Probably never had the time for all the cosplay and RPG of cyberpunk since it did have limited meatspace venues that are now expanded with better digital VR and bandwidth.
And maybe I’m too old … nah … but it is about how dystopia/utopia in a digital world will become more popular in the age of Trump. The major dichotomy is about optimism and pessimism in an age of cynicism.
Since I live in a non-urban context, it always seems a bit incongruous and more likely to attract attention in the polyester world of Trumpland where government becomes pathetic in its pathology. Self-driving cars might change at least getting to gatherings of fellow cyberpunks.
Darn Goths in the Sun Belt, always overheating in black garb. Living a life that’s more like a replicant than a human. Kinda like college students and their dietary staple, ramen (instant) noodles.
"Transhumanism is about how technology will eventually help us overcome the problems that have, up until now, been endemic to human nature. Cyberpunk is about how technology won't."
— Stephen Lea Sheppard of RPG.Net, on the relation between transhumanism and cyberpunk
The originator of the "Punk" genres, Cyberpunk is a Speculative Fiction genre centered around the transformative effects of advanced science, information technology, computers and networks ("cyber") coupled with a breakdown or radical change in the social order ("punk"). A genre that is dark and cynical in tone, it borrows elements from Film Noir, hard-boiled Detective Fiction and postmoderndeconstruction to describe the Dystopian side of an electronic society….
See Cyberpunk Tropes and SoYouWantTo.Write for Cyberpunk's characteristic tropes and what sets it apart from other dystopias. The story may fall on the Romanticism end of the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment scale.As a movement, it was the successor in some sense to the New Wave Science Fiction movement of the sixties and seventies. Related to Post-Cyberpunk and Cybergoth. Of course, several works fit on a continuum between the two tropes. See also Cyberspace, Dungeon Punk, Punk Punk. Compare also with Steam Punk, which shares some similarities with cyberpunk. tvtropes.org/...
Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.—
Lawrence Person[6]
...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic …
Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.[19]
Perhaps it’s just about the 1990s Boomers vs. Millennials and it’s more about buying the latest and greatest economy only to be disappointed as one gets older by the transient and obsolescent nature of updating technological diffusion.
Imagine your eye injury with an exploding Galaxy Note 7S, after you’ve mounted it in your cardboard VR goggle rig.
I am excited about some version of Google Glass or whatever Apple will come up with before I croak, but in a world of GoPro, technology has actually moved far too slow in my lifetime. Yeah, ready for retirement
Since 2010, the self-appointed “Ramen Rater” has sampled, reviewed, and photographed over 1750 instant noodles from around the world on his eponymous website.
“I’d say the worst instant noodles in the world consistently come from Canada,” says Max Lienesch. “So often, the noodles seem to have a filmy kind of mouthfeel, and the broths are just so bland. Another I really dislike has been one from Sichuan, China—black bone chicken flavor.”
firstwefeast.com/...
Such opinionated matters like those can be found on TheRamenRater.com, along with controversial Top 10 lists and categorical breakdowns based on heat level and country of origin. In the process, Lienesch has gained a reputation as being a powerfully-influential critic of this dorm-room favorite.
Has ramen ever been your major food group?