>>202cyberpunk is far larger than sel, and sel made its way into an already existing cyberpunk space. I love lain, don't get me wrong, but she is not the only reason I am here.
>>204This is an idea I have been grappling with recently, as I try to rebuild my life.
When many people think of cyberpunk, they think, it would seem, of the asthetic. Grunge. Dark, dirty spaces, mixed with just enough different to make it feel alien, just enough familiar to make it feel real.
I mean, to those who have seen it, the new GitS film makes a fine example.
This film excelled in capturing the traditional cyberpunk aesthetic, really. It certainly drew on some cornerstones of cyberpunk themes films, as well as the source material, to make a film that matched this aesthetic, it looked the part as well as it could have been expected.
Yet the plot of it, its substance, was not really cyberpunk. Its story ark was something that we can essentially summarize fairly easily in any number of stories, some greek myths spring to mind.
Cyberpunk is, at its core, like all science fiction, or most good science fiction anyway, an exploration of the relationship between humankind, and the machines, the computers, the artificial world we create for ourselves. Cyberpunk tackles questions about the relationship of capitalism, and economics generally, politics, technology, and most importantly people, and tries, most importantly to ask questions that have not been asked, yea they could not have been asked by an ancient greek, or at least, not with the imperative that we ask them today.
This is more relating to the genre aspect of the term, but, to put it quickly as I want not to ramble on per my custom, it seems the 'culture' that is associated with that form of cyberpunk is essentially that aspect of society who try to push the boundaries of what the world is, what the interactions between humans and their machines can be like, who live on one of the technological fringes of culture. It is difficult to say what in this world is or is not cyberpunk, as, to be frank this world already has many aspects of a near future dystopia, but folks like here, are clearly not on that edge alone. We are accompanied, distantly perhaps but verily, by the politicians seeking to further consolidate power, corruptly restricting and guiding the masses, by the police and the armies who enforce their corrupt rule, by the executives who direct and touch the lives of so many people, and by the large masses of people who are only trying to live their lives in the mess that the world is, has been, and shall continue to be.
Are we different? Perhaps to some degree we are part of the underground computer literate community so often featured in the genre. We are different from trekkies, who perhaps wish to live in the Federation, because, by and large, we already live in the world that so fascinates many of us, and I know I don't speak for all of us, but I must say that I hate it.
