All the theories of manufactured normalcy and zero history can be short-circuited by just one thing: simply looking around.If the future is dead, then we must summon it and learn how to see it properly again. Cyberpunk began as a literary movement but has become a subcultural organism. "Or, as I said over in the piece on Gibson's new book:For us creators, are we supposed to cower in our tacky black leather techno-boots and worry lest we callously appropriate other cultures? Rafael Miranda Huereca states: In this fictional world, the unison in the hive becomes a power mechanism which is executed in its capillary form, not from above the social body but from within. What other founding material would you recommend?I like William Gibson’s comment about not looking for heroes in the white middle class etc. Cyberpunk fiction went from being something unexpected, fresh, and original, to being a trendy fashion statement; to being a repeatable commercial formula; to being a hoary trope, complete with a set of stylistic markers and time-honored forms to which obeisance must be paid if one is to write True Cyberpunk….”“Time and chance have been kind to the cyberpunks, but they themselves have changed with the years. So, you’d more often see basic goths who identified as cyberpunks in the classic era. Do not use a publication currently owned by a conglomerate, such as Wired. It’s such a lovely (sub-)genre. I'd just add that this applies to "quality" cyberpunk. Did a black leather jacket and boots (worn by any gender) make you a cyberpunk? That entire period (from about 1995 to 1999) was frustrating in some ways – especially when in 1997, AOL and other dial-up providers were being given incremental access to the internet (and it slowly became the commercialized resource that it is today). A core doctrine in Movement theory was “visionary intensity.” But it has been some time since any cyberpunk wrote a truly mind-blowing story, something that writhed, heaved, howled, hallucinated and shattered the furniture.
We’ve got robot legs controlled by brain waves. Governments are just as faulty as ever.
Mirror’s Edge was a good example of this.
being sold elements of different cultures to use as commodities, mostly because they think they are cool, not to mock anyone. I’m gay, and I can’t say that anyone in the community has ever given a damn. It is a tradition that has clearly stuck around, given the heated arguments still transmitted across the net. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us.
It’s not really about an imagined future.
Also, many classic cyberpunk authors are returning to the genre – not only do we have The Peripheral by Gibson (2014), but it can be argued that Walter Jon William’s Dagmar Shaw series (2009-2012) is cyberpunk. Or, from the sidebar, "Information wants to be free." Mind you, this doesn't mean noting their differences, it means further "othering" them.