HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DRESS FOR A HYPERPOP PARTY: VISA カード REMIX

revisiting the genre, aesthetics of party, sci fi, and sythensizers with VISA カード of Internet Kids.

Shortly after I published my first interview about the HyperPop Dance Party with an anonymous dancer, one of the members of Internet Kids (who had organized this and upcoming HyperPop Dance Parties) reached out to talk to me about their relationship to HyperPop, tech, and capitalism. VISA カード, is one of the brains behind the dance party, and produces their own music alongside sick multi-tv visual displays; and is a self professed member of “the first generation to live under a globalized culture of mass consumption.” Their attitudes were seemingly juxtaposed to my previous interviewee, despite their mutual love for the genre and ‘new technologies.’ Over Instagram DM, VISA カード informed me, “A lot of my solo work satirizes American consumer culture and while I think ANON is right that Venture Capital is the future—I do not share their optimism.” Eager to hear more about HyperPop from not only an artist but an organizer within the local scene, we met up to chat. In a coffee shop abreast the Mississippi River, we discussed the transness of HyperPop, modular mentalities, creative collaboration, and David Lynch.

VISA カード with the other members of Internet Kids at the HyperPop Dance Party

JUNJI GREEDO: It’s good to see you again! Let’s get right into it. Launching off what we’ve discussed previously in our DMs, lets start with HyperPop and queerness! Where do you find your queerness in HyperPop?

VISA カード： I think science fiction in general has been kind of this creative space where we can talk about things that are complex— politics, war, gender, things we can’t understand. When you use a science fiction framework to understand that, it makes it less scary to talk about things that are actually real. You are thinking about your body and your anatomy as something that is modular. Something that is shifting, something that is changing. I think that aspect of science fiction is something that allows for people to kind of explore gender and the idea of their body as something that is separate to who they are.

J: The body as merely a flesh prison, ala customizing your character.

V: Yeah! I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout New Vegas lately, a game that is actually pretty queer-coded. Same with the Matrix, and synthesizers.

J: Matrix, obviously. But synthesizers? Tell me more…

V: I don’t know, but it’s the same kind of modular mentality. You are buying all these different parts, putting them in, and building it from the ground up. You can change parts in and out. I think that aspect of the queer experience is represented in both synths and sci-fi that way.

J: What was your introduction to HyperPop?

V: SOPHIE’s Lemonade. At the time I heard it I was in college, I grew up in radio, my dad actually teaches radio at a very small college in Iowa.

[…]

Lately, I’ve been hearing SOPHIE’s name less, and hopefully that’s just anecdotal, and because of her discography being so small, and that’s just being because of how brief she was around, but it’s kind of heart-breaking. And I’m hoping she doesn’t get forgotten as the genre works its way into the mainstream. I want this space to continue to be a space that when people show up, they don’t feel like they have to be afraid or on guard. I just want people to feel like wherever they are, or whoever they are there with, can enjoy and have [HyperPop] as an excuse to celebrate and have fun!

J: To call back about “spaces,” you specifically told me “my optimism stems from a dream that young people who are socialized enough to organize in physical spaces can learn to build and mobilize rainbow coalitions for anti-capitalist efforts.” I want to talk to you more about your goal in defining a space, and your use of leftist-revolutionary language. How does this all fit into your work?

V: With [VISAカード], I think part of why I used that language in what I do, is before all of this I was interested in VaporWave, and when I first started making stuff I listened to a lot of VaporWave in college, and I found Floral Shoppe in like 2013, and all of that stuff really interested me. I liked that it sounded like DJ Screw’s stuff. And that tapped into this hypnogogic liminal space where people are using data technology to achieve an eerily authentic feel to the way things sounded during a specific era. I think that affect can be very arresting, and it can be helpful, and explorative, and fun.

[…]

But, I think that’s just a reflection of the sort of cyber space that we are drinking from. Everyone is drinking from a firehouse, theres a millions things happening at a time. It’s a weird headspace that we all kind of have to navigate, and it’s easy to become an agent and it’s easy to fall into individualism.

J: Tell me more about your music making process.

V: Making art is like making chairs. You can’t think “is this chair the best chair?” you’ll make great chairs eventually. You just got to make a lot of chairs first. I see art as making a thing, and giving people puzzle pieces too.

J: What is the ‘puzzle piece?’

V: The puzzle piece is huge. Twin peaks, and David Lynch and all that kind of turned me onto artwork that could be different in the way it explored feeling. And, this sense of wonder that I didn’t feel uh, for a long time. Until I watched Eraserhead.

[…]

I’d say [Lynch] was how I got into things that were kind of like ‘dreamy,’ and for awhile I kept a dream journal. Which got me into VaporWave, which got me into Plunderphonics! A huge inspiration for my artwork in college.

J: VaporWave is pretty dreamy, kinda fugue state nostalgic.

V: Tapping into that nostalgia but using techniques that are new, and different. And VaporWave is also a very trans genre! Like, Vektroid. Also things like James Ferraro’s “Far Side Virtual,” and “Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe” were things that I listened to, and reminded me of what I liked about The Avalanches, which I listened to growing up. What Plunderphonics is doing right now reminds me a lot of DariaCore.

J: What is Daria-core?

V: An internet sub-genre, thats heavily associated with HyperPop.

J: Like, the TV show? Daria?

V: Yes. Exactly, that’s where it comes from. So, there’s this artist named Jane Remover, and she’s gone by a whole bunch of different names, she used to just do NightCore stuff, but she made this genre called DariaCore. Which is just this like sonic tapestry that bombards you with all of these samples of pop songs from the y2k era and a little bit after. VaporWave takes almost exclusively from before 2001. The samples are from before y2k. But with HyperPop the samples are like 2010s.

