Why Is Everything ‘Punk’ Now? – TheGamer

Everything is punk now. Nothing is punk now. As you probably read in my subheading, and have almost definitely noticed as a trend in games, books, and further afield, the -punk suffix can be attached to basically any word now, with complete disregard for the original intention. Frostpunk is just cold? Biopunk replaces cybernetic enhancements of cyberpunk for those of a more biological nature, but rarely discusses the transhuman ideas as its progenitor does. Hermitpunk? I couldnt even tell you. Its some kind of cottagecore alternative for those too proud to admit their affectation for those vibes.

The problem has been spreading to games for a while now, but its been rampant since the lead-up to and release of Cyberpunk 2077. You may have heard of Cloudpunk, a cute game released from 2020. Its a nice game, I enjoyed it, but it appropriates cyberpunk aesthetics and gives them a new name, the name of its in-universe delivery service. It even mentions the word cyberpunk in its marketing, but decided to make up a new term as well. Is it punk? Not really.

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The same goes for Frostpunk, a survival city management game which sees you rule over the last city on Earth. Ive always said theres nothing more punk than ruling over your minions as some kind of monarch or dictator. Herein lies the problem. Words have meaning. You cant just ignore that meaning. Dying Light had a Dieselpunk DLC, which seemingly just added chainsaws. Chainsaws use fuel, sure, but are they punk?

This is where my irk stems from. Words have meanings. I didnt stumble into this article saying that the -punk suffix is elitist or humorous or non-monogamous, because those are different words with different meanings. I think the suffix is misunderstood, meaningless, and sometimes hypocritical, so those are the words I use. Its why, when editing articles on this website, I make sure that writers know that simplistic and simple arent synonyms that you can use interchangeably in order to sound more clever. With -punk naming conventions, it all started innocently enough with cyberpunk.

To know how this term was bastardised, we have to return to its roots. Cyberpunk as a genre was pioneered in the 60s and 70s as a part of New Wave science fiction. Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delany, and J. G. Ballard were some of the foremost pioneers, laying the foundations for the likes of William Gibson to follow. The term itself first appeared as the title of a 1983 Bruce Bethke short story published in Amazing Stories, after the author had been experimenting with compound words. The story goes that Bethke made two lists, one of words for technology and one for troublemakers, and assembled combinations from the two. Maybe we could have ended up with a story called technonuisance, and wed now have games called frostnuisance and people ascribing to hermitnuisance ways of life?

The term was popularised by Gardner Dozois, editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, who described many of the above authors as cyberpunks in a Washington Post article. The popularity of William Gibsons 1984 novel Neuromancer massively aided the genre taking off and the term stuck, despite Bethkes assertions that Gibsons work should be categorised as Neuromantic, a play on the novels title and the New Romantic movement in punk music at the time.

All of these novels had a semblance of punk to them. The characters were young upstarts, and the stories detailed anti-establishment movements as dystopian societies had all-but crushed the protagonists. And then steampunk came along. Steampunk was named purely based on the convention of cyberpunk. K. W. Jeter came up with it to describe that pseudo-Victorian style of fantasy fiction. It didnt rise in popularity until a little later, and has since been used to describe novels as far back as Frankenstein and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. For the most part the label is all aesthetic and no substance, all steam and no punk.

There is a debate raging about steampunk in online communities, as steampunks attempt to reconcile their aesthetic with the punk of the name. While some modern novels in the genre befit that punk spirit by challenging mass production, steampunk communities rebel against the same with handmade goods and crafts, and people often challenge the eras colonialist, sexist, and xenophobic values, the genre is defined by cogs and goggles more than it is its punk roots, especially to a general audience not entrenched in the community. Some writers in the genre eschew the label altogether, opting instead for gaslamp fantasy despite having all the trappings of steampunk. There may be some punk in some steampunk, but it seems retrofitted. People have realised the issues with the genre and are challenging it, rather than defining it. Still, thats more than can be said for other spin-off genres.

While there is great debate about half of steampunks etymological meaning, countless copycats have no debate, and even less punk. At best, the -punk suffix now just denotes some kind of alternate history, but the texts dont have to be anti-establishment or anti-capitalist in their execution. Theres no shouting about the state of the world, the characters just exist in it. The same even extends to some modern cyberpunk the video game Cyberpunk 2077 has you fighting side by side with cops, and has an ending where you stand with a megacorporation.

Ive heard arguments that hermitpunk is rebelling against the hyper-socialisation of the modern world, but I dont buy it. Escape to the wilderness all you want, but thats not a rebellion. At least forestpunk has an air of insurgency about it, as forestpunks protest global warming and deforestation as much as they get away from the grid. Words have meaning, and you should think about that before telling the universe that your new game is a riverpunk sailing adventure. No punk, no party.

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Why Is Everything 'Punk' Now? - TheGamer