Neon and corporate dystopias: why does cyberpunk refuse to move on?
115 replies, posted
I thought the latest Bladerunner was great, it had everything there in the world, but it just showed them, rather than focus on them.
Majorly.
The most critical issue with cyberpunk media today is a lot of them are missing the point. They throw out the thematic focus of the genre and treat it like a visual aesthetic. You can have your iconic imagery and designs but you have to fucking earn it.
Moreover they seem to gloss over the transient pieces of media we're starting to see within the last 10-20 years. The Altered Carbon books arguably have more of a post-cyberpunk feel to them given that the uprising completely failed and Tak has very little hope of changing the world. I still argue that Blade Runner 2049 transitions rapidly from classic cyberpunk into a film focused more on post-human existence which is far from what classic cyberpunk novels and films go near.
If I had to name the most unorthodox cyberpunk to date it would have to be Mr Robot. It completely understands the history of the genre and the components used to create it whilst keeping it in a very present setting. Proof you don't need any sci-fi elements or near-future imagery to absolutely fit into the genre...
You're being a little too obvious. You'll want to tone it down if you want people to not just laugh at you.
I think Altered Carbon is a pretty good example of the issue with modern cyberpunk. As much as I enjoyed it, it's equal parts retreading old ground (plucky trenchcoat-wearing gumshoe in a dystopian city) and missing the point (Kovacs has no connection to the oppressed underclass, and the Meths are simply part of the book's 'nature of identity' theme rather than used to frame the haves vs the have-nots). It invokes cyberpunk's cliches, but misses its core themes. I guess 'post-cyberpunk' is a pretty good way of putting it, but that label is basically a tacit admission that the genre has stagnated and died rather than evolve along with the issues it tried to capture.
IMO the issue with this opinion isn't that you're wrong about the style of Cyberpunk not really matching the issues in our future but that a genre of art and fiction has to be about our most likely predictable future. There's nothing stopping people from making dystopian fiction that more closely matches our reality if Cyberpunk remains a stylized genre, I think that should go without saying. Shows like Black Mirror are already doing that in my opinion so this article seems to be more or less arguing semantics
I'd disagree, because Takeshi is one of the oppressed underclass, specifically one even more exploited than those on Earth - he's a poor person from the Colonies who's only escape was into the Armed Forces (and then the UN Envoys), and this despite harbouring a great respect for one of the few rebels against the system that his planet produced. The rest of the trilogy delves into that in much greater detail.
I'd say his other book, Black Man/Thirteen (in the US) is probably a bit more cyberpunk-y than Altered Carbon (but not the rest of the Kovacs Trilogy), and ironically, addresses some of the themes that the writer of this article wants to see incorporated into Cyberpunk.
Probably why people keep trying to cram Nixie tubes into it, TBH.
I may be wrong, but that almost sounds like it describes Cyberpunk in a nut-shell.
Punk is politics and rebellion. It's about a dystopian setting at some point in time that has plenty to rebel against.
For example, Steampunk is in the past, and because it's in the past it's unlikely to change now, but many of the important points of steampunk are shared with cyberpunk. The horrible conditions of the industrial revolution, the hope of adventure, advancement and the march of technology, and a new scramble for imperialism and exploitation. Steampunk and Cyberpunk are both exaggerations of the feelings of a time in human history so that we can pick them apart and analyse them in a fun way.
Dieselpunk focuses on ww2 and post-ww2 issues. Feminism, the quickening pace of humanity, the possibility of armageddon due to industrialised warfare, crime, the great depression and the decadence of the upper classes. The sheer efficiency of mechanised humanity, segregation, the space age. It's under explored in comparison, but if you consider some of the messages of the pre-great war Fallout series, you get the picture of what a dieselpunk game could be like if you temper it with the bitter prejudice of reality.
The problem is, if you take the message, politics and the rebellion out of genrepunk you're mostly left with a vapid, stagnant shell. It's no longer genrepunk, it's just a setting.
I haven't read a whole lot of diesel punk but the good books I have mostly explore the pre ww1 to ww2 time period where countries were run by aristocricy, people were largely detached from their governments, and lots of colonialism. There's a lot of overlap between dieselpunk and steampunk though.
Blade Runner 2049 alone is a proof there's still so much to do with this genre and that's it's more relevant than ever.
The one reboot/adaptation of a popular IP that actually evelated its franchise, had its own identity while fitting perfectly in continuation with the original material. It's all about having inspired creatives in charge who understand the point of the genre, vs writers who only replicate surface level ideas from the 2-3 main genre setters.
Cyberpunk 2077 is extremely promising. Lets hope the new 100% CG GITS show doesnt suck.
I actually disagree about overlap in theme between Dieselpunk and Steampunk. To be honest, even as a big fan of it, I can't truly call Steampunk "punk". It rarely has anything demonstrably "punk" about it. It's typically very romantic and akin to adventure novels and such, plucky heroes with immutable ideologies fighting against (sometimes literally) mustache twirling villains. While they both may touch on colonialism and aristocracy, they usually approach from polar opposite directions with Steampunk romanticizing these aspects and making them almost heroic. On the flip side Dieselpunk usually shows these things as failing concepts that are simply dragging the world in to a great big shithole. Dieselpunk typically has a lot more in common with Cyberpunk than either has with Steampunk. Love them all though.
