Episode 708 - Cyberpunk
Oct 7, 2024
Cyberpunk is a cool genre we have never covered exclusively on a Quackcast before. But what IS cyberpunk? It's a subset of SciFi, it's usually near future, involves body modifications, grittiness, street level computer use, techno body modification, and hacking. At least that's the way it started. Formative influences on the cyberpunk genre were the first Tron movie, Bladerunner, and Escape from New York. Tron showed us what cyberspace was, while Bladerunner and Escape from New York gave us gritty near future dystopias with cool tech, modified humans, and most importantly the punk aesthetic which was the gritty street youth fashion of the late 70s and early 80s.
Topics and Show Notes
Punks plus computers signalled a more universal use of the new technology of computers in the near future world especially as imagined by Willian Gibson with his novel Neuromancer. There were other influential cyberpunk writers like Neal Stephenson with SnowCrash and many more. My fave was Manga creator Masamune Shirow with his books like Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed and more which tackle subjects like trans-humanisim as humans evolve with technology and then INTO technology itself. In the late 80s and early 90s cyberpunk was very influential in anime with the likes of the Ghost in the Shell movie, Bubblegum crisis, AD police, and the amazing milestone that is Akira!
A very formative game in the world of cyberpunk was the RPG Shadowrun, which was near future urban fantasy plus cyberpunk in all its pure glory. These days we have the computer game Cyberpunk 2020, but it's an extremely derivative and pale shadow of what had gone before it, it functions as a sort of a retro “greatest hits” of the genre, but it's a good intro into it and that goes for the Netflix anime of the same name. There were various unrelated genres inspired by cyberpunk- Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and the later dubious genres raypunk and atompunk which are just rebranded early standard SciFi.
What is your fave example of cyberpunk? Do you know what cyberpunk is? When did you first come to cyberpunk?
This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by The Return of Jake Sunrise - A desolate red dirt desert, a wind whistles through and carries with it a torrent of sound and energy, flooding in like a sudden rainstorm, bringing with it life, colour, and revitalisation! The desert blooms.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
The Books of Avo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/01/featured-comic-the-books-of-avo/
Featured music:
The Return of Jake Sunrise - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Return_of_Jake_Sunrise/ - by Picture_Books, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Ozoneocean at 8:37PM, Oct. 8, 2024
Yes, our reality has overlapped with the genre a bit- mainly because it was originally envisaged as a near future idea about what would happen if computer technology was more integrated into society and how it would change things... which has all happened haha! Though we just still haven't had the trans-humanist aspect yet or the fully immersive nature of cyberspace, that stuff is still SciFi.
marcorossi at 1:23AM, Oct. 8, 2024
The videogame Cyberpunk 2020 is based on the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020, that I think was older than Shadowrun (I played both, though I prefer Shadowrun). During the pandemic lockdown, in 2020, I played Cyberpunk 2020 with some friends via a Discord server, we all commented that the reality at the time was quite cyberpunk.