My first thought had been along the same lines. I thought of the word anemoia from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

anemoia - n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known

youtube.com/watch?v=wH6ZClRjl14

Imagine stepping through the frame into a sepia-tinted haze, where you could sit on the side of the road and watch the locals passing by. Who lived and died before any of us arrived here, who sleep in some of the same houses we do, who look up at the same moon, who breathe the same air, feel the same blood in their veins - and live in a completely different world.

Vaporwave is inherently about a time that never existed, as it’s a re-interpretation of very specific parts of a time period into an aesthetic. A nostalgia for dial-up modems, corporate ad jingles, and hold music all rolled up in that one pattern every paper cup had in the 90s with classical era statues, southern California palm trees in the sunset, and dolphins. A tourist’s view of the nascent internet and the corporate tech world of the time.

“going back to a past that never existed” is a pretty common internet esoteric fasho thing