Key motifs: Neon, wireframe landscapes, sunsets and dusk, [ palm_trees, ] chrome, '80s sports_cars

Key colours: Magenta, pink, blue, purple, cyan, black

Synthwave (also known as Outrun) is a particular aesthetic that draws a lot of inspiration from the 1980s. While it does often get lumped in with Vaporwave, there are significant differences between the two genres. While it is particularly regarded as a musical genre, there are examples of synthwave in movies, TV shows, art, and video games.

Synthwave visuals draw a lot of inspiration from graphics often seen during the '80s, such as sunset graphics, neon grids (neon_palette), neon_lights, '80s sports_cars, wireframe vector graphics, pixel_art that is designed to look like an old school (retro_artstyle) 8-bit video game, video cassettes (videocassette, arcades, malls, etc. Some people will often confuse Synthwave visuals with visuals from the Vaporwave genre [...], but there are key differences in not only what is used in the art of the respective aesthetics, but also the tone of it: while Vaporwave can tend to have a more tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic tone to it, Synthwave is incredibly earnest with its love of everything 80s and is made in tribute to the era rather than critiquing it. [...]

Synthwave visuals may also borrow very heavily from '80s Cyberpunk (most notably the 1982 film Blade_Runner and the 1989 anime Akira) but celebrate the aesthetics of it rather than heeding the initial warnings that were offered by these works about the risks of technology advancing too fast.

The Synthwave color palette differs from Vaporwave because while Vaporwave tends to utilize a lot of washed-out colors to show the wear and tear of time on the past, Synthwave uses colors as bold, vibrant, and colorful as the '80s themselves [...].