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Cyberpunk Style

The Cyberpunk Project

 

Cyberpunk Attitude

The Attitude makes a cyberpunk. These "cyberpunk essentials" describe the Cyberpunk Attitude best :

Cyberpunk Worldview
Une description de la vision cyberpunk du monde et de sa façon de penser.

Cyberpunk Philosophy
Description de quelques idées cyberpunks.

Cyberpunk attitude can also be viewed like this...

Attitude Is Everything in Cyberpunk


Cyberpunk Fashion

There's not any exact cyberpunk clothing style. Most cyberpunks dress something a bit futurish. Dress is usually dark or even completely black. Some prefer gothic styles, black, baggy (or tight), and anti-modern society.
However, it is noted that the best thing about being a cyberpunk is that you can wear anything you like, or even get away with wearing anything.

CyberFashion
"In the world today, looking slick and smooth is everything".


Cyberpunk Music

Real cyberpunks listen to whatever the fuck they want !

Cyberpunks have always been fighting what is cyberpunk music and what's not, and if there's special cyberpunk music at all.

alt.cyberpunk FAQ gives one authoritative answer when reminding that cyberpunk is not a(ny) fashion statement :

There are a lot of posts to alt.cyberpunk asking what Cyberpunk's like do, wear etc. These posts are seen as inane due to the reason they are asked, ie, "Cyberpunk sounds cool, how can I become one". Cyberpunk is not a fashion statement, therefore little of this FAQ is taken up with such matters.

Therefore, cyberpunk music is as undefinable as cyberpunk itself. It must be kept in mind, that cyberpunk is not originally a music movement, although it can sound one. But in cyberpunk the suffix "punk" does not mean music but the anarchistic part of the movement.

Nevertheless, some viewpoints about cyberpunk music styles can be mentioned. Most authorities on cyberpunk (the novelists) claim that as long as it's futuristic and modern, then it's OK. One very preferred and common idea about cyberpunk music is usually any techno/rave music, because it's produced via computers and many styles are also very dark (harder styles like hardcore, gabber, etc...). Techno music even got born at the same time than cyberpunk scifi and subculture, and it also deals with the same concepts than cyberpunk : the relation between the human and the machine. But some cyberpunks also listen to heavy metal styles and gothic for the darkness, and some people think that industrial music is the cyberpunk music style.

We had a long conversation about the subject on irc once, and one result I liked was, that cyberpunk music would be a mix between hardcore techno and heavy/black metal, with lyrics like punk music (but about future, technology and cyberculture). But I think there's not purely such kind of music yet (?). Hopefully in the not-so-distant dark future we get some ;-)

My personal favourite is Prodigy, it even fits somehow in the description above. But that's of course only my opinion. Some of my friends' opinions about good cyberpunky music are for example Nine Inch Nails and Chemical Brothers.

-- Cyborg

What Is Cyberpunk Music ?

Techno Music
Closer look to techno music.

Factories of Deliberate Decay
An essay about industrial music.

The Mutated Child of Punk

Nous ici
La vie n'est qu'une longue fluctuation de 0 et de 1.

Cyborg

Chivalry

Cyberage Radio
Free underground/industrial/etc cyber-music net radio.


Drugs in Cyberpunk

Drugs Used on the Rave & Cyberpunk Scene

Drugs in Neuromancer
Drug usage in William Gibson's book Neuromancer.

The Vaults of Erowid
Place formerly known as Hyperreal Drugs Archive. Plants & drugs. Mind & spirit. Freedom & law. Arts & sciences.


Love in the Cyberpunk World

This one was posted to alt.cyberpunk by nine in October, 1998 :

Can love exist in Cyberpunk functionally ? I've read a bit, and it never seems that love in the classic sense really works out in the cyberpunk world. Molly and Case parted ways, Hiro's relationship was just weird, YT slept with Raven (which I'm not sure strikes what point), Neumonic got nailed by the Yakuza and Molly ran off, it just looks like love is a sort of weakness in the cyberpunk life. I know that I have very nearly been asked blatantly to leave my cyberpunk behind before for a woman, and it strikes me that cyberpunk and love just don't seem to see eye to eye. Either it can't exist right, or, one of the two has to be left behind for the other to function correctly. What strikes me is that love, of all things, should be the thing to exist in the cyberpunk realm. I mean, amidst the darkness nights and the rain and the wiring and the implants and the information and the weapons and the blood and the violence and the technology, wouldn't love be the thing to keep you going. That sense of warmth that would get you through a world of pain and work, love. Then why is it that love is either not mentioned or simply doesn't seems to achieve much in the world of cyberpunk ? Perhaps I'm blind, and maybe someone will point that out, but I'm looking, as always, for someone else's opinion.


Religion in Cyberpunk

Most cyberpunks are agnostics, atheists, or neo-pagan, and don't believe in any supernatual phenomena. They are intelligent free-minded technocrats and love their free life and machines more.
Those cyberpunks who identify with a religious affiliation tend to be relaxed about it, hostile to organized religion in general and all forms of religious bigotry in particular. Many enjoy "parody" religions such as Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius.

Those who are religious, are seldom Christian. They tend to lean towards Zen Buddhism and to a lesser degree to Taoism. Often more than one religion is found in a single cyberpunk. Believe in technology creates also some kind of "new religion" of technopaganism and technoshamanism.

There is a definite strain of mystical, almost Gnostic sensibility that shows up even among those cyberpunks not actively involved with neo- or techno-paganism, Discordianism, or Zen. For example, hacker folklore pays homage to "wizards" and speaks of incantations and demons. It has too much psychological truthfulness about it to be entirely a joke.

Technopaganism and Technoshamanism

New Future, Same Questions

The Place of Religion in Neuromancer

The Burning Bush and Other Divine Accomodations

Neuromancer Afterlife

Alternative Consciousnesses : a "Case" Study