By Vaporwave Casual (pseudonym)
“Barber Beats” is the name of a subgenre of vaporwave that has emerged in the past few years. Vaporwave is a genre that emerged in the 2010s, consisting of plentiful samples slowed down, combined, and chopped up, with added production effects and flourishes. (One commenter under Pad’s video – an overview video watched for this piece – described it as “just chopped and screwed for white people” if that helps.) I watched three recent Youtube videos on the history of this new subgenre: two documentaries (one 3-part) and one shorter video. I also pored over the comments to learn more, especially about the ethical issues people have with the genre.
While I did not know the name of the genre for a long time, like many people interviewed in these videos, I use it for homework and otherwise as background music. While a few songs here and there have caught my ears, I haven’t thought of the genre as “real music” per se. This is a lot of what made me not think to investigate it.
Many of the ethical issues discussed when Barber Beats is brought up – clear from the Youtube comments, especially on the video source that blew up the most – are part of its parent genre vaporwave. These ethical issues are the lack of clearance for samples and profiting off of them (especially profiting off music by Black and
Asian artists), the controversial right-wing attitudes of several notable artists and listeners, the appropriative usage of Japanese aesthetics, and more recently, the genre’s receptiveness to AI.
The first issue has reportedly existed since the early vaporwave days but has become more vocal with Barber Beats. Barber Beats utilizes samples to an even larger degree than Vaporwave originally did: some are just entirely an obscure song slowed down with different production than the original. Some Barber Beats creators do not use the term “artist” (Pad’s video), or lightheartedly balk at the title (OSCOB – “Barber Night Delight”). There is a general self-consciousness and guilt that seems to underlie the fact that the music is “stolen”: many Barber Beats creators would put disclaimers in their Bandcamp bios stating the music is “plundered”/”stolen”. In the documentaries when asked directly some associated with the scene attempt to justify this by saying that Youtube’s song claim system sends the money to the original artists, and that they don’t upload to Spotify to avoid infringing on the original artists’ profits. (There is also of course the fact that Spotify might remove their work for plagiarism.) While sometimes the songs are claimed, especially on the channel that I have used to listen to this music, often songs are not claimed at all and I have no idea who made the original, hence my ignorance of this fact for so long. It is also controversial that some people have begun releasing their tracks physically for money, with the releasers crossing their fingers that no one copyright claims their wares. Some do directly acknowledge that their music is heavily sampled and do not monetize it; others such as Rombreaker and Mabisyo eventually began to make original music in the genre, or like Telenights have always made original music. And some do credit their samples in the descriptions of their videos (being a mostly online genre that has only recently begun to make forays into the physical world).
Many directly oppose the characterization of the sampled music as “lazy” or not adding value. Defenders say that Barber Beats makers introduce people to music they would never hear otherwise. Copyright law is often archaic and unhelpful, and the job of a Barber Beats maker is to “recontextualize” the music with its visuals – some argue it’s not even a music genre.
These visuals often draw on very masculine images of Greco-Roman statues, or anime artwork. The majority of the images show men or if they show women they are sexualized in some manner. While there are some explicitly female Barber Beats artists such as dudette division, many put forward a masculine-coded image. Like Vaporwave, the idea is to evoke feelings of nostalgia and complex wistful emotions. The genre is also strongly in favor of anonymity so its exact makeup is unknown. This additionally helps artists escape any heat for their political beliefs. The first Barber Beats artist, Haircuts for Men, had his right-wing political beliefs revealed in 2020 and has garnered controversy. Vaporwave unfortunately has a not insignificant association with the right wing and fascism and this carries on that legacy. However, some artists such as Modest By Default use explicitly leftist imagery and titles – MBD’s “Curse of Colonialism” series uses images of various Global South freedom fighters as album covers.
Both the smaller documentaries I viewed were created by Barber Beats supporters – one fan and one artist. The creators and interviewers noted the positive impact the genre has had on their lives. Several of those interviewed who were white men talked about how it helped them through tough times, and/or serves as a creative outlet. While this is especially good due to the toxic constraints of masculinity many men face, that white men especially may indulge in unhealthy mechanisms to excise, it does not erase the fact that the genre makes liberal use of Black and Asian artists’ music in the name of “aesthetics”. Many artists carry on the vaporwave tradition of using Japanese text (often through translation software) for their song and album titles, which a non-fan commenter described as “tired”. There has also been a friendliness towards the use of AI artwork and I unknowingly listened to at least one AI album (I believe AI is unethical and I would prefer not to interact with anything made by it).
Overall, I think I will be more carefully considering which artists from the genre I use for homework music in the future, keeping it to originals. A caveat is that I’m not deep in the scene so these are all criticisms that have been brought up before for years; nothing particularly exciting. The documentaries are linked below.
The Controversial Music Genre of Barber Beats by Pad Chennington https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxp4Qos39Zo
BARBERGEDDON – A Barber Beats Documentary (Parts 1 – 3: first three videos in playlist) by UNDERSAKEN
Barber Night Delight ft. Macroblank – A Vaporwave Documentary by matsby/Enzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMGZDNDgE