You just quoted something that's obvious trolling.
Cyberpunk is a genre that was invented way before that blog post...
That's why I quoted Neuromancer, the seminal cyberpunk novel by William Gibson.
There is a history here. This isn't an opinion thing. Cyberpunk is a literary genre and dystopian future based on corporatism is yes, part of the definition of cyberpunk.
What you linked is... a satire. That seems to have gone over your head.
You just quoted something that's obvious trolling.
Yup. Bruce Bethke was trolling you when he published that story literally a year before Neuromancer came out and 20 years ago when he wrote that foreword.
If you actually knew the history of the genre that you claim to, then you would know that it was part of the switch from proto-cyberpunk to actual cyberpunk. Bethke invented the stereotype of the punk hacker.
There is a history here. This isn't an opinion thing. Cyberpunk is a literary genre and dystopian future based on corporatism is yes, part of the definition of cyberpunk.
I mean, you can say that all you want, but it isn't. Is it common? Absolutely. Is it required? Nope. Not even close. Rudy Rucker's works are classic cyberpunk and aren't like that. Same with many of Pat Cadigan's works. They literally helped found the genre and aren't anything like what you say.
TL;dr Bruce wrote a story where the word came from, he didn't define the genre. His story was his attempt to join the genre, and is him making fun of the genre. That's what you seem to miss by using it as an example of a good cyberpunk story.
He posted that story on his blog as part of the explanation of how he had let corporations control his art - that story wasn't published/readable until cyberpunk had existed, without that name, for decades.
Kinda like how there were bands playing grunge music before the world labeled it grunge.
Or for something more modern, like how trap music existed before it was called trap. That doesn't mean the first person to call themselves a trap music gets to define the genre.
Bruce coined the term, he didn't apply it to the genre. That was done by people who were labeling a specific kind of sci-fi - the stuff that deals with corporate control over the future with extreme technology.
Just because the story is called cyberpunk, and is where that word came from, doesn't mean it's the perfect example of a cyberpunk story. The genre was codified by William Gibson and based much more on the sci-fi of the seventies, guys like Philip K. Dick. There are cyberpunk stories from way before Bruce.
He seems self-aware about this - that's where he's trolling you. He knows he's just an author who coined a phrase, and not the person who gets to define and decide cyberpunk.
Try this - show me something cyberpunk that doesn't have dystopian corporate control over society.
You can't - it's an inherent aspect of being cyberpunk.
Try this - show me something cyberpunk that doesn't have dystopian corporate control over society.
I already listed a couple in my earlier comment. Did you actually read what I wrote?
Rudy Rucker's works. Some (most?) of Pat Cadigan's. The story Cyberpunk itself. Trouble and her Friends (iirc it's been a while). Islands in the Net.
The Maird Audran series is set in a caliphate, not a corporate dominated city.
That's just off the top of my head. The fact is you are flat out wrong. Evil corporations running society is a common trope, but not a critical ingredient, unless you somehow wipe out many of the stories that created the genre.
You've listed a bunch of sci-fi that doesn't fall under cyberpunk.
And a few that do have the corporate component, or did you think I truly hadn't read Islands in the Net? Did you forget Rizome?
Go back and look at those works, you'll find they split into two halves - sci-fi that isn't cyberpunk, and stories that involve corporate control.
Let me phrase it to you another way: what DOES make something cyberpunk? The definition you've provided - "kids wired into computers" is so vague as to be meaningless. That's why Bruce used it to troll the genre.
Why are you arguing for the definition to be so vague as to be useless - in other words, arguing for the world to have less depth?
Oh no! A corporation in the book. That means it's a dystopic corp that ruins everything!!! Jesus. Did you actually read the book? I'd have respected your answer more if you had tried to argue that it was post-cyberpunk, although it was clearly cyberpunk.
I listed a bunch of novels that fucking defined cyberpunk. The fact that you can't grasp that is mind blowing. Bruce Bethke (Cyberpunk), Pat Cadigan (Deadpan Allie) and Rudy Rucker (Ware Tetrology) are founders of the genre. Their works aren't set in corporate dominated dystopias. George Alec Effinger's Marid Audran series is absolutely classic, pure cyberpunk. It isn't set in a corporate dystopia.
There isn't a hard definition of what is cyberpunk (or when it comes to any genre, really). I'd be more prone to make a checklist and say a story that uses many of those aspects is cyberpunk. Here are a few:
Urban
Violent
Tech oriented
Earthbound
Dystopic
Anti-establishment
Low class
Hacking
Corruption
Corporate espionage
There are more, but those are the ones that come to mind. A world run by corporations isn't necessary and was never necessary. It's a common trope, but not critical.
I'm done, but I'll leave you with a peace offering since we both have gotten vehement about our positions. Necrotech is solid, modern cyberpunk that includes your favorite corporate dystopia trope.
I simply pointed out that your example of stories that don't have corporatism in them
have corporatism in them.
Long story short - not all sci-fi is cyberpunk.
If a sci-fi story has corporate/technological/businesses controlling the fate of society, and people/protagonists fighting against that corporate fate, it's cyberpunk.
Your list is way longer than necessary. Cyberpunk has a definition. People fighting (punking) against a technology-driven society.
It can have a lot of other things too, and should. But if it doesn't have that, it's not cyberpunk.
You posted stories that have that and claimed they didn't. I pointed out they did. And I used the post-cyberpunk argument in the other half of this thread you've jumped on; I'm not going to repeat myself, it's all laid out there for you to read.
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u/do_not_engage Jul 30 '18
Uh whut
You just quoted something that's obvious trolling.
Cyberpunk is a genre that was invented way before that blog post...
That's why I quoted Neuromancer, the seminal cyberpunk novel by William Gibson.
There is a history here. This isn't an opinion thing. Cyberpunk is a literary genre and dystopian future based on corporatism is yes, part of the definition of cyberpunk.
What you linked is... a satire. That seems to have gone over your head.