This chapter discusses a case of cultural appropriation found in vaporwave, a genre that emerged from ostensibly egalitarian online communities. Some writers have interpreted the genre as a nuanced criticism of Western capitalism. Drawing upon the analytical strategies provided by sound studies, which treat any sonic material as agents that communicate human intention, Fukunaka instead addresses the genre’s subtly colonialist gesture. Why is the exaggerated “kitschiness” or “cheapness” found in the genre’s earliest prototype projects? The presence of “Japan,” both sonically and visually, seems to function solely to represent an imitated version of Western capitalist society with no history—a theme that is omnipresent in vaporwave pieces. The genre’s “global” pretense is at stake, which may ultimately be a form of what Sebastian Conrad calls a “shared history.”