East German secret police guide for identifying youth subcultures (1985)

Aside from conspiracy-theorizing about current events (and I don't use that term pejoratively), people tended to discuss the same topics. New cyberpunk media doesn't come out very often, so people tended to talk about the same books, movies, manga, anime, videogames, and fashion. Some of the alt-chans with dedicated cyberpunk boards would run out of ideas to talk about pretty quickly, since there weren't enough posts that the website had to prune old threads like 4chan did.

Another hypothesis I have is that cyberpunk media is not as captivating as it used to be since we arguably live in a cyberpunk world. In America there is unimaginable wealth inequality, with some cities having insane costs of rent for cramped apartments, with access to the best technology and medicine in the world but only if you can afford it. We also don't have to use media to imagine a world where digital corporations have a huge amount of power over daily life and the government spies on everyone all the time since both of those things are happening right now. I think we live in a cyberpunk world, it just doesn't have huge buildings, neon lights, and widespread punk fashion.

I came in contact with a few guys who wanted to make another alt-chan with a different model (see what other users are typing in real-time, and all posts get deleted early in the morning) but it never materialized as far as I can tell.

Edit: do any of you want to join an online cyberpunk community?

You might consider asking why so many of the greatest cyberpunk authors abandoned the genre. Many science fiction authors idealistically try to produce stories they feel society needs to hear at a given point rather than just retreading genres that have been well-mined and which they feel aren't contributing to progress.

Google Neal Stephenson and "getting big stuff done". Stephenson wrote some of the best books late in Cyperpunk's sci-fi reign, but later came to feel that portraying technological advance as leading to decay, inequality, and corruption was contributing to the stifling of technological ambition in the U.S.. When huge technological leaps are necessary to get past pressing problems like clean energy, space exploration, etc., does it make sense for pop culture to portray technological progress as a negative force that will lead to dystopias?

William Gibson gradually moved away from Cyberpunk for a long period of time, writing novels that were set closer and closer to the present day. "The Peripheral", released in 2014, was the first book by Gibson set in what could be considered "Cyberpunk" for quite a while, but it's not really cyberpunk. (Note: Mild spoilers ahead) Technology does indeed create a calamity that negatively impacts world society in this book, but "cleptocrats" are just as much to blame for creating a dystopia. However, the book also shows some "big stuff" being done, even in the dystopia, and some pretty far-out tech ultimately prevents the calamity it created in the book's prime timeline. A fairly idealistic group of heroes actually change the world for the better using technology in this book, which is rather more optimistic view of both people and technology than is consistent with standard cyberpunk.

While Ernest Cline was not an established author before writing "Ready Player One", it's interesting to note that this book doesn't really represent a return to cyberpunk for serious science fiction. The plot can certainly be considered cyberpunk. (Note: I have read the book, but not seen the movie yet). However, it's basically one long dose of 80's nostalgia, so the cyberpunk setting makes perfect sense for that book. Thus, it's not really science fiction in this respect. It's not trying to predict or shape the future. It's an exercise in wallowing in the past, and the form of this novel matches that function.

I'm still a fan of cyberpunk, but I recognize that science fiction has moved on. It responds to the needs of society, and nightmarish technocratic dystopias are not what is needed today.

I have a couple theories. I think there's a genuine attempt to subvert the countercultures and it's easier to do so now than ever before, the decline of 4chan didn't feel organic to me at all, more like the members of the community got crowded out by automated accounts. Then there's the fact that the /punk communities have kind of splintered, I try to get involved in a lot of ecopunk or solarpunk for example, and there are various aesthetics that people gravitate to depending on what they think the solution is. And on a positive note, I think that this might just be a year where a lot of people are building - groups like 4 thieves, the Odin, Blockcon are actually getting after it. People are fairly busy, but this year in particular it's the kind of busy that doesn't make much noise.

PyCon? DefCon? Ethereum? MAGFest? Speedrunning?

I don't think it did. I was just like OP here, getting involved in the anonymous boards around 2004 because they were spreading funny images and links.

But I was 19 at the time. And around the age of 26-27 I stopped spending time in that culture.

So I think you just outgrow it.

But those cultures are still alive out there. New people come in, some old people stay.

There are always going to be kids who refuse the "normal" trends like snapchat. Who seek out alternative places and those alternative places are imo still websites. Apps will never breach this space because apps are too easy to adopt by large groups of your peers.

The alt.kids want something tougher, a challenge. And most of all they want to get away from the throng.

I'm just waiting to see persistent community forums in darknets. Of course I don't make an effort to track these things anymore but I'd love to know that it has become a reality.

Anonymity is important because just like games lead to programming and hacking, anonymous forums lead to free expression and sub-cultures. It might look like they're just goofing around but look at what 4chan became. We were just goofing around but enough people came to goof around to make it a potential movement.

