Whatever Happened to Steampunk?

As a San Francisco denizen, I can assure you reports of Steam Punk's death are greatly exaggerated.

In my circles at least, some people are annoyed at how much steam punk has infiltrated their other costume niches, like the Edwardian Ball.

As other people have said, the link to the iPhone announcement seems super tenuous given the prevelance of steam punk costumes on Halloween. But also, it's possible that the term needs less definition, and that ideas from the steampunk aesthetic have already permeated other art. For example, there is a lot of steam punk looking machinery and decorations at this new minigolf place in SF, but it's not being advertised as such: https://www.urbanputt.com/

The article asserts, but provides no real evidence that steampunk has "died".

I wanted to refute the author's claim by looking at google n-grams, but the viewer cuts off in 2008 with the steampunk n-gram still going strong...

Instead I present anecdotal evidence that steampunk is not dead:

1. The presence of an steampunk section in my local Spirit of Halloween store.

2. The release of Carnival Row this year by Amazon, which I believe fits the bill close enough.

3. A continuing new release of steampunk novels (https://www.goodreads.com/genres/steampunk)

Flimsy evidence, but perhaps enough to refute the death of steampunk, which is a strong claim.

To me Steampunk was an artistic movement and as such it is not dead. Sure there where some pretty cool things that actually worked well that came out of it, but it always seemed like that was the secondary purpose to the art.

I believe some people got so wound up in it that they basically became steampunk LARP'ers, but for the most part it was an art period and one that really for some reason catches my fancy. Maybe it's art for tinkerers or something like that, but as a child I really liked the wounder of 1000 Leagues and novels like that, and some steampunk pieces evoke that youthful wonderlust in me.

It's an art form that encompasses a lot of skills that I personally enjoy doing as a hobby. e.g Welding, Metal Crafting, Pneumatic, Hydraulics, Mechanics. Funny enough even though there was a time that I pursued artistic endeavors and was a pretty avid sketch artist and fairly good CG 3D artist. I have never endeavored to design a steampunk piece. Just too busy for art now days.

The question is, who will arise as the Picasso or Dali of the Stempunk period? I would love to know their name and pick up a few pieces now.

Author doesn't mention it, but the demise of skeuomorphism and slow death of late 00's hipsterism (in the sense of fetishizing historical aesthetics in a modern context) goes hand-in-hand with the disappearance of steampunk.

Success did it in. The Zybourne Clock was the ultimate implementation and perfection of the genre. Steampunk disappeared shortly after because there was nothing more left to achieve.

The author suggests the correlation between searches for "steampunk" happening around Sept and Oct are due to iPhone sales which is interesting.

Here is an alternative theory though - what if its more related to Halloween?

I really don't think Steampunk is tied to the iPhone in any way. "steampunk was a cultural response to the ultimate technological zeitgeist, the iPhone" is a pretty bold claim.

You can't swing a dead cat through the Steam game listings without hitting something Steampunk inspired. They aren't brand new, but Frostpunk, Forgotten Anne, and They Are Billions are all since the article claims Steampunk peaked, and they have done quite well.

It's possible that the aesthetic has just become so ubiquitous that it doesn't bear noticing anymore in that context.

Steampunk not dead. It's just that we discovered retrofuturism instead and graduated from the Victorian age that never was into the space age that never will be.

It became too cliche. As soon as it became associated with glueing a few cogs to a top hat it had to die.

What's more likely? The iPhone has some hidden, subtle responsibility for the death of Steampunk -or- something niche like Steampunk found mainstream success, over saturated the pop culture market, then fizzled away back to something niche again?

Off topic from the Article, but I like contrast between Steampunk and Dieselpunk. I find Steampunk optimistic about technology and Dieselpunk pessimistic. A motif in steampunk is that technology is here to enlighten and save us -- it's something to be welcomed with open arms. Diselpunk treats technology as something of we aught to be cautious. In that way, I think the 2000's, into the early 2010's were optomistic. In general, I'd assert that we are collectively much more cautious about technology today than we were then.

"I like the word "dieselpunk" if you are doing something like 'Weird World War II'. I think that makes perfect sense. But to me, World War I is the dividing point where modernity goes from being optimistic to being pessimistic. Because when you put the words "machine" and "gun" together, they both change. At that point, war is no longer about a sense of adventure and chivalry and a way of testing your nation's level of manhood; it's become industrial, and horrible. So playing around with that border between optimistic steampunk and a much more pessimistic dieselpunk, which is more about Nazis, was kind of interesting to me because early in the war we were definitely kind of on the steampunk side of that." ~ Scott Westerfeld, via Wikipedia.

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

Huh? I was active in steampunk events from 2010 to 2018 [1][2], and never heard anyone even mention an "iPhone".

[1] https://vimeo.com/124065314 [2] http://www.aetherltd.com

>How the iPhone popularized steampunk… and how the iPhone killed it off

The iPhone had very little to do with either popularizing or killing steampunk... Its moment come and went (as far as a little more mass appeal goes) before the iPhone...

Still alive in Coldwater, Ontario. https://www.steampunkfestivalcoldwater.com/

Personally, I could never stand the Steampunk aesthetic -- probably because of the people adorning it -- and I'm glad the world has moved on.

Steampunk helps me come to grips with the industrial revolution, 150 years on. In an age of gigahertz radio waves and nanosecond computer speeds, I like thinking about 1 Hertz, 1 Volt, 1 Ohm, and 1 Farad (!) alt-histories.

As the story said,

> It’s about using design to make the working of technology scrutable through an object’s aesthetic.

If one takes Steampunk to be technological advancements beyond (but inspired by) the era coupled with an intense devotion to the style of the era, then Stranger Things could be considered the spiritual successor to Steampunk.

Steampunk hasn't really died, but more evolved- see branching movements like new weird, silkpunk, slipstream, cli-fi, hyperreallism etc.

I'm planning to do a steampunky pc build soon! steampunk lives!

I hate upvoting articles posted on Medium, but this one deserves it.