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[llien]

Steampunk über alles!

 

[It's Jeff]

The genre itself generates an emotional response, and a very specific one. Cyberpunk leaves the framework of our existing society in place, but you see it as patched together with duct tape and flashy consumer neon.

The cyberpunk setting doesn't have to tell you how society is crumbling, it visually shows you a series of bad political decisions and corporate overreach in design without saying a word. It's brilliant satire, really. You see the growing, unchecked size of corporations today and picture the world thirty years from now.

 

[potatopeppie]

hey, i think theres a big enough overlooked factor for the appeal of this stuff that I felt I had to register an account (which is kinda arduous apparently).

I think the nostalgia factor is really important. If youre born between the late 60s and the mid 80s (im from 83 myself) you grew up with 80s stuff and because the internet has a sizeable contingent of middle class males who were born in this period, it makes sense that cyberpunk is popular. Especially since this is the same group that now has disposable income and steady jobs, but because society can be quite alienating and disappointing, the escapism cyberpunk offers is twofold: both to our younger selves (when the world was less complicated/more pure) and the idea of a different but recognizable future

i chanced upon this thread via a google search. I searched because ive been listening to synthwave on youtube, where there are a bunch of mixes (like this or this or this, there are tons of them). I got into those because of the theme of Stranger Things, itself a massive vehicle of pure nostalgia, which made an outsized and frankly shocking emotional impact on me (i was quite shaken for three weeks after binging the two seasons in the fall of 2017). But Ive had some brushes before, like when I played Shadowrun: Hongkong (setting: Kowloon Walled City, something historically cyberpunky as a lawless, neonfilled, overcrowded setting) and Shadowrun: Dragonfall (setting: dystopian version of Kreuzberg, Berlin)

interestingly though, besides nostalgia cyberpunk is cross-cultural, as evinced by stuff like Ghost in the Shell. Also see this attempt to capture the atmosphere of Kowloon in a Japanese arcade:

I felt incredible nostalgia playing Shadowrun: Hongkong despite very limited exposure to comparable stuff from my early days (maybe Probotector and Double Dragon II on the 8bit), just like this track is so terribly nostalgic despite never having watched the film.

Anyway Id be interested to learn if there are many reading/participating in this thread who are born after, say, 1992, when most of the legacy of the 80s has evaporated/became irrelevant by the time they were teens.

 

[J-Roderton]

I find it oddly nostalgic.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

having re-read Neuromancer this year the thing i liked the most was the descriptions of everything. it was very florid and baroque, i want to liken it to Beat poetry, or something post Dylan (Dylan Thomas & Bob Dylan). something very romantic and nostalgic, sort of sifting through the heap of stuff that the human race has made, reconnecting things in new ways. everything had a foreign name to it, usually Japanese or Chinese, it was this hyper cosmopolitan mish mash of varied pieces of 80s future styles.

yeah it was always stylish, high fashion out of a sort of cultural junkpile. they would travel to an area that had a hologram sky, maybe locate some relic that is hundreds of years old and repurposed for new tech, etc. of course now that we are IN the future and William Gibson stories make the daily news, looking back on this antiquated retro future is extra nice. the irl future has turned out much more banal by comparison.

the romantic side & gothic side is also very strong in cyberpunk. i think of the Symbolists and the Decadents, nostalgic/romantic art movements that predated the modern era. imo you can trace cyberpunk to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, the first novel about a post human existence, about technology allowing us to conquer death. there is something new and possibly frightening about it (embodied in the frightened townspeople). there is the question of ownership (interestingly, the monster often gets mistaken for his creator). ultimately like all great drama and great sci fi, it's about the human condition. it illustrates in poetic, stylized fashion the subconscious worries of the human race.

 

[JimiNutz]

Visually I like the contrast between the dark oppressive skylines and the colourful neon signage and lights. It makes the neon really pop and it makes the towering skyscrapers seem less bleak.

Plus hovering/flying cars always look incredibly cool.

I also like that the settings seems realistic - like it seems to be the logical conclusion of where society is heading.

I also think that I'd happily upgrade my body with technological implants given the opportunity so there is also that appeal of exploring posthumanism.

 

[potatopeppie]

heres some more beautiful images:

 

[Hudo]

I find it oddly nostalgic.

