George Clanton was born in Richmond, Virginia. He grew up going to punk rock shows. His career began when he accidentally downloaded a misnamed Brian Jonestown Massacre song, which led him down an Internet rabbit hole where he discovered "a whole new world of music" which inspired him to write and release his own under the pseudonym Mirror Kisses, and later ESPRIT 空想. He decided to start using his real name before releasing his album 100% Electronica, because "[he] didn't want to release one more album as Mirror Kisses", and he "hated saying 'Mirror Kisses' every time someone asked [him his] band name." He tried to make a sequel to 100% Electronica for three years but felt that he failed, because he wasn't being able to find the sound he wanted for it. After giving up, he started experimenting and writing stuff for fun and felt that the "songs [were writing] themseves". Eventually, this material transformed into his next album, Slide,  where he incorporated electric guitar and acoustic drums as well. In 2015 he established his record label 100% Electronica along with his girlfriend, Negative Gemini. He and Negative Gemini both hail from Virginia and played their first show together in 2011 along other artists such as Skylar Spence. In 2019, they launched 100% Electronicon, the first vaporwave music festival. Clanton streams his live performances regularly on Twitch and YouTube. He described New York City as his favorite city in the world to perform. Clanton has a degree in anthropology and taught himself computer science  in order to create virtual interactive experiences for his record label. Although he is frequently associated with vaporwave, Clanton himself states that he embraces the tag purely for marketing purposes, and does not consider himself strictly a vaporwave musician. Vaporwave is primarily an instrumental genre, which contradicts Clanton's use of vocals. His only conscious attempt at the genre was with the ESPRIT 空想 sideproject. Clanton noted that unlike some vaporwave artists, he does not try to be "ironic" or "silly with his lyrics", and prefers to "write great pop songs that are representative of an emotion that [he] actually [feels] when [he's] singing them." George Clanton's music has been described as a fusion of electropop, trip hop, and vaporwave, while also using elements of grunge, acid house, and shoegazing. Critics have also associated his music with chillwave and hypnagogic pop.