Cyberpunk

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What is Cyberpunk?

Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.

Cyberpunk characteristics include:

Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.

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Where would you draw the line between cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk? (Do you think post-cyberpunk exists?) (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 months ago by Hammerjack@lemmy.zip to c/cyberpunk@lemmy.zip

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I have trouble understanding when a genre becomes "post-" so I'm curious what people here might think.

What cyberpunk work do you think moved us into post-cyberpunk? Is there one? Or is this "post-cyberpunk" stuff nonsense and it's all just cyberpunk?

I've heard an argument that Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) is post-cyberpunk because it's a satire of the cyberpunk genre, but I've heard the same thing said about Bruce Bethke's Headcrash (1995). And is satire of the original genre a requirement to move post- a genre?

I could see an argument that post-cyberpunk takes place in worlds that know what the modern-day internet looks like (with social media and disinformation) but I'm not sure if there's a cyberpunk work that really carries that flag. That is, I could see an argument for post-cyberpunk being a "refresh" of the 1980s cultural fears to fit our modern times, but I'm not sure if there's a work that ushered in this new genre. I've made the argument that Elysium updates cyberpunk with modern cultural fears, but I don't think it led to a wave of updated cyberpunk works (it was an outlier, not the progenitor of a new genre).

So what do you think? What requirements would you have for the cyberpunk genre to become post-cyberpunk? And does that cyberpunk work already exist?

(Note: for the picture in this post, I was trying to show the juxtaposition of "classic cyberpunk" vs "modern cyberpunk". I'm not arguing that Deus Ex is post-cyberpunk.)

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[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 2 points 3 months ago

i will agree that solar "punk" seems to primarily serve as an aesthetic, rather than being any kind of punk. the hegemonic system in a solarpunk society probably isn't something that needs to be rebelled against. "steampunk isn't punk" arguments used to be more of a thing, but the answer was that cyberpunk wasn't really all that punk to begin with either.

not being able to write stories in a solar punk setting is a skill issue. much like the Kurtzman star trek failure to be optimistic. a drama in such a society could be about getting other villages to agree to a huge collaborative project. Without being sectarian about it, it's logistically much easier for a state to run a space program than it would be to get hundreds of autonomous communes to agree to every little part and the pollution inherent to launching rockets.