more varied diet of YT videos after spending so much time in the music part of the place and you link an Adam Neely video...

I hope someone creates a vaporwave metaverse like this

God yes I did not think this would end up in my inbox! Thank you!

Damn, this vrchat rooms looks very aesthetic

So I'm super late to the party, but hey maybe you read this and consider it or maybe you don't. I have a problem with the phrase "embraces aesthetics over values." To me, an applied aesthetic is a statement of value, maybe not the type of statement we're used to, but a statement nonetheless. The best analogy I can make is to your Far Cry 5 "Art of Saying Nothing" video, where I would say it is a missed opportunity at best and dangerous at worst to claim that the aesthetics are not part of a value statement. For example, as a teen I loved (and still do, but as a guilty pleasure) emo-punk music. Most, not all, but most of the lyrics were hollow and did not really make any large statement outside of "I'm sad," but the consistent embrace of the aesthetics of teen angst and sadness made an implicit argument that these were emotional states worth taking seriously, whether or not the lyrics themselves could produce anything we would typically consider "substantial." I take this to heart especially considering the depression and anxiety memes that continue to come from my generation, which only makes me wonder what may have happened if individuals read the emo trend aesthetically as a cry for help, albeit an admittedly whiny and self-important one as teenage shenanigans tend to be. Similarly, Quake's aesthetics could be read in much the same way, and Broken Reality could be read as embracing the vaporwave aesthetic, thus circulating it, making the implicit argument that it is, in fact, worth circulating, and therefore a sensibility to be taken seriously. Now that is a very surface-level read, and I am by no means an aesthetic scholar so I'm sure there is even more there, but I think it is worth bringing up. It could have also just been a wording oversight that I'm overreacting to, which if it was I hope this argument can at least be read in good faith :)

They should make a real life vaporwave chatroom

what_can_I_say_but_yikes.jpg Have you been watching Lindsay Ellis lately?

This looks like a place where memes go to die.

I need to play this, thanks for doing this video

I eagerly wait for every single one of these essays you put out. I really hope you do a cyberpunk one because there's so much hype around it, but I wanna know if talents or map design is gonna be anything to be write home about.

having only played the demo and not the full game, the "all over the place" nature of the game's humor to me really only further drove home the nihilistic view it takes over itself. You gotta get popular and be seen on social media and the best way to do that is to like everything you come across without bias. And that nihilism to me is the central idea behind Broken Reality, and really vaporwave in general. I don't think it's a matter of it being either ironic or genuine, but i think there's a bit of both going on. It's both nostalgic and bitter about the time periods it hearkens back to, and it's incredibly self-aware. I believe this game has a lot to say, and i think there is a genuine sincerity and honesty behind the message, but it also reminds us not to get too caught up in that and to just enjoy a funny meme about dogs or weed puns.

Thanks for the game recommendation, will definitely buy soon.

haven't played this in years but ever since Temptation Stairway i've been thinking about it again

i dont know what it is but it is the coolest thing ive ever seen.

Wow fantastic video. I learned a ton and might get the game

did Broken Reality finally come out? (lol i found it back in 2017 and i've had it on my wishlist ever since waiting for it to come out) (back then i was looking for a vaporwave game i seen it loved it (the look reminds me of three things 1. vaporwave "Duh" 2. jazzpunk 3. LSD Dream emulator)) (joined vaporwave back in 2015) Edit: :D the dead mall series (i love dead malls its peaceful, its like going outside to the woods for someone who likes hunting and hiking. watching years finally take its toll on the building as the internet gets "better" for shopping more malls will die out leaving it like a ghost town.

My big problem with the game was actually the game breaking glitch :v You can hop over a fence in Geocities prematurely using a can-induced jump, giving you the option to do some things that could prevent you from finishing the game, or at least get strongly in the way of you finishing. That being said, this video pointed out a lot of the strong and weakpoints of the game that I didn't really think about. Nice job on that.

I'm loving the visuals (mouse click) [LIKE]