We will make you discover the science fiction universes neighboring the Steampunk Style in just a few minutes, like cyberpunk which made headlines with the game from CD Projekt RED recently released, Cyberpunk 2077. Do these genres share common mechanisms? Follow the meanderings of my pen to connect seemingly distant genres that are actually quite close through their communities, cultures, and revolutionary ideas. Discover styles and subgenres little known, some more extraordinary than cyberpunk and its Night City.
The Cyberpunk Style and Its Dark Pessimism
Origins of the Cyberpunk Movement
This subgenre of science fiction, like a malfunctioning automaton, became popular in the 1980s thanks to visionaries like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Roger Zelazny. Their cyberpunk novels unveil dystopian universes where populations, as depicted by Harlan Ellison or Philip Jose Farmer, attempt to survive in a dehumanized world of ambient pessimism.
These subcultures have even managed to influence popular culture, with films like Blade Runner, inspired by Philip K. Dick's visionary novel. The cyberpunk movement and cyberpunk literature represent much more than a simple passing fad in the United States. Mirrorshades, one of the first cyberpunk anthologies published, has even been compared to a mechanical symphony by Isaac Asimov.
However, cyberpunk is also criticized for its cynicism and pessimistic vision of the future. Some voices rise to denounce the lack of hope, contrasting with the creative optimism we cherish in the steampunk universe.
The cyberpunk style is characterized by a dark and dystopian vision of the future. Technology reaches a point where it has merged with humanity, allowing for augmentation but also serving to enslave with the help of ideologies and cyberspace. In some ways, it seems this dystopian world is dangerously approaching our own. With video games like Cyberpunk 2077, isn't the effect troubling?
Cyberpunk Aesthetics and Design
The cyberpunk world resembles a jammed machine: a high-tech city gangrened by violence and pollution, overpopulation and oppression by corporations that have supplanted nation-states. These mega corporations reign supreme while a few anti-heroes try to survive in their own way.
In the streets reign the matrix (an ultra-connected internet), implants, robots endowed with artificial intelligence, ghettos, gangs, black leather clothing, neon lights, and digital combat. This vision, having become so omnipresent in books and films, constitutes our default way of thinking about cyberpunk, even though we already live it in numerous ways.
Although it was released two years after Blade Runner and is not recognized as the first cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer by William Gibson remains undoubtedly the best example of retro cyberpunk style, halfway between film noir and futuristic dystopia.
Only The Matrix manages to be even darker, where the machine decided to use us as batteries and created an illusion of virtual society. The most ironic part? The machines don't wish us harm but maintain us in the matrix out of concern for peace and functionality, human beings not being fit for their own survival in reality.
The cyberpunk style has evolved; it's a cultural melting pot with:
- Other cyberpunk films: Blade Runner 2049 by Denis Villeneuve, Johnny Mnemonic, Brazil or Total Recall, Ready Player One (cyberspace and pop culture)
- In TV series: Black Mirror, Altered Carbon on Netflix
- Anime by Masamune Shirow like Ghost in the Shell, Avalon, Akira. The renewal comes through manga and an avant-garde Japanese movement
- In comic books with Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
- Video games with Cyberpunk 2077, Shin Megami Tensei II
- Music with Billy Idol's cyberpunk album
One will notice that Keanu Reeves tends to be very present in cyberpunk films and video games...
Is There a Cyberpunk Fashion?
Clearly no. My dear readers, unlike our rich authentic steampunk wardrobe, cyberpunk fashion remains a mixture of punk and gothic, enhanced with a futuristic touch that gives a modern aspect.
If you're looking for cyberpunk clothing, expect black clothes, combat boots, metal accessories, and radical haircuts. Cyborg looks, with futuristic sunglasses, patterns and colors reminiscent of computing, are also popular.
Cyberpunk fashion should not be confused with the genuine cultural movement. It is primarily a science fiction subgenre with a literary and cinematographic current that critiques technological excesses and corporate wrongdoings.
No Future for Cyberpunk?
And if the analogy of the cyberpunk genre with our era may shock, we are still far from the extremely dark universe of Ridley Scott's film, which is the reference in cinema for the cyberpunk universe. Curiously, Blade Runner is much more cyberpunk than the book it's based on, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick.
