what killed the cyberpunk genre?was technological development just underwhelmingwas it just a momentary trend or part of something deeper something culturalWas this the original dead internet theory(dead culture theory)people say it's dystopian but in a twisted way it felt utopian to me, like it was grasping at something it couldn't quite define but it was something
>>23737280>what killed the cyberpunk genre?Cyberpunk is still alive, rajesh.
>>23737304what is a recent cyberpunk work?
>>23737280>what killed the cyberpunk genre?Three things, not in order of importance.1. It evolved to be more of an aesthetic than genre. It was still experimental when it started gaining traction and visual media was equally going into an artistic phase, creating a synergistic moment that led to the corporate near-future look which is still flourishing to this day, at the cost of traditional literary content.2. It went in the far more trite ship of Theseus direction which has already been covered instead of forging new ground. When the main theme most cyberpunk works cover is "get pacemaker - no different from a canning machine" it simply doesn't become relatable to the vast majority of people. Normal people don't suffer from body dysmorphia and those who do (or are led to believe they do) are characteristically a fickle, more-demanding audience who warp any other discussions into ones about their pet issues.3. The actually interesting moral of cyberpunk is both pessimistic and anti-capitalist. Both are traits which mass media expertly stomps down on, leading to a dearth of authors and a secondary filter of good cyberpunk works getting any kind of recognition.If you want to write modern cyberpunk, it is vital to grasp the actual core of the genre: the system has won, degenerated yet can not be brought down. You as an individual have no value or purpose beyond what you assign yourself. No one needs your labor and you probably don't have any deep or meaningful opinions. You won't change the world. What do? That is the 'cyber' part of the genre, but even more oft missed is the second: punk. Punk literature doesn't have to be just loud music and non-conformist quasi-LGBT stuff, it is finding joy and self-worth in personal relationships which take untraditional forms, of living your life outside societal expectations (and in cyberpunk, realizing that those expectations are incompatible with humanity in general) and expressing authentic creativity as opposed to lowest-common-denominator mass market appeal.Lastly, cyberpunk is not necessarily dead. At risk of making people miss my point and fully aware that this is /lit/, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners genuinely understood the above point and blasted through a three-act structure in a perfectly paced single season, not leaving sickening sequel bait in the air. It blends the modern cyberpunk aesthetic and an actual punk story of meaningless life and its end given meaning by the connections we made along the way; not winning against the system yet fighting regardless.Although, if anyone's got good cyberpunk literature from this century, I'd love to read it. And if you're just looking for general recs, I'd throw J. G. Ballard's 1975 High-Rise out there.
>>23737280Marxists wanted to use it to lecture people about capitalism instead of just make kino
>>23737356I think another hallmark of cyberpunk is that the malevolent forces of society are coming up with sneaky ways to sell their messages and image. There aren't any openly bad guys to the society itself, because all of the violence that's necessary to recreate it happens hidden from public view. A hacker digging for proof of criminality in a corporate database has his brain fried by security programs, but does the rest of society know about it? Would they even blame the corporation for defending its data? The thrill of cyberpunk comes from being able to uncover the truth of the world as it is.>>23737317https://youtu.be/AN72ztnwrtI
>what killed the cyberpunk genre?The fact that it became real.
>>23737671open book >societal dystopiaclose book >societal dystopia
>>23737280>what killed the cyberpunk genre?Once we all got the internet IRL we saw how absurd cyberpunk actually was.
It died when it stopped being an exploration of man’s relationship with technology and became a vehicle for 1980s nostalgia
Cyberpunk always assumed technological singularity driven by AI. Neuromancer even made the AI=Demon Summoning comparison, and it was the first book in the genre. We have entered the age the cyberpunk envisioned, one where the spirit of some great god-beast machine is slowly revealing itself, but the world itself is one of isolation and ultra-surveillance, with the power asymmetry too great to allow for the kind hijinks the genre favours. Gooncaves not street samurai. So the genre lost its moment, it has to presume a divergent path to keep its traditional tropes intact, so slowly it is becoming another kind of retro-future alt-history genre.
What’s the best work of the genre that’s still relevant?
>>23737280Cyberpunk was about anxiety over a world where white people get treated how everyone else is treated because of the corporatization of society; where technology has enabled the return of feudalism and the plantation economy, and where control and the perpetuation and propagation of the system is more important than anything else, including individual lives and well-being.And then it happened. So the excesses of the genre now seem silly and unrelatable.
I liked the Bridge trilogy more anyway.
>>23737356>Although, if anyone's got good cyberpunk literature from this century, I'd love to read it.Can almost guarantee that what you're looking for is somewhere on Furaffinity.
>>23737954We'll probably end up there once the Indian cheap labor meme ruins everything
>>23737280Gibson had such a shitty complaint about CP2077. Makes me think less of his books.
