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Cyberpunk"Drive your mind down deep underground. Feel the cosmos whirling around"Key motifs

cityscapes, technology, cyberspace, tactical style clothing, guns, robotics

High-Tech/Low-Life, the Digital Dystopia

Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, New Rose Motel, Altered Carbon, Black Mirror, Snowpiercer, Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk, as a genre, includes a wide variety of visual aesthetics but is recognised by its encompassing theme of "high tech, low life." This became prominent in the 1980s. thanks to the works of authors like Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Philip Jose Farmer, and Harlan Ellison as they examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.

Settings in the cyberpunk genre range from the richly colored, rough-around-the-edges urban jungles of Akira (1988), to the hyper-futuristic, neon cityscapes and bleak wastelands of Blade Runner 2049 (2017), with the first work in cyberpunk fiction being William Gibson's Neuromancer novel.

Themes used in cyberpunk media involve artificial intelligence, class uprising, governmental and corporate corruption, anarchy, gang warfare, and transhumanism. The range is broad but the cyberpunk aesthetic is often used to convey deeper meanings and commentate on modern society and sometimes predictions of our future society.

Cyberpunk was likely the partial inspiration (or anti-inspiration) for Solarpunk - an aesthetic that also aspires to cast a glance into the future, but does so with a much less nihilistic perspective and played a role in inspiring Vaporwave since both seem to share a seeming disdain for mainstream capitalism, but Vaporwave is more sarcastic and mocking compared to Cyberpunk, which is more open with its disdain for the corporate dystopia. In truth, most online aesthetics almost completely owe their entire existence to Cyberpunk and its rebelliousness to the status quo of the 1980s; everything from the Steampunk and Dieselpunk of yesteryear to any sort of micro-genres that will pop up in the future.

Cyberpunk fashion, also known as tech wear, is heavily influenced by films like Johnny Mnemonic, Blade Runner, and The Matrix and could be interpreted as being "futuristic gothic fashion" and involves trench coats, boots, shiny black clothing, colored "dreads" that women might wear, etc.

Cyberpunk has been very influential to film and television, inspiring the aesthetics of movies, television shows, and anime. There just seems to be something encoded into the DNA of cyberpunk that makes it incredibly compatible with a lot of future-themed speculative media, even that aimed for children (an argument could even be made that the Sonic SatAM series from the '90s is something of an example of cyberpunk since it involves a group of freedom fighters fighting back an oppressive technologically-based regime run by Dr. Robotnik).

The cyberpunk genre has spurred the creation of various cyberpunk-themed video games such as Cloudpunk, Va-11 Hall-A, and most notably Cyberpunk 2077.

While Cyberpunk itself is not a genre of music (nor does it have one genre associated with it), there are some characteristics of music that tend to make it sound Cyberpunk. These characteristics include the use of synthesizers, Cyberpunk themes, and sounding dark. Music is typically lacks vocals. Synthwave music tends to sound Cyberpunk.[1]

Cyberpunk podcasts include podcasts that are related to cyberpunk interests, including science, technology, privacy, and cybersecurity.

Transhumanism is an international philosophical movement that advocates for the transformation of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology. This very philosophy has very close ties to the Cyberpunk aesthetic in that, what's more Cyberpunk than becoming part human/part machine? There have also been numerous examples of protagonists in Cyberpunk fiction that are transhuman in their own right (most famously, Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell is an example of Transhumanism in Cyberpunk).

Cybersecurity (also known as information security or infosec), is the practice of protecting computer systems and data from security hackers, cybercriminals, spies, or other bad actors.[2] "Hackers" are now generally understood to be bad actors, but hacker culture reclaims the label for people who see programming and computer systems as a medium of freedom and creativity.[3]

The "high tech, low life" nature of cybersecurity is often reflected in the offensive and defensive security operatives of cyberpunk fiction and media. In Neuromancer, the protagonist Henry Case is a security hacker working to penetrate corporate computer networks. In Ghost in the Shell, Motoko Kusanagi is referred to as a hacker as short hand for her programming ability which she uses to investigate and prevent cybercrime.

Many characters in cyberpunk fiction and media embody hacker culture and the hacker ethic, which asserts that all information should be free.[4] The protagonists of The Matrix embody the late 1990s self-image of hackers attempting to free humanity from corporate dominiation of technology.[5] Today, many advocates and users of free and open source software adopt a cyberpunk aesthetic, as demonstrated by the r/unixporn subreddit.

The Cyberpunk community has a strong interest in privacy and cybersecurity.[6] Members of the community advocate improving personal privacy and security by using linux and tools like DuckDuckGo, Firefox, and VPNs.[7] Other resources for personal privacy and security are privacytools.io and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense.

Biopunk is a subgenre of Cyberpunk that focuses on biotechnology.

For more information, see Biopunk.

Bronzepunk takes Greco-Roman aesthetics and puts them into a pseudo-modern world. The name comes from the use of bronze-age technology, albiet with modern twists.

For more information, see Bronzepunk.

Clockpunk takes elements of Cyberpunk and puts them into a Renaissance setting. Some call it steampunk without the steam.[8]

For more information, see Clockpunk.

Ironpunk adds traits of Cyberpunk to an Iron Age setting.

Nowpunk essentially says that Cyberpunk is now. Bruce Sterling used it to describe his 2005 novel, titled The Zenith Angle.

For more information, see Nowpunk.

Solarpunk is the opposite of cyberpunk. It features an optimistic view of the future, emphasizing renewable energy, handcrafted wares, and anti-capitalism.

For more information, see Solarpunk.

Lunarpunk is closely related to Solarpunk with its emphasis on nature and renewable energy, with an addition of witchcraft.

For more information, see Lunarpunk.

Tupinipunk refers to the Brazilian sci-fi/cyberpunk movement. This is a criticism of the Euro-centric and US-centric views that tend to dominate Cyperpunk.

For more information, see Tupinipunk.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

From Julie Watai's SAMURAI-GIRLS photography set with cyberpunk elements

Things are going to get chilly when the capitalists upload their consciousnesses into giant servers which will be kept cool by blocking out the sun

de/human(eyes) your 'self'

Kiss the cybernetwork with your mouth open wide.

Blade Runner could be seen as the epitome of cyberpunk

We're in the Cyberpunk era now, fam!

Johnny Silverhand, a character in the video game Cyberpunk 2077.

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