Gradually, cyberpunk has dried up to virtually disappear today. This subculture needs to reinvent itself and distance itself from our present which has caught up with science fiction on technological advances and social regressions. Our present is even becoming darker in many aspects. Unlike the retrofuturistic style...
Reverse the Steam of Cyberpunk and You Get Steampunk
So what do cyberpunk and steampunk have in common, if not this ending? Not much in terms of era, aesthetics, or themes! Certainly, technology remains at the heart of both genres: cyberpunk explores the future that could be, steampunk reveals the past that could have been. But apart from that, the term was poorly chosen by K.W. Jeter. You probably know the story: he just wanted to make an impression and separate the genres.
The strength of steampunk against cyberpunk lies in its timeless uchronia, although it's marked as taking place in the Victorian era. Thus, it becomes easy to play with the codes of the industrial revolution, steam and gears to transplant them into other universes. Another strength? Magic, the fantastic, naturally integrated into steampunk! Everyone intuitively understands that making this marvelous machinery work would have been impossible in the real Victorian era (automata, computers, etc.). Fantastical and supernatural elements integrate seamlessly into retrofuturistic science fiction.
Uchronia and Ideology: Common Ground in Punk Universes
Definition of Uchronia
Uchronia, my dear vaporists, constitutes this narrative method that proposes an alternative viewpoint of history, imagining what would have happened if certain key events had been different. In uchronia, authors rewrite history by modifying historical facts, famous personalities, or events, to propose an alternative reality to our own history. This form of fiction allows exploration of the consequences of different choices on our present and future, while offering an interesting perspective on our own history. Uchronia is therefore a tool for reflection on history and the impact of our choices on our reality.
Ideologies: Heart of Alternative Movements
These cultural movements have in common the fact of proposing alternative universes that invite reflection on our own reality. By proposing dystopias or retro-futurisms, they question our relationship with technology and history. They show how our current choices can impact our future and propose visions of the world that can be disturbing or inspiring.
Another common point is the community and ideological breeding ground that gave birth to these dystopian universes. It's the refusal of conformity, of the consumerist world and a dark vision of the future. Where cyberpunk warns that the future could be dehumanized and gives up, steampunk wants to be a little more optimistic and engaged. It's possible to make things yourself, to recycle, to reuse and for each person to be responsible for their future, without waiting for someone to do the work for us - exactly like in our DIY steampunk projects!
Now let's look at neighboring universes that are mostly subgenres of cyberpunk or steampunk.
Dieselpunk
This offspring of the 21st century, born around 2001, although various films and books had played with this idea for decades, constitutes a fascinating mechanical evolution! The simplest way to describe dieselpunk is steampunk where the technology of the industrial revolution is replaced by the combustion engine. The technology is more recent and the aesthetics are inspired by the late 1930s through the 1950s. Instead of our giant wooden and brass airships, imagine giant steel zeppelins!
The reference period is World War II with all the clichés of the period sprinkled with fantasy. It involves huge improbable machines and diesel engines emitting black smoke. Dieselpunk is much more present in cinema and television than in books, as in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or The Rocketeer. There is, however, a growing contingent of novels, the best known probably being Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series.
Dieselpunk ends where peace and the Cold War take place...
Atompunk
Yes, my dear readers, there's a genre for practically every decade of the 20th century! Atompunk takes the mid-century modern style, the nuclear revolution and the space age of Sputnik and mixes them all together to create something quite sleek and shiny. Quirky humor is more than welcome given this perilous period that is sometimes post-apocalyptic where everything has been devastated.
The Fallout game series, animated series like Futurama, The Jetsons, and films like The Incredibles sum up the genre well. Orbit City from The Jetsons cartoon is a great example of the genre. Atompunk has its own punk elements, taking place in the context of McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. Technology was progressing rapidly and society was struggling to keep up, a kind of cyberpunk without the transhumanism side in a way. The genre has fertile ground for re-imagining these social struggles.
One wonders if atompunk is synonymous with raypunk and teslapunk. The main difference is that they don't usually include nuclear energy, but have the same aesthetics. It's not surprising they've been popular in recent years. There's also a real renaissance of architecture and design inspired by mid-century modernism, so maybe we'll see atompunk's popularity increase?
Speaking of acidic and colorful universes, here's another one...
