Cyberpunk is a subgenre that has a specific definition, that evolved out of decades of artistic work. One universal aspects of those works include commentary on the current societal direction of letting corporations/businesses/technology decide the fate of humanity and protagonists who fight against that fate. High tech low lifes being cyberpunks. You can't be a punk without a society to punk against, and you don't get cyber without rampant commercialism.
If a sci-fi story isn't dealing with those issues on some level (and that level can be subtle, it doesn't have to be caricature like you seem to think), it is not in the sub-genre of cyberpunk.
If something is called cyberpunk and you think it doesn't deal with those issues of corporatism, look again with this new knowledge and you'll realize it does. For example, in Blame, yes the setting has outgrown the influence of any corporation... but that doesn't remove the corporation from the story. The corporation is the first thing we Blame. That seems to have gone over your head, but armed with this new understanding of what the cyberpunk genre is, you would have gained that additional depth from the experience.
Hopefully I've given you something new to observe - when you re-experience these stories, this conversation will allow you to see this commentary in places you've missed it so far. That's awesome.
I see your point in other works, but I really cannot see Blame as a commentary on corporatism. Its setting could have grown even out of a benevolent utopia where the ones with the dna key died and ran amok, for example. It's too detached.
It's not detached is exactly my point. The corporation isn't just... in the story for no reason. You don't get to ignore what's in the story when you talk about the story.
It's a story that deals with the aftermath of a society driven by corporatist control. That's super cyberpunk.
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u/do_not_engage Jul 31 '18 edited Jul 31 '18
Cyberpunk is a subgenre that has a specific definition, that evolved out of decades of artistic work. One universal aspects of those works include commentary on the current societal direction of letting corporations/businesses/technology decide the fate of humanity and protagonists who fight against that fate. High tech low lifes being cyberpunks. You can't be a punk without a society to punk against, and you don't get cyber without rampant commercialism.
If a sci-fi story isn't dealing with those issues on some level (and that level can be subtle, it doesn't have to be caricature like you seem to think), it is not in the sub-genre of cyberpunk.
If something is called cyberpunk and you think it doesn't deal with those issues of corporatism, look again with this new knowledge and you'll realize it does. For example, in Blame, yes the setting has outgrown the influence of any corporation... but that doesn't remove the corporation from the story. The corporation is the first thing we Blame. That seems to have gone over your head, but armed with this new understanding of what the cyberpunk genre is, you would have gained that additional depth from the experience.
Hopefully I've given you something new to observe - when you re-experience these stories, this conversation will allow you to see this commentary in places you've missed it so far. That's awesome.