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What would a cyberpunk story look like when you start cleaning out problematic things like racism and transphobia? Let's investigate.
(A thread)
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(A thread)
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Cyberpunk's root words are: "cyber," which really refers to communication, but was taken from communication between human (bodies) and machines and popularized as talking about synthetic body parts and neural interfaces.
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"Punk," referring to the rebellious movement that came out of Britain in the '70s and spread rapidly as people showed their dissatisfaction with authoritarianism and consumerism.
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So "cyberpunk" is a merging of these two elements: The combination of interfacing humanity with machines, and the rebellious, anti-authoritarian ethos of groups fighting against oppression and marginalization. It's about games, stories, and aesthetics around these themes.
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Now, cyberpunk as a genre mostly originated as an '80s phenomenon. It carries some baggage from that time: The fear of an economically-powerful Japan moving in on the West Coast and buying up all the property and corporations, for example.
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There's also the fear of how technology dehumanizes, often expressed as a fear of body modification or of artificial intelligence technology, synthetics, and genetic engineering.
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The trick to telling a cyberpunk story that moves past old problems is to look at the roots. It's a story about how humans interface with machines. That part's easy. You have neural interfaces, bionic limbs, replacement eyes.
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But it's also a story about the dangers of authoritarianism, consumerism, and corporatism. It's a story about people who are threatened by these things, and who rebel against them. Thus, it's a story that is inherently about people living on the fringes, about the oppressed.
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This means that marginalized people are the protagonists of cyberpunk stories. Cyberpunk's heroes are the ones who are oppressed but fighting back against brutal authority, against consumer culture, against market demographics and social norms.
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So cyberpunk that is racist or transphobic is making mistakes right out the gate. These stories should be about how marginalized people in a technologically-advanced dystopia find ways to beat the system, when it's the system that enforces these kinds of evils.
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Cyberpunk isn't just cool because of the neon and chrome, the cybernetic parts, or the ultra-violence; those are set pieces. It's cool because the protagonists are fighting against tyrants, bigots, and corporate tools in a dystopia in which most people can't bother to care.
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So cyberpunk should embrace body modification. It should embrace acceptance of people from many heritages and origins. It should embrace the idea of reinventing yourself to be true to yourself, even if that truth means changing every day.
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Consumerism says "You're what we market to you." It says that people fit into neat boxes so that companies can sell consumer products to them. Rebelling against that means refusing to fit into those "socially acceptable" boxes; it means radical self-actualization.
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Authoritarianism says "You do what we tell you." It says that people should not question, they should just fall in line. It says you should be afraid of power. Rebelling against that means seizing power, and flipping a big middle finger to those who would control you.
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Corporatism says "You're just a cog in the system." It says that your only value is the value to the company. Rebelling against that means forming your own communities and rejecting the notion that chasing wealth and exploiting people for profit is an acceptable way to live.
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Put those together and your cyberpunk stories should embrace characters who stand outside of the "mythical norm." They should talk about fighting these systems that are architected by the rich and powerful to maintain a status quo.
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Cyberpunks embrace technology and embrace changes that other people fear because they reject the messages of conformity and uncertainty that come out of corporate messaging. They reject messages that rely on ugly stereotypes. They reject commodification.
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So if you wanna be a cyberpunk... embrace games and stories that tell THAT kind of tale. Stories that don't perpetrate the same tired tropes that have been used to make fun of or villainize or exotify people who aren't "mainstream."
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You're a punk, reject mainstream! Reject conformity! Reject the tired old lies about stereotypes and behaviors. We're making a new tomorrow, using our technology to rebuild ourselves to be what we want, to do what we want.
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Or don't. But if you dismiss people who live under oppression from authoritarianism, if you toe corporate marketing speak, if you spend your dollars to consume the latest fads, you're not a punk, you're a poseur.
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I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but the struggle of marginalized people against wealthy corporate marketing is, after all, kind of a core conflict in cyberpunk.
~Fin~
~Fin~
P.S. Some folks might take issue with these words coming from a developer who works for a video game company. Aren't I just as bad? I make my money by selling a game product to people.
Well, friends, sometimes folks live in troubled systems without alternatives.
Well, friends, sometimes folks live in troubled systems without alternatives.
More qualified people than I have written about many of the issues in recent cyberpunk material. I'm just giving you an idea that it could be better and still be cyberpunk—that it SHOULD be better.
~Real Fin~
~Real Fin~
THREAD EXPLOSION! I don't have a Soundcloud or anything. Go follow @invocationarray and listen to some cyberpunk music from LGBTQIA+ artists. Follow a game streamer who's Black or trans or indigenous or SOMETHING outside of my whitebread world. Rock the norms. You can do it.
