Why is Cyberpunk Relevant Today?
“The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” — William Gibson.
Cyberpunk is now back in the public eye with the release of video game Cyberpunk 2077. However, there are now those individuals who claim that the cyberpunk genre is dead, and that we should be moving on to other sci-fi sub genres such as solarpunk. However, cyberpunk is far from dead and is actually more relevant now more than ever. While critics may be right in the fact that cyberpunk doesn’t contain amazing character arcs, it does contain a warning to us about what our world can now be, and the themes that the sub-genre presents are becoming more reality than fiction.
Two prominent texts that invented the genre of cyberpunk, so to say, are 1982’s Blade Runner and 1984’s Neuromancer. Blade Runner, released on 25 June 1982, is a film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford. The film follows Rick Deckard, in a technologically developed world where crime reigns, who is pulled out of retirement to hunt down four human-like androids. Neuromancer, on the other hand, is a novel published on 1 July 1984, and follows computer hacker Case, in a technologically developed where crime reigns, as he encounters an artificial intelligence.
The first thing you would notice about both descriptions is that they are both set in worlds where technology and crime sway most people, and they both follow the heroes facing off futuristic sci-fi devices such as androids or artificial intelligence. Most cyberpunk stories follow this template with a ragtag, morally complex hero facing off with a technology-based opponent. In fact, most cyberpunk stories follow very similar themes, settings, and character traits. Some may say this makes the genre repetitive, but instead, the reason many cyberpunk stories contain these, is because that is where the future seems to be heading. To understand how the world of cyberpunk could potentially become our future, we have to look at some of these similarities.
Setting and Technology:
Blade Runner, Neuromancer and popular cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell all take place in Eastern Asia, and its no coincidence. Japan has created some of greatest technological advances in the last 50 years. Bullet trains, artificial intelligence and cleaning robots are only a fraction of the cutting-edge tech Japan has invented. It’s safe to say that when Ridley Scott and William Gibson saw the country’s leading levels of development regrading technology back in the 1980s, they thought that by the year 2020, Japan would be able to create human-like androids and flying cars. And they were sort of right.
Russia has entered into the tech market recently, releasing their Promobot, an android which looks, feels, and talks like a human being, almost identical to the replicants in Blade Runner. Siri, Alexa and Google Homes are now in nearly every household and could evolve into what they are in Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell. In fact, Google’s A.I. can now spot breast cancer better than humans, indicating that by the end of 2030, humans can be replaced in the workforce by Promobots and Artificial Intelligence. Scott and Gibson were right in predicting the fact that the future will be molded around technology.
The People and Drugs in Cyberpunk:
In both Blade Runner and Neuromancer, we see characters who only act in their self-interest. Roy, our main villain in Blade Runner, kills people and commits crime in his search for an extension of his life. While he is considerate on who he kills, he still commits murder and burglary. On the other side of the coin, Case, our protagonist in Neuromancer, is the same in that he only gets involved in the plot of the story due to his own self-interest. In fact, the only reason Case is involved in the story is because of his abilities and his profession as a cyber-hacker. This is exactly how we see people these days. We don’t see people for who they are as people, but rather we see their achievements and popularity. The majority of people on this planet have never met Jeff Bezos, but nearly all of us will know him as the founder of global tech company Amazon.
The people in cyberpunk seem to have also been corrupted by drugs and illegal activity from a young age, and on top of that, they get away with it, as we see Case in doing Neuromancer. In fact, he’s been doing it from the age of 20. This is common in our society. By the age of 16, two thirds of high school students have taken illegal substances, that be either drugs or alcohol, and only fifteen percent of these students have been caught by local authorities. Crime is escaping the view of the public eye and is becoming more and more common by the minute. No wonder Gibson’s view of the future shows an invasion of crime throughout the world.
Society and the Government:
As I mentioned before, the society in cyberpunk is ‘high tech, low life,’ (as quoted by Neon Dystopia) with technology and drugs running the streets and housing and infrastructure collapsing. But another side to the cyberpunk society is the riot and protesting against the government. While technology in cyberpunk is important, on the other hand we need to have punk.
Punk is equally important to the world of this sub-genre. A major aspect of punk is people becoming rebellious. So, it only follows that the punk in cyberpunk would contain people rebelling against the government that holds them down. In the words of author David Brin, from his book The Transparent Society, “…a closer look at [cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic.”
We can see that the punk aspect of cyberpunk can be reflected into our world as well. In chapter 4 of Neuromancer, we see Molly, Case and the Finn break into Sense/Net where they raid and steal the memory of Dixie Flatline. The sequence that occurs with mass panic and rage against the cops reflect what is going on in our reality, specifically the 2021 storming of the U.S. mass capital. The punk aspect of cyberpunk is making its way into our world.
Why Cyberpunk is Dying:
Moving away from the similarities of the genre, I thought it would be fun to explore the opposite side of this debate. Cyberpunk first showed its sign of death when Blade Runner 2049, sequel to the aforementioned Blade Runner, became a box office failure with the film losing approximately one hundred million dollars for the company. The main fault people had with the movie was that it didn’t really go anywhere. They say main character K, does not go through a character arc and is depicted by Ryan Gosling as an emotionless protagonist.
This trend goes back to the start of cyberpunk. In Neuromancer, no one goes through any change at all. Case, Molly, and the Finn, our main three characters, start in the same place as where the novel ends. Case starts the novel as a ‘console cowboy,’ hacking people, stealing things, and taking drugs. He ends the book a ‘console cowboy,’ hacking people, stealing things, and taking drugs.
Some consider this to be a genius move on Gibson’s part. Showing that nothing really matters in this world to our characters is something Gibson insisted on having in the novel. Others consider this to be a fault of the novel, showing that there was no character arcs in the novel and therefore, making the characters feel selfish and hollow. Not many people have become fans of cyberpunk because of this, because if a character’s journey is nonexistent in the story, it will become nonexistent in the viewer’s eyes as well.
Cyberpunk is a Warning:
If you need more proof that cyberpunk is a warning for the future, meet Mr. Robot, a television show starring Rami Malek and Christian Slater. While many may not think of it as a cyberpunk text because it takes place in the present day, it does feature major corporations, people rebelling, and technology and hacking, and really serves as a prequel to cyberpunk.
At the beginning of the series, it seems like a normal world that Elliot lives in, and by the end of the third season, the setting of the show begins to look like a cyberpunk world, with major technological advancements and corporations taking on the government. If you haven’t watched Mr. Robot, I would recommend watching the 46 episodes, as it shows how a very normal world, through the poor decisions made by people, can become the world we see in Blade Runner or Neuromancer.
Conclusion:
At the beginning of this article, I talked about hit game Cyberpunk 2077. The creator of the game, Mike Pondsmith had an interview with BBC News in December 2020, where he stated “it’s very easy for a world like this to drift into pure science fiction…Cyberpunk is a dystopian future, that is five minutes away from our existence.”
And that is the biggest reason why cyberpunk is more relevant than ever. Throughout this article, I have pointed out cyberpunk themes and features that are ‘five minutes away from our existence.’ And if we continue to ignore the warning that cyberpunk presents, we could be getting replicants running down our streets by the end of 2029. Do you want that?
Written by Ethan Seth.
