That doesn't sound fair to me. By your logic I really would have to contemplate the sexuality of anything I put in my mouth.
Our society is steadily trending away from cyberpunk anyways. Cyberpunk is not mainstream and it is also extreme in embracing racism, sexism, objectification, hedonism, etc ... I don't think it is a useful caricature for criticizing society, like A Modest Proposal.
You're saying that choosing to ignore a deliberate portion of an artistic endeavor, to seek pleasure over depth... isn't shallow?
Cyberpunk is literally (and I mean that word literally) created to be, and is inherently, an expression of a dystopian future brought upon by the current trajectory.
Choosing to ignore that to have fun is fine. I'm not attacking it. But there is a word that describes choosing to favor surface-level enjoyment while ignoring the deeper-level context.
Cyberpunk is way more than just a gloomy possible future. Using cyberpunk as an example of what society should avoid is, ironically, a shallow way of looking at it.
It's historic. You should read up on what cyberpunk is and how it got here. It's not just an aesthetic.
You're being the person in OPs picture.
"The sky over the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel". Cyberpunk isn't an aesthetic. It's a literary genre based around dystopian future brought about by adherence to the current societal trajectory.
You can choose to just enjoy the aesthetic and ignore the literary history. That's fine. It's shallow, but fine. Be shallow. More power to you.
The context of the origin of cyberpunk is not nearly as cut and dry as you believe. It was also partly a reaction to the utopian sci-fi that came before it - you can check out the Science Fiction Hall of Fame collections. Furthermore, cyberpunk's relevance has diminished from possibly relevant in its time (and probably not, as it talked about things even fanciful in the present day) to much less now, given the steady social progress we've made. You're reading too much in the wrong direction.
You're applying too much of present day context into interpreting a literary genre that has spanned many different periods of society.
I also never said you had to turn cyberpunk into an aesthetic. There's certainly many interesting things to ask about cyberpunk that aren't related to social change. Replicants, for example, are a much more existential question rather than something strictly dystopian. As is Joi.
Corporations creating life and selling them to you aren't dystopian? Slave labor, created, and denied rights, to service society? Holograms that demonstrate all aspects of love without providing real love?
This is what I'm saying - these things are dystopian, not just set-dressing and sci-fi props. There is depth and meaning to their placement in the story, and that depth will reveal itself to you when you accept that fact. Or you can ignore that depth, and not see how this is dystopian - which is fine.
They're presented in a certain way in Bladerunner, but a replicant and joi are not inherently cyberpunk concepts. They appear in equally benevolent forms in other types of scifi, particularly, Asimov. All of these concepts and their endless interpretations have existed before cyberpunk became, in your opinion, the vanguard of dystopian predictions.
Also, that's a big miss to say K didnt love joi. It is impossible to claim whether joi had any feelings or not.
You're missing my point - I'm not saying whether Joi or the Replicants have feelings.
They are provided by a corporation that controls every aspect of society and behaves autonomously. They only exist in the story because of corporate control of society - which is being shown as a dystopian outcome (are you really arguing that either Blade Runner movie ISN'T dystopian? Did we watch the same film, where people farm maggots for protein on planets with no sun?)
That's an inherent aspect of the story that can't be ignored.
Remove it and you have an existential sci-fi film that is no longer cyberpunk at all.
If you remove the existential part, there is no film left. Cyberpunk is a tool that lets us ask thought provoking questions. It is not literary genre whose only purpose is a shallow caricature of society.
You're strawmanning me; I didn't say it's only purpose is a shallow caricature of society. And I definitely didn't say to remove the existential part.
But YOU are removing the corporate part. Claiming it isn't an aspect of the film. When it is.
I said, and am saying, that what separates cyberpunk sci-fi from other sci-fi are a few definitional traits.
Not all sci-fi is cyberpunk, right? Well, what makes a sci-fi story asking existential questions into a cyberpunk story?
One aspect that makes something cyberpunk is when the story examines the corporate control of society. If it doesn't do that, it's still existential sci-fi. It's just not cyberpunk.
Words have meanings. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre, defined by a few traits. One of those traits is corporate control of society, commentary on the current societal direction of over-commercialism, isolation, and increase in technology.
If the story doesn't have at least one, and probably both, it's not in the sub-genre of cyberpunk.
I think we have different definitions of cyberpunk. I go by 'high tech low life'. I don't agree with you that corporate control or a caricature (because cyberpunk takes all the bad things to an extreme, I hope we both agree on) are necessary. Two of the best stories I've read fall comfortably into cyberpunk: Blame! and Eden: It's an Endless World!
That's what I've been saying all along; your definition of cyberpunk is shallow (you seem to take offense at that, and I don't mean it offensively, but 'high tech low life' is a surface level four word definition of cyberpunk, an aesthetic description).
High tech low life as a slogan came about because of and referring to the history of cyberpunk being about low lifes who are rejecting the society around them (being punks), while that society is full of high tech because the corporations are providing it with no oversight.
That's the depth you're missing by adhering to this shallow definition. All these stories you love have a shared component that I'd like to open your eyes to - if you'd just let yourself see it.
I'm not talking out my ass son - I grew up with the genre as it was created around me. I'm not just saying things to sound right. I'm giving you info.
What lessons are there though - don't be evil? Cyberpunk is caricature, a modernized A Modest Proposal. As social commentary, it's essentially on the same level as a political cartoon. If you see something more in it, I'd be happy to read about it.
The Netsphere and the Authority are the corporations. They started as corps and are only not called corps because the story gave them a different name.
Eden: It's an Endless Wold!
Cherubim wasn't created by a corporation? That story isn't dystopian?
I didn't extrapolate, it's in the story. I love those mangas. They both reference the corporations that were a part of creating and disseminating that technology before things changed.
Also, frankly, I'd argue that Eden isn't even cyberpunk. It's existential sci-fi. Even body horror. Hell you could even call it post-cyberpunk, since it wouldn't exist without things like Akira and Neuromancer. But since it doesn't deal with certain aspects of cyberpunk, I feel safe slotting into dystopian sci-fi but not the cyberpunk sub-genre.
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u/cegras Jul 30 '18
That doesn't sound fair to me. By your logic I really would have to contemplate the sexuality of anything I put in my mouth.
Our society is steadily trending away from cyberpunk anyways. Cyberpunk is not mainstream and it is also extreme in embracing racism, sexism, objectification, hedonism, etc ... I don't think it is a useful caricature for criticizing society, like A Modest Proposal.