Vaporwave (British English: vapourwave) is an electronic music subgenre that originated in the early 2010s and spread over the next half of the decade among various Internet communities. It is characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist fascination with entertainment, technology and advertising of the 1980s and 1990s, and styles of both corporate and popular music such as lounge music, smooth jazz and elevator music. Sampling is prevalent within the genre, with samples often pitched down, layered or altered (earlier in a classic chopped and screwed style).