Yeah, not sure what the "vaporwave is a criticisim of consumerism" came from. It's a thing now though, since most people started listening to the genre _after_ this theory came out, and many interpreted the music with it.

To me, it was always about the feeling of finding weird, old stuff. You listen to this music on streaming, and you don't know who made it, or where it came from, and then you just never find it again. It actually sounds better on shitty speakers, since it increases the feel of listening to a cassette you found in the dumpster