Let me start off a little bit differently this week. I’m going to describe to you a scene set in the neon and beautifully chaotic setting of a cyberpunk-esk world: 

The first time I drove to the city sometimes feels more like a dream than an actual event in my life. Once you’ve spent long enough in Cyber City, it starts to feel like it’s the only thing that’s real. The ever present light of the screens showing ads of events or the latest tech that no one needs yet everyone would give heart and limb out to get. The sounds of cameras and guns shot the symphony that fill the back alleys. The homeless and prostitutes fill the side walks of the poorer parts of town, while police guard the beautiful yet hollow high town where only the top percent or the ones lucky enough to have a hand up their ass can inhabit. Yet at the end of the day the masses never notice. Cause once you have enough implants in your brain and enough drugs in your veins, reality becomes secondary to the fantasy that you’re okay. They need you to be “okay” cause if you’re not, then no one would buy their products, everyone would realize they’re in hell. And we can’t have that now can we? After all, what’s the company’s motto? The thing they always say when you fall into their hands yet again?

Rest easy, knowing that: Y-O-U A-R-E I-N G-O-O-D H-A-N-D-S

And from up here, at the top of it all I see it. The pain in my heart rings hollow, when I help keep this system the way it is. The way that has always been. They way it will always be.

Though, who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky. 

END SCENE

Humans have always had different perspectives on what the future holds. From the dystopian and totalitarian nightmare present in stories like George Orwell’s 1984, to the chaotic and divided future between the Eloi and the Morlocks in The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, to even more utopian future societies like the Jetsons by Hanna-Barbera. Yet most of these have always held something deeper to them. More than the future they could expect, a story writing about the future is a representation of today’s day and age. An almost exaggerated look at the consequences of the actions of today. 

I think Federico Pistono Put it Best when talking about science fiction in a discussion about his novella ‘A tale of two futures’ –

“Typically, science fiction stories are not about the future. In reality, they are stories about the present, plus some fancy new gadgets. Yet, fundamentally speaking, three things remain unchanged: the human condition that has dominated most cultures so far (competition, jealousy, and the search for power), labor for income, and the infinite growth paradigm.” 

Federico Pistono

When it comes to Cyberpunkesk stories however, one man was the visionary behind such a type of future. And in truth, he’s the most likely to be right in terms of what the future might hold. Author Aldous Huxley, known best for his science fiction work “Brave New World” in which he describes a world where instead of being subjected to slavery and servitude through pain or fear, it would be pleasure and entertaining the things that will keep us docile enough to be easily taken over and be taken advantage off. On a post on the website “Principato Scuola” there is a comparison between the works of Huxley and Orwell that defines their visions in layman’s terms:

“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

And as time has progressed, it seems that Huxley had the clearer vision of what the future would be like. 

Now that all the context is set, let’s speak about cyberpunk. 

Let me start off by saying this; though Cyberpunk itself is a tabletop rpg, as well as video game and series, the genre of “cyberpunk” has been around since before this. John’s Brunner’s “The Shockwave Rider” is considered to be the first, while stories like Blade Runner brought the genre to popularity in the 80’s. Think of the retrowave aesthetic that was prominent in the 80’s and has had a resurgence in the last couple of years thanks to games like “Cyberpunk: 2077”, the hard pink and blue neon color lights upon a black canvas. The lights of a giant city shinning so hard that from a distance they would look like a sun in the dark of night. Those towering skyscrapers that seem to try and reach the stars, seemingly holding hordes of low life people who are drowning in their own distractions and fabricated pleasures. A city so real in its size and life yet so devoid from true humanity that is more akin to a prison than a place of the free. Cyberpunk is not only the amalgamation of where humanity might go with their dependence on technology, but also a warning of the dangers of overindulgence in pleasure and asks the question, how far are we willing to go for comfort?

Perhaps it is too late, perhaps we still have time. Regardless, these worlds are full of intrigue and little answers to what will really await us. Still, as with all media, we should always be vigilant to the messages that we express through our culture and media. Perhaps, instead of just mindlessly consuming we just start studying and trying to understand what are the messages that want to be spoken. And maybe then, after looking a little deeper under the surface, we can understand the messages that we have to say. But hey, if nothing else, we can just enjoy good media, with a colorful background. 

Regardless of what you get out of this, I hope you enjoyed this little genre analysis. I will be covering specific media with cyberpunk themes in the future, but I wanted to focus on the genre as a whole before going to specific topics. Hopefully I’ll tackle Edgerunners and Bladerunners soon enough. Until then, have a great day. 

References:

• Huxley vs orwell: Competing visions of the future in “Brave new world” and “1984”. Principato Scuola. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://principatoscuola.it/huxley-vs-orwell-competing-visions-of-the-future-in-brave-new-world-and-1984/#:~:text=Orwell%20feared%20those%20who%20would,in%20a%20sea%20of%20irrelevance.
  

• Pistono, F. (2018, August 9). Tired of dystopian stories about horrible futures? LinkedIn. Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tired-dystopian-stories-horrible-futures-federico-pistono