Cyberpunk is dead.
I had this conversation with my partner this morning and after further consideration, it truly is dead… at least the way it was. Cyberpunk is born of punk ideology and 80’s culture. The reason that it is dead is because the 80s are gone. Cyberpunk was a response to the 80’s, which are 40 years in our rearview window. The young rockerboys portrayed in Cyberpunk 2077 are a response to that time and not to their time. That is what feels false to me and why I am struggling mightily with writing those type of characters anymore.
Dictionary.com defines Cyberpunk as “a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology.” Less structured definitions generally include the terms low life and high tech. However, lost in these definitions is the concept of response. What Cyberpunk really entails is that response. So, you can’t buy the hot new phone and don’t want to exist in the structures of the Apple Network? Okay, build your own. Distribute it freely to the people like Cellphone Linux and keep modding as you go. Crispr is Cyberpunk done up to today’s standards. Through a mail order kit anyone can hack DNA. Hacking itself is cyberpunk.
I bring this up, because I write a lot of Cyberpunk, and I feel as though I’ve been trying to bring into focus how that old school culture works with the post-modernism of the corporate culture I write about in contrast. That contrast is poorly defined. My goal moving forward is to better define that contrast in a way that people are able to understand and, well, really dig y’know?
Some Thoughts:
- The relationship between the drug culture and the punk culture and the idea of cyberpunk is also not being written very well. I ought to get on that, y’know?
- Not a lot else on the mind in the creative sector. I need to get to thinking about other stuff. I need to get to world building and using this low-work time to discover what is in my mind and furthermore, what ideas I can come up with in order to make more money so that I live good.
- Write good, they pay good. They pay good, you live good.