Xpiritualism is a loosely defined internet outsider art movement centered on digital collage, characterized by a combination of old internet culture, esotericism, New Age spirituality, and aesthetics from various foreign internet sources. The term "#Xpiritualism" originated on Instagram, coined by 3rd.world.elite. While the aesthetic is frequently mislabeled as " Yabujincore " on platforms like TikTok due to the popularity of the Lithuanian artist Yabujin, Xpiritualism encompasses a much broader history of "cursed" digital art that predates his rise.

The style is often described as a "corrupted version" of popular culture, featuring malfunctioning visuals, low-resolution "unregistered hypercam" footage, and garbled audio that sounds like a "defective ocarina." It draws heavily from the imagery of the early 2000s internet, specifically the "dark side" of the web found in spam folders, scams, shock sites, and bootleg video games from the Flash era.

Long before the rise of Yabujin, artists were already experimenting with the re-appropriation of "trash" internet imagery. A key pioneer in this space was James Howard, whose work in the early 2010s focused on the visual language of the "underground side of the internet," specifically spam emails and online scams. Howard, a former teenage hacker, described his fascination with the "dodgy emails" and scams that promised wealth or romance. His work involved copying and pasting images directly from these illicit sites, acknowledged as likely illegal source material, and manipulating them in Photoshop to create "dreamscape visions," "rainbow-fade mountains," and "roleplay characters with California tans and neon white teeth."

The aesthetic crystallized into its current form with the emergence of Yabujin (also known as DJ GYROTTA ZAO) around 2018. Yabujin's output combined the visual chaos of earlier net.art with a specific sonic palette of "jagged jumpstyle" and "mangled" vocals. Central to this era was the " Azeroy " video series, which debuted on November 22, 2018. This eight-part series established a dense mythology involving a character named Guheitta (or "White Text"), a constructed language called "Azeroyska," and themes of failed creation and surgery.

The lore of Azeroy became a shared cultural reference for the community, with fans congregating in a Discord server named NKWeb (which reached nearly 5,000 members) to decode the symbols. The primary motifs included the number 1616 (representing evil/chaos) and 8888 (representing good/magic). Some theorists have even described Yabujin's multimedia project as a "hyper sigil"; an extended piece of art designed to manifest changes in reality, similar to the works of comic book writer Grant Morrison.

In late 2021, the aesthetic migrated to TikTok, where it mutated into a specific trend known as " Yabujincore " or "Jumpstylecore." This sub-genre is distinct from the broader Xpiritualism movement. It originated around December 3, 2021, with a video by user @hexdsim3kkk featuring a man jumpstyle dancing with a Matrix-like filter. The trend went viral in November 2022 following a Roblox edit by user @taurvz, eventually spawning over 23,000 posts under the hashtag.

Long-time community members and critics have disparaged this wave of content as low-effort edits that simply combine stretched human figures with random foreign text. This mainstream exposure has been cited as a potential reason for Yabujin's retreat from the internet.

Xpiritualism is characterized by "uncanny and sublime" randomness. Unlike Dreamcore , which often relies on liminal spaces and comfort, Xpiritualism leans into "digital grotesquerie." It aestheticizes the look of a "broken" Web 2.0, utilizing 144p quality footage, "Unregistered Hypercam 2" watermarks, and imagery ripped from bootleg games and Flash-era online games.

James Howard's contribution to the aesthetic focuses on the "glossy" side of internet deception. His installation "Black Money Show" was based on a specific scam involving dyed banknotes, and his digital collages utilize the high-saturation, overly perfect imagery found in spam ads to create a sense of unease.

In the musical sphere, visuals often incorporate specific cultural references. Yabujin's " Flash Desire " mixtape (2019) references the " Love Hina Sim Date RPG " and North Korean iconography, while the " Baroque " EP draws from the 1999 Sega Saturn game Baroque and the anime Berserk . The project " Azeroy " utilizes medical imagery, specifically ultrasounds and surgical themes (such as "going under the knife"), contrasting them with the concept of "angels" to explore the relationship between healing and harm.

Another notable visual project within the sphere is " Happy World Daddy ," a web series created by Sam Hyde and described as an "avant-garde experimental niche marketing campaign." The series serves as an "internet fringe game show" targeting specific edgy internet subcultures (described as "antisemitic bodybuilders and eCelebrity-obsessed firearm aficionados") and is characterized as a "loopy hellride through the rapidly-decaying collective unconscious."

Other artists like Do Thien Live Beautifully maintain a massive digital footprint to propagate the aesthetic, managing over 200 active social media accounts to share videos full of chaotic internet graphics.

The most significant misconception regarding Xpiritualism is the conflation of the entire art movement with the " Yabujincore " trend on TikTok. While "Yabujincore" refers specifically to the repetitive format of jumpstyle videos overlaid with Arabic or Russian text, Xpiritualism is a broader "collaborative circle" of artists.

Yabujin himself is often mistakenly cited as the sole creator of the aesthetic. While he popularized the "cursed" digital look in the late 2010s, he was building upon the "Schizocore" art of James Howard and the " Net.art " movements of the early 2010s. Furthermore, the TikTok trend has created a sanitized version of the original aesthetic, turning the complex and lore-heavy "ARG" elements of artists like Yabujin into a hollow visual filter for algorithmic consumption.

Important Note: To avoid redundancy, these are musical and visual artists, or both.

This is a category for anything that could inspire new styles within the movement.