Dreampunk
Here's an unclassifiable, quite different style that takes root in the imagination and the world of dreams! The reference remains, like any steampunk derivative from the Victorian era, the well-known Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Another classic comes to mind, the Wizard of Oz by L.F. Baum. Dreampunk is therefore bewildering, even wacky; one dresses up as the Mad Hatter or Tinker Bell. The accessories come from magical universes and ultimately the only limit is our imagination.
These are colorful and surrealist universes populated with mystical creatures; unicorns and dragons are quite well represented. Gradually they moved away from magic and closer to technology, often mechanical. A sort of steampunk associated with the fairy world. A more recent example of these alternative worlds is Arthur and the Minimoys or adaptations of Philip K. Dick's novels (Total Recall, Minority Report, or Blade Runner, well, well). These works have imagination in common, the conflict between dream and reality... do replicants have an imagination? Am I really "me" or someone else's memories?
Biopunk
Biopunk is the biological cousin of cyberpunk. They often take place in a very similar period, or biopunk is the successor to cyberpunk. Metal and technology are replaced by biological hacking, genetic modification, and organic enhancement. Biopunk poses existential questions further than cyberpunk. Technologies like genetic tracking, designer babies, and mass cloning are recurring themes. Welcome to Gattaca.
Cyberpunk is often concerned with man versus machine, but biopunk addresses the themes of man versus post-human. The big question biopunk poses is: where does the human being stop? When neither genre is pushed to extremes, you can find biopunk and cyberpunk elements in the same setting.
But many authors imagine cyberpunk's cybernetic technology as the more primitive cousin of biopunk's bio-engineering. Jurassic Park or Activision's Prototype game both embrace the implications of biopunk bio-engineering, but not its aesthetics. The Love Death & Robots short films on Netflix is a recent example that encompasses both technology and aesthetics.
Western Punk or Cattlepunk
Different names for the same thing, the little-known category of science fiction dedicated to a retrofuturistic western, a Wild West that never existed. Many examples in this genre are underground, some gems and others a bit bizarre. If you'd like the Lone Ranger to be equipped with improbable gadgets, the cattlepunk genre might be for you.
The best-known example is Wild Wild West, technically the first steampunk TV series. Just imagine an alternative Wild West that possesses advanced technology, based on steam engines. Other examples of films in this genre: Cowboys & Aliens and of course the enormous Back to the Future Part III.
So much for this entire collection of often teeming universes, which rival each other in ingenious ideas and concepts. We've skipped the most obscure, sometimes anecdotal ones that we'll only mention briefly.
The "Punk" Subgenres
- Clockpunk: steampunk at the origins of mechanics, like the Renaissance, which loves anachronistic mechanisms. We often find Leonardo da Vinci there as in the TV series Da Vinci's Demons or the game Assassin's Creed 2.
- Decopunk: a refined, brilliant, and very art deco version of steampunk. Fantastic films or those with this 1930s aesthetic are representative, like The Shadow (1994).
- Nanopunk: a version of cyberpunk close to biopunk where the central theme is nanobiology.
- Raypunk: very close to or similar to atompunk. This genre focuses on space and pays little attention to atomic energy. Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon are very representative.
- Rococopunk: close to clockpunk and therefore steampunk, the aesthetics are those of the French rococo period of the 18th century. Used mainly in fashion by Vivienne Westwood.
- Solarpunk: a subgenre of cyberpunk that goes against its model. The future is optimistic. The themes are ecology and social inequalities thanks to technology.
- Steelpunk: a modified dieselpunk where technology would be closer to the 1980s. The universe is often post-apocalyptic as in Snowpiercer or Terminator.
- Stonepunk: an anachronistic prehistory like in The Flintstones that serves as a pretext for satire of the current era associated with quirky humor.
- Teslapunk: named after the famous inventor. Science fiction where magnetism and electrical energy are at the center of the narrative and visuals.
I hope, my dear vaporists, that you have discovered new territories beyond the cyberpunk style and the Cyberpunk 2077 game. All that remains is for you to explore these fascinating universes, each constituting a unique gear in the great machinery of human imagination! These cultural movements propose alternative universes that invite reflection on our own reality, creating a community of free spirits united by the refusal of conformity.
To complete your wardrobe with these different styles, explore our cosplay collection and our authentic steampunk accessories. Also discover our selection of steampunk glasses and steampunk watches to perfect your look.
Thank you for reading, and see you soon, vaporists, for a new article on the intoxicating world of steampunk!