J: Crazy that 2008 Obama-era nostalgia I found in the fashion there is so reflective of certain the samples chosen. Did the world end in 2012?

V: I think it’s only reflective of the art we are being shown right now. Which is dying! I think Marvel Movies are falling off, no one is going to them. When it comes to trends about regurgitating old stuff that we’re seeing, post-2020, I do feel a shift in attitude. And, I’m hoping that, as a musician, in a scene, that is looking to reach out and work with people, and get away from competing with artists, that we can start to focus on making art that can imagine a future that’s better. And there examples of that being extremely successful, like StarTrek! There’s peace, and no capitalism, only collaboration.

J: Let’s hear more about collaboration.

V: I feel like we should focus on team building, and helping each other out. I don’t know if people still talk about it this way, but I was told awhile ago that the culture here is “DIT not DIY.” We’re doing it together, it’s not a do it yourself thing. In the future, I’m hoping to see more mixed bills shows and stuff. I think that’s really healthy and important. That gets different people in the rooms, people who haven’t met each other before yet. Gets people more familiar with what it’s like to socialize with each other. Because it can be uncomfortable, but there’s an importance of drawing a line in the sand and making it clear that this is a space where people can have their guard down.

J: There seems to be an overarching through-arc of love, and acceptance, and connection within your work.

V: I’m glad that comes through! When I use language like that, it’s mostly there to scare away opportunists, and scare away vampires who see this as an opportunity to make a buck off someone, or sees it as a ‘network opportunity.’

J: What are some of your goals with the HyperPop Dance Party?

V: I don’t want to stand on some pedestal and call myself “the revolutionary” or whatever, but it’s good to try and use HyperPop to encourage [leftist organizing] that we want in these spaces. If you can get 350 people in a room, for fun, what happens when they start to develop empathy for each other?

[…]

There’s a lot of conditioning that has been happening since you were a kid, conditioning you can’t escape. Well, you can. It just takes a lot of work.

J: Do you think HyperPop rejects that conditioning?

V: I think it does. For me, I think HyperPop shows what it’s like to be inside the brain of someone who has hyperactive thoughts.

J: People often remark, “this is what it sounds like on the inside of my brain!”

V: Yeah totally! I’ve always had a lush inner image. I’ve always seen pictures when I listen to music. I remember as a kid, I had this dream about My Chemical Romance’s “Black Parade,” and I knew the context of the record, but my dream was it’s own. I was in 5th or 6th grade, and I remember I saw a play in my head, and thinking “I want to make a movie! Centered around music!”

J: Do you still feel that childlike sense of wonder?

V: And I still get it now, that sense of wonder I think is less developed than when I was a kid, because you get so tuned into things where it’s kind of hard to see past, you’re looking behind the curtain now. Everything is more meta. We’re becoming more aware of the frameworks, so some of the old illusions just don’t work anymore.

J: These illusions don’t work anymore. Are these illusions related to HyperPop and post 2010s nostalgia?

V: Well, part of me feels like I’m grieving while I’m listening to HyperPop. There’s this consumer culture that sold me an idea of this really beautiful future, where there is science, and grass fields.

I feel like the reason people go to see musicians or other entertainers perform is because they know, that if they were to sing in public, they’d be laughed at. But here’s someone that’s brave enough to do it in front of tons and tons of people, and part of us wishes we were that. We’re like, why can’t I be that? Why do I feel so scared, to do something that isn’t harmful? To do something that isn’t necessary. That has no purpose. That’s revolutionary in and of itself. Knowing that is okay not to be productive. That actually, you are way more productive than anyone ever has been. That the amount of hours you are working, and the way you are able to balance the time between your friendships, and your personal life, is so perverted from what it should be. It’s ok to relax. And I think that’s what helps us heal, and helps us get closer to the spots we know we deserve.

What’s interesting about VaporWave and HyperPop in general is that I think it creates difficulties of being co-opted, because if a company co-opts a satirization of themself, it’s not cool!

J: Do you think HyperPop has enough intellectual consistency to maintain this anti-consumerist ethos amongst with the influence of brands and corporations?

V: It’s so new, that I… I guess it’s not all that new. Coming up on being a decade old. And that’s pretty old. Do I think there’s enough intellectual consistency? No, I don’t. I know, Charli XCX partied at the Ice House in 2018, and you know, had the big braided Gucci fanny pack and the Lime scooter. It was cool. I do think there are people who love consumer culture, still.

J: In my recent interview I spoke with a HyperPop fan that wants to be on the side of Venture Capital.

V: It’s the frameworks, it’s the way we’re trained to view the world. But it’s interesting that we can be in a place, and sharing a space with people who have subversive and revolutionary ideas, and among them are people who also love venture capitalism and partying. It’s a beautiful contradiction. Punk had the same issues. VaporWave had the same issues. When you are satirizing something it can come through differently. You got to just hope that whoever is given the limelight, whoever people are talking about, that they’re acting in good faith.

When you are building a coalition, it’s never good to use shame as a tactic, I don’t think shame gets anyone closer to going up and understanding. I think through aid, and helping people recognize the toxic networks that are hurting them, I think that gets people on your side.

I think overtime, when someone can continue to feel like they at home in a space, and there are people with these radically different frameworks, they're the ones that are coming through for you 100% of the time. And these toxic networks, and systems, aren’t there for you in the same way people and communities are. And that’s how you defeat that cognitive dissonance. It’s always good to give that social grace.

J: To finish, what’s one thing that’s ‘out’ in 2024?

V: Individualism.

J: And one thing that’s in.

V: Uhhh… couch co-op.

VISA カード will by playing at The White Squirrel on March 7th and April 1st. Internet Kids’s next HyperPop Dance Party will be on March 24th at CanCan Wonderland for Trans Visibility Day.

All photography provided by VISA カード.