>>23737954Good take, if you're focused on action. But what's stopping the philosophies and social commentaries from making a comeback? Just because those are harder to write shouldn't mean it's impossible, especially given that corporatocratism is more and more relevant and prominent.>>23738249Imbibe rectal cyanide.
>>23738327India is such a cyberpunk country. High tech, low life. Wes Anderson should make a cyberpunk movie set in India.
>>23738351You're mad because you know I'm right.
>>23737280neuromancer was trash
Pretty sure cyberpunk just became obsolete. Look outside: we're already living in it.
>>23738335He was right, though. He also knows what he's saying. The whole Cyberpunk setting emulates what's on Neuromancer almost one-by-one.
>>23737317Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
pretty much this >>23737820cyberpunk is like steampunk in that it rarely evolved with its current time and continue to milk the era it initially associated with
>>23737280
>>23737820So Ready Player One killed it huh
>>23737280Cyberpunk was an amalgamization of Dystopia feeling post 70s crash + the new technology. Dirty Harry, Frencj Connection, First Blood all is societal pessimism and Neuromancer was too but ias Pulp sci fi + computers. What happened was the nineties and the realization of the technology which turned out making everything retarded not grimm but cool
People stopped being punks. No more leaded gasoline to rouse their spirits.The boundaries of the relevant technologies were discovered. No more room for theories and imagination.
>>23737671thread/.
>>23737356good post anon, i liked it
>>23738363Janesh Mnemonic
>>23737356If anyone likes what he wrote here I implore you to read the works of one Tom. T. Pynchon.
>>23740151Retard
>>23739162smooth brain take. technology still works well its because you are a normie consumer using goy tier tech like iphone that things are lame. you dont have the balls to use tech for radical political or criminal means. and talking about those in 2024 in a book would put it turner diaries status. gibson's work is fantasy tier in how little it understood technology, even snow crash was more prescient.
>>23740162Have you read them?
>>23740176This 100%. We ARE living in a cyberpunk dystopia. It's just that we are not allowed to read actual narratives about it anymore. So we get shitty larp like Cyberpunk 2077 and that awful anime it inspired instead.
>>23737280it's just never had many good entries
was no one in this thread ever a fan of cyberpunk? how has there been no mention of neal stephenson?
>>23740151Gibson's writing is Pynchon lite + sci fi fetishism, so it makes sense.
>>23740336He is more diverse author than strictly cyberpunk and Snowcrash shows that he realizes you shouldn't take that "genre" very seriously if you're an adult.
>>23740336see:>>23740176
GatheringI picked up many wordsAbsorbed in a bookI didn't hear your callSuddenly I hear your callWhile everyone bless meHow could I have known
>>23737280It simply got absorbed by the rest of science fiction. If you're looking for stories involving AI, computer networks, dystopic corporate hellscapes and neural implants, you can find all of that in standard modern space opera slog.And yeah, the real world also caught up. You could rewrite most "cyberpunk" stories from the 80s and simply set them in the present day. Those writers WERE writing about the present day trying to predict what it would be like with the limited optics they had back then.
>>23737356Solarpunk is on the rise, and provides new optimism while still standing in for the anti-capitalism cyberpunk has. If they keep identifying with the lofi/ambient music and ghibli/botw aesthetic they might go far. It’s only begun growing past its aesthetic stage and showing up in media or entertainment, but it seems to actually be about tackling capitalism in a radical way instead of “another cyborg gear in the neon city machine can’t do much”.
>>23740496This is so fucking cringe. Solarpunk aesthetic lmfao you mean some literally tranny on Discord playing dress up with other manchildren? Yea bro fight the system.
>>23740496kys
>>23738363The grand pajeetech motel
>>23740377>Pynchon liteBurroughs lite actually
>>23737356Thanks anon for the good post, I will start reading High-Rise tonight
>>23737280>what killed the cyberpunk genre?We got too close to it in real life, and it is incredibly gay.
>>23740496Solarpunk is the vision of the future that Bill Gates has after he depopulates the planet by 99.999%, it is far from being a radical critique of capitalism, it is the New Earth, the promised land, for elites.
>>23740496Solarpunk is the vision of the future that Bill Gates has after he depopulates the planet by 99.999%. It's Georgia Guidestones elites running hobby farms fertilized with the bones of billions while they await life extension and brain uploads.
>>23740687kek this
>>23737280Same as the American Dream.It came true, you're looking at it.
>>23737671>>23737679This. It stopped being a fiction. Even the best couldn't think of all the shit we actually got.
>>23740496solarpunk is written by american leftists that have never in their life left the city they live in and have no idea of how the infrastructure of a country works like
>>23741800speak for yourself
>>23737356cyberpunk is not anti capitalist, it's anti corporatist