That's cypherpunks.

That's the cypherpunks. Cyberpunks are 'high tech low lifes'.

I believe Charles Stross described it as 'Whither bohemia in a hyperconnected world?'

Guy's got a way with words...

Cyberpunk [1990] Documentary

"CYBERPUNK is Marianne Trench's stylistic documentary about the cyberpunk movement of the 1980s. William Gibson, author of cyberpunk classic Neuromancer, and Timothy Leary, famous advocate of psychedelic drugs, share their thoughts on the future of society and technology.

While looking a bit dated now, this film provides an interesting insight into the cyberpunk movement of the 80's. The feeling at the time was there was some overlap between this new technical age we were entering vs the counter culture of the 1960s."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxbZq8Zmd88

It's many things at once. For some people, it's just an aesthetic. It's the whole "hacker, rebel, techy, lone-wolf" aesthetic.

It's also a genre of science fiction. It basically combines futuristic tech with dystopian/utopian elements, and grimy, old-world stuff. For example, a cyberpunk setting may have godlike AI, but everyone lives in the ghetto. Usually there are rogue actors that try to disrupt or exploit the technology system in place-- the "hackers". These actors are all about reclaiming old tech, building gadgets, and often cyborg-like body mods.

Cyberpunk is a sort of philosophy as well, along the same lines. This is where the subculture aspect comes in. Ever heard of steampunk? Steampunk in a fictional setting is where all technology is mostly mechanical, usually drawing on Victorian elements as well, and sometimes magic or supernatural stuff is included. Steampunk can be boiled down to an initiative to create stable, reliable, mechanically sound systems, usually put to interesting/novel use.

Cyberpunk as a subculture is similar. It's all about making tech work for you, pushing it to its limits, experimenting and exploiting within the given system. It's a rebellious attitude and a response to corporate and government tech control. It incorporates a fashion element like all good subcultures, likes to resurrect old tech (like nixie tubes), and often incorporates body modification (like NFC chips under the skin). People like to repair their own technology, modify their own technology, and collect obscure technologies. Many are also hackers, or want to be.

A decent explanation of the media genre is "radical breakdown of the social order combined with radical progress in technology". It is also an aesthetic inspired by cyberpunk media. It is also a mindset which is quite hard to define, but is definitely prevalent among certain subcultures.

Probably had something to do with the British Teddy Boy subculture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy

Probably rom the term teddy boy.

>How in the heck did rockabilly/greasers end up as "Teds"?

They were always called "teddy boys" in the UK (and many other places in Europe).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy

I grew up in West Germany and some used to call them "Teds". "Rockabilies" was more common. "New Romantiks" didn't exist were I lived, I think we called this "Postpunk" (guys who listened to bands like Tears for Fears).

I got something for you: https://nekrogoblikon.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-meta

I find that most non-mainstream nightclubs tend to be the safest and have the least trouble.

I don't think I've heard a single person complain about sexual harassment or violent behaviour in the underground techno scene in my city. Meanwhile getting sexually harassed as a woman, or having guys trying to pick fights with you as a man is such a common occurrence that I'd never bother go to to a mainstream club even if I liked the music.

A London taxi driver explained to me back in the 1980's how he liked fares from clubs where boys wore make-up because anyone who has spent three hours crimping and back-combing and spraying their hair is unlikely to want to risk damaging it by having a fight.

And with hindsight knowledge of how that story ended, we can only congratulate the author on a job well done. Churches were relatively safe havens for dissent because despite fundamentally different ideology, the actual ideals were pretty much aligned. And they knew and respected that, on both sides. For a state with torture prisons (edit: and with mandatory paramilitary classes at school, almost forgot about that), a state that routinely had the army shoot its own citizens, the GDR was surprisingly committed to peace.

"Liberal" and "conservative" also have very different meanings depending on country and context, and I don't see how opposition to the Stasi or GDR government automatically makes someone a conservative. Gauck was supported by the Social Democrats and the Greens, both of which are very progressive (well to the left of US democrats).

I did like how "grufties" are labelled as fans of "The Cure", but also death cults.

One amusing detail is how Metal heads are described as having basically "society-conforming attitudes".

Judging from my own circle of acquaintances, I think the secret police assessment is quite accurate there.

Sounds like something out of a clockwork orange.

> negative-decadent" youths that also goes into to who behaves the least "appropriate for society", political ideas and suspect affiliations.

From the (Western) guide:

Skinheads: Enjoy fighting

Rude Boys: Are enthusiastic vandals

Punks: Out to shock through their appearance and behavior, have anarchist leanings

Roots Boys: anti-police

The terms "police state" and "decadent" in the US are only used to describe other countries. The sentiments carry over, they're just called "law and order" and "losers" here.

this is about the age ranges in the police dossier