I wanted to write a wall of text but damn, this is actually a pretty good summary.

 

[VulcanRaven]

I wish someone made an open world third person Blade Runner game:

It needs to have flying cars.

 

[hunterjess08]

Hell yeah, this is my cup of tea, let's talk! So many fascinating aspects about cyberpunk appeal to me. If I had to narrow it down, it's probably the philosophical aspects:

What does it mean to be human?

The anthropological questions raised by most cyberpunk settings are probably what are most appealing to me. Cyberpunk tends to blur the lines between technology, humanity and identity. As such it makes you ponder about the boundaries of human nature. By melding man and machine to various degrees, you often find yourself asking "is that still human?" and it's something that I find that really fascinating. In that sense, it raises many questions pertaining to the mind-body problem, the dualism between your cognitive immaterial part and your physiological material part.

Are we good enough?

Most cyberpunk stories assume that mere human beings are largely insufficient and faulty. We are deficient beings, who need technology in order to become better, more efficient. Yes, technology can do that, but not without becoming hopelessly depended on the tools that we are relying on. In a sense, we increase our performance by becoming slaves to technology. Even nowadays, how many people must rely on the internet or their smart phones? It's an interesting dilemma, while technology compensates for our deficiencies we also become less autonomous.

What is reality?

Both, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell play around with the concept of fake memories. Our memories and experiences are something very intimate, they are what make us individuals, they form our character. By implanting fake memories, you essentially create a whole new identity. Just imagine you would wake up one day and realize that your whole past was merely an illusion, a lie that never actually happened. Yeah, it's pretty horrifying because it would imply that you are not who you think you are and that you never had a real impact on the world. It was all just in your head. There is this one scene in Ghost in the Shell that really exemplifies what I mean:



Are we doomed to be alone?

Cyberpunk is less about the individual but about the way in which we connect to the outside world. I think that's why so much emphasis is put on the identity of space. The single individual is but a tiny particle in an endless sea of interconnected entities. There is really no real way of knowing if the other entities are human, artificial or something in between, hence creating a sense of isolation. In most ways, it's the city space that determines your lifestyle and dictates where you can go, what you can do, who you can be. In a sense, the cyberpunk space is presented as its own identity, like an omnipresent Leviathan it watches over you and directs your every movement.

Are we free and alive?

By depending so much on technology, there is no way of knowing to what degree your actions are the result of your own free will. Is it technology dictating what you do, or the mega-corporations that control the technology? It's the reason why, cyberpunk often fills you with existential dread. While your personal identity is slowly being suffocated by an ever growing network of artificial chaos, you become more and more disconnected from your own body. The lines between fantasy and reality become blurred evoking a sense of hollowness. Are you even alive or nothing but a mere product? For me, that's what the replicants in Blade Runner are all about:

Interesting, so if say a person decides to undergo cybernetics and as time goes his body parts becomes more and more machine than meat, do we have to refer to him as a self-aware AI or still a human?

 

[Marsellio23]

I just like this atmosphere and aesthetics. I myself can not explain myself to the end.

 

[Whitecrow]

Am I the only one who never got the appeal of it? : /

 

[gela94]

I'm glad I will be dead already if this kind of future ever comes . .looks depressing as fuck.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

I'm glad I will be dead already if this kind of future ever comes . .looks depressing as fuck.

film depictions tend to emphasize the grimdark nature. tbh this depiction itself is far out of date at this point. what most people think of cyberpunk is almost to the 80s what the Jetsons were to the 50s. for us living in the 21st century, it is retro futurism. it is a future that will never happen, but is forever enshrined in works.

the future did not happen this way. computers did not stay the same, we do not have CRTs, things are wireless rather than wired. the sky might be polluted but it is still clear during the day, there is not a perpetual fog, and in fact some places that did have a fog have had that reversed. IRL electronics are less cluttered compared to in cyberpunk. things are made smaller and smaller IRL, not so much in cyberpunk.

