Current Events > I think Cyberpunk Genre needs a re-work.

(+) Yeah! (+)

We're at the years where Cyberpunk is well...kind of retro now in past iterations? Today's Cyberpunk is bit more different now because how we perceive technology nowadays.

So there is a bit of a mis-match on what Cyberpunk should be; Solution should be a genre called Retro Cyberpunk like 80s Cyberpunk, 90s Cyberpunk, etc.

That way Older Cyberpunk Settings can still keep their identity on what made those so different compared to now.

One day Cyberpunk 2077 would be seen as retro depending how they will perceive technology in the future.


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Just give me the Snow Crash world where mobs have taken over the pizza delivery industry and failing to deliver in 30 minutes or less means death.

ImAMarvel posted...

That was such a good book. Liked it better than Neuromancer tbh.

Apparently HBO is making a live-action series based on it. I hope it doesn't suck and captures the feeling of the world perfectly.

I've actually never finished it because every time I go into it I've forgotten that it's more ridiculous than serious and am given tonal whiplash from the story >.>;

Someday I'll get through it

https://imgur.com/t/cyberpunk/nlAVD

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ImAMarvel posted...

That was such a good book. Liked it better than Neuromancer tbh.

Apparently HBO is making a live-action series based on it. I hope it doesn't suck and captures the feeling of the world perfectly.

I liked the world it created but I could have done with more exploration of that and less yammering on about the origin of language.

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i know its an unpopular opinion but the rainy, grimy 70s/80s new york style blade runner city that cyberpunk loves to reuse has gotten really overdone and samey to me

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It's time for biopunk to step up.

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ImAMarvel posted...

Snow Crash is great because a lot of it is just satire and tongue-in-cheek, corporatism taken to its extreme conclusion, but there's just enough plausibility and sensibility in it to alarm the reader of mass greed of corporations. Doesn't hurt that it also predicted a lot of real life technology, like the internet, MMOs, virtual reality, etc.

I myself still have to go through the other books in the Sprawl trilogy. I need to get on my reading pretty badly actually.

Maybe i'm misreading what you are saying here but Snow Crash isn't part of the sprawl trilogy. That's Neuromancer, which was written 8 years before by a different author.

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every era has its -punk

as technology advances, all modern futurism inevitably becomes retrofuturism

cyberpunk is not exempt from this, but neither should the snapshot of its historical aesthetic sensibilities be overwritten

a new -punk is needed, but not before the emergence of a new technological epoch vision and distinct aesthetic sensibilities to accompany such

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ImAMarvel posted...

There is nothing new about what you said, but that' being said, I feel like a lot of core aspects of cyberpunk are still very much relevant, if not incredibly so today, that being one of the reasons why it's still one of my favorite subgenres of sci-fi. I think we need more cyberpunk that's merely updated in terms of technology and social values for our time. But even then, regarding the latter, not much has really changed, though I suppose you could do something with corporations promoting diversity and liberal values for the sake of a dollar.

Basically just bring cyberpunk technologically into the future, along with updating the fashion sense from 80's sensibilities. And even with the technological aspects, we're arguably on the forefront of some fundamental aspects of the genre being realized in real life. I'm talking genetic engineering, gene splicing, brain uploading, computer chips in your brain, etc., so in some ways, the genre is still a glimpse into the future.

That was one of my main concerns was the loss of the fashion sense of that time period when it was created since over time people will forget it more and more possibly unless Cyberpunk can have a branching path into the older iterations.

Also the loss of CRT-futuristic looking architecture since nobody thought of HD-TVs at the time, and now HD-TV-like technology will overwrite the old futuristic CRTs at some point (just a technological example).

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ImAMarvel posted...

I loved that stuff a whole lot and it made the book much better for me, probably because I'm fascinated by the role of memetics (actual memetics, not just memes) play in shaping thought, not to mention the role of stories told by cultures in influencing and being influenced by, cultural traditions and stuff.

Sure, I get that. It was very interesting stuff. But the super in-depth amount that the book went into on it felt out of place and distracting from the core story and the world it was taking place in.

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