Steampunk more realistically pokes at how wonderous and posh the world would have been (as lavish decoration and craftsmanship were a high-demand item back then) while the working poor (villain or hero) make do how they can, either cobbling something together from bits of industrial detritus, or being funded by Her Majesy, the Queen, who lives in splendor while her subjects choke on ashy skies fed by a coal-powered technological Wonderland.
Steampunk is definitely the dream of romanticism.
Where as Dieselpunk is waking up from it.
And Cyberpunk is realising you're actually still dreaming but it's a nightmare.
This would be a really romantic view of the genres if steampunk wasnt just gears and goggles and dieselpunk wasnt just Nazi cosmetics.
ya you're absolutely right, Scott Westerfield actually put it that way. Basically Steampunk is the romanticizing of war from the victorian era to ww1, and dieselpunk is the grim reality of war from ww1 on through ww2 ending where the atomic age kicked off because nukes trump massive killing machines and poison gas.
That's because the reason the terms were coined is different. "Cyberpunk" was a more literal combination of "Cyber" and "Punk" because that's what it involved, whereas "Steampunk" was used a few years after that in a sort of parodying way to the term "Cyberpunk" - it wasn't meant to be a descriptor in the same sense. It was first used by an author in response to someone in a magazine:
Dear Locus,
Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night; I'd appreciate your being so good as to route it to Faren Miller, as it's a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in "the
Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate" was writing in the "gonzo-historical manner" first. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering.
Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate
technology of the era; like "steam-punks," perhaps....
— K.W. Jeter
Someone should try a dystopian setting that's basically just a modern theocracy that's oppressive as fuck.
And all the architecture look something like this:
https://8late.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/b.jpg
https://i1.wp.com/jasonrwoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/St-Johns-Abbey-Breuer-6.jpg
http://andrewschroeder.net/wp-content/gallery/st-johns-abbey-church/STJohns-Abbey20170825-5.jpg
I really thought they think both are just overlap as every modern Cyberpunk stories usually having stereotypical one dimensional megacorp and cyber-metropolis is always a major plot point than expanded genre more outside of city or finding something original I guess.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1755/5556fe3f-c32d-4ea3-ae0a-09ccc0d842b3/image.png
Friend of a friend wrote this a good while ago. The first paragraph is pretty good at assuring one thing, Cyberpunk means different things to different people.
Now you're conflating capitalism with free market capitalism.
I'm done with trying to have a conversation with you.
“Cyberpunk is a genre that said new technologies will colonise our bodies and interpenetrate our lives, like Molly in Neuromancer with her sunglasses literally inset into her face,” says Adam Roberts, science fiction writer and professor at Royal Holloway. “The reality is that technology has colonised not so much our bodies as our social interactions, with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so on – with far-reaching consequences.”
This was the best part of the article.
People enjoy the superficial parts of the genre. Is that wrong?
Concretepunk!
Kafkapunk.
Have you even played Deus Ex? The first game remains politically and thematically relevant even today. I have no idea how you could say it isn't contemporary, or is stuck in the 80s.
I also don't see how an ultracapitalistic system and its abuses, along with other Cyberpunk themes, aren't relevant anymore. Capitalism is currently as powerful as it's ever been, with sadly no sign of slowing down in view.
Maybe Cyberpunk themes haven't changed since the 80s because our overall course hasn't changed, and they still remain a rather believable and accurate depiction of our future.
I'd say that some of the few things from most cyberpunk settings that don't translate quite well to current times is 1. Japan takes over the world (now we can comfortably replace obviously Japanese overlords with obfuscated series of overlords who, at the top, are obviously Chinese), 2.The internet is a place where only tech-savvy free spirits and folks looking to make some dirty money dare to tread, and 3. Commercial cybernetics and other advanced technology will be accessible in any way shape or form to anyone lower than upper-middle-class. Everything else definitively hits the nail on the head and it stings to know this.
Cyberpunk is still relevant to our world, it's the culmination of a widening wealth gap, the way we treat our poor, and the growing power of corporations. It's like our own world, specifically the way we measure the stock market as an indication of economic health, if we measured how the poor were doing as an indication, we would get very different results. But we don't, because the poor don't matter in that case, and the economy is run by and to the benefit of the wealthy class. In cyberpunk this is represented by an obviously extremely wealthy society that has constructed huge cities and has a strong economy judging by the expensive technology and invasive advertising. But the poor are left behind, they live in a separate world within the real one, with a different reality, different experiences, and in a city of opportunities; they have none.
Not going to argue your whole post because I don't want to get too deep into it, but I will say that a lot of people are justified in their disdain for Capitalism because they didn't grow up in an era of prosperity. They grew up in an era of growing wealth inequality, where greed has ravaged the economy and hurt their chances of success, and is currently pushing our world to the tipping point of irreversible ecological disaster. It's a society where many people start off in $20,000 debt or more, which interest that may outpace payments, and can not be forgiven. They struggle to feed themselves, and they'll never own property, and suicide is on the rise. Of course they will hate this system, it's not working for them, it's working for the uppers.
As for Capitalism being natural and Communism not, that is untrue. Laissez-faire for example comes from France, and was the suggestion of a French industrialist. Communism on the other hand is similar to how humanity operated for thousands of years as tribal hunters, you didn't buy food that was brought back, everyone pitched in their own way, and everyone got a share. It's natural on a small scale, while trading is natural on a larger scale.
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