the cyberpunk world is crammed full of old technology and trash. cyberpunk is about DIY, personalization, ownership, everyone has customized avatars, they have hacked their tech themselves. cyberpunk is a world where people recycle old tech and incorporate it into new, where they combine the organic and the artificial. this is in the first cyberpunk novel, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. IRL we throw out phones that are perfectly fine, everything is more disposable, and our ownership rights are constantly compromised, our data is raided by corporations on a daily basis. we are far more wasteful and inconsiderate of tech & data IRL. thus the cyberpunk coming out these days tends to be more about surface level, art design, tech fetishism. fwiw i enjoyed Bladerunner 2049 largely because it tested that organic/artificial dichotomy.

still, behaviorally, we do many of the same things. international politics is entangled with cyber warfare, including people hired by corporations to kill for data. the phone is basically part of most of our lives at this point, it is embedded into our lives, affecting everything we do, everyone that uses one accesses a massive databank of information. everyone with a phone is a cyborg. the hours we spend consuming data, thinking about text we read from a screen, are massive, probably on the level of the more heroic cyberpunks of yore. tho cyberpunks tended to spend as much time in the real world, the influence of noir on the genre, and thus the classic folk heroes like cowboys and PI's were a big influence of cyberpunk.

 

[Meowzers]

Give me the year 2084 in a dark, dank narrow alley way with Neon lined buildings either side and I'm dripping wet

Why do we love it so?

The last thing we all need is a dripping Fridge.

But on a more serious note, I think it's because it just sounds like a totally new way of living than now. 2084 just makes you think of everything techy
and of course neon lights are a way of attracting people to the cities, like a moth to the flame so to speak.

As of now it sounds fun because it's so far away, but I reckon it won't be as fun when we or definitely the next generations experience it because it doesn't
exactly scream of freedom with years like 2084.

I dunno really know the answer, but was fun trying to guess anywho.

 

[gela94]

film depictions tend to emphasize the grimdark nature. tbh this depiction itself is far out of date at this point. what most people think of cyberpunk is almost to the 80s what the Jetsons were to the 50s. for us living in the 21st century, it is retro futurism. it is a future that will never happen, but is forever enshrined in works.

the future did not happen this way. computers did not stay the same, we do not have CRTs, things are wireless rather than wired. the sky might be polluted but it is still clear during the day, there is not a perpetual fog, and in fact some places that did have a fog have had that reversed. IRL electronics are less cluttered compared to in cyberpunk. things are made smaller and smaller IRL, not so much in cyberpunk.

the cyberpunk world is crammed full of old technology and trash. cyberpunk is about DIY, personalization, ownership, everyone has customized avatars, they have hacked their tech themselves. cyberpunk is a world where people recycle old tech and incorporate it into new, where they combine the organic and the artificial. this is in the first cyberpunk novel, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. IRL we throw out phones that are perfectly fine, everything is more disposable, and our ownership rights are constantly compromised, our data is raided by corporations on a daily basis. we are far more wasteful and inconsiderate of tech & data IRL. thus the cyberpunk coming out these days tends to be more about surface level, art design, tech fetishism. fwiw i enjoyed Bladerunner 2049 largely because it tested that organic/artificial dichotomy.

still, behaviorally, we do many of the same things. international politics is entangled with cyber warfare, including people hired by corporations to kill for data. the phone is basically part of most of our lives at this point, it is embedded into our lives, affecting everything we do, everyone that uses one accesses a massive databank of information. everyone with a phone is a cyborg. the hours we spend consuming data, thinking about text we read from a screen, are massive, probably on the level of the more heroic cyberpunks of yore. tho cyberpunks tended to spend as much time in the real world, the influence of noir on the genre, and thus the classic folk heroes like cowboys and PI's were a big influence of cyberpunk.

Of course you are right to some extent but with some things I totally can see it happening like VR addicts people who will live in a virtual reality or this kind of enhancement shit, humans would be all over it if it was possible.

 

[pramod]

You can already experience cyberpunk for real minus the flying cars, just take a trip to Hong Kong or Tokyo.

 

[brian0057]

Blade Runner (1982): The Thread.

 

[DietRob]

Hard pass. Maybe it's from growing up in/around densely populated cites but my idea of a "dreamscape" isn't an even dirtier more densely populated area with neon lights and the sun never shines.

I can appreciate the film's and their look it's just not something I would want to live in. And hope it's somehow not our future. Give me wide open expansive landscapes of the wild west time period please.