you know, the people who want cyberpunk to be revolutionary because it has punk in the name sometimes remind me of people who want all sci-fi to be hard sci-fi because it has “science” in the name

it’s not a bad preference, but you have to acknowledge it’s not what the genre is

cyberpunk’s foundational works are pretty much Neuromancer, Akira, and Blade Runner. already there’s a cop among our protagonists. the kids in akira fight each other, not the cops, and Case was once a rich contractor for the mob.

cyberpunk is, ultimately, sci-fi noir: it’s focus on crime and conspiracy comes from gritty stories of people drawn in over their heads, it’s cybernetic focus initially rooted in a sci-fi reskin of the themes of urban dehumanizations present in noir.

cyberpunk comes back to people who poke at something that engulfs them, be it replicants, psychic research, the wrong data in your head, the AI waking up on the internet, the government conspiracy. the genre has never demanded revolutionary protagonists, just curious ones

this is not to say, again, that wanting more socially conscious cyberpunk isn’t right and good. i want that too. but saying “this isn’t cyberpunk” shows an understanding of the genre as shallow as somebody who sees neon lights and declares “this *is* cyberpunk”

cyberpunk has never been strictly about the little guy. cyberpunk is about being dwarfed by a system or case or conspiracy that looms over you, which you are entangled in by the wires that snake through technological society.

often the protagonists are only the little guy by comparison