What Is Driving The Cyberpunk Renaissance ?

in cyberpunk 2077 it's not about saving the worl d, it's about saving yourself.

Me and my best friend jokes about how we live in a shitty cyberpunk world. We have the megacorps and social problems but don't have the cool cyberware ect.

Cyberpunk is blowing up RN because it’s a relevant critique of our current society taken to its extreme. It’s a great Genre to reflect on.

"Despite our unprecedented level of connectivity, we find ourselves more isolated than ever before" is so true. We are getting slowly detached with reality.

What Is Driving The Cyberpunk Renaissance? The fact that people are realizing we are already living in the early stages of a cyberpunk dystopia.

My favorite aspect of 2077 that goes over most people's heads is that it's a story about fighting for the right to chose who you are and all the characters are that way. Jackie Wells who had just done what he needed to in order to survive woke up in a hospital bed realizing how easily it can end. He would eventually chose to be a new man, deciding that being who he wanted to be for six months was better than being a person he hated for a lifetime. It was better to live as a man he wanted to be, even if each major step utterly terrified him. Yorinobu Arasaka had his life lain out before him and refused it. He refused to be a tool of domination and decided to chose who he would be. He was the sort of man who would walk in a doll house and find the living thinking woman inside. He tried to destroy his father's creation from the outside but failed, so he chose to feign submission wearing the mask of his demon family so he could destroy it from the inside. He never gave up who he was. The discovery of the Araska mass driver program, forcing Araska to murder some of the space council voting members? Clearly Yorinobu was the mole that leaked it. Panam Palmer, faced with conflict within and without her nomad family. Torn between her loyalty to those close to her and her refusal to submit and quiet her conscience. In the end her conscience won and saved all she cared for. Evelyn Parker, the living doll. A puppet for others to use. Even the Voodoo boys only saw her as a puppet to get what they really wanted. She was determined to finally cut her strings and be her own master. It was her determination to define herself against all of her oppressors that set the main plot in motion. Rogue... A woman who survived the death of Johnny by making a deal with the devil. She became jaded and used people just as she was used. In the end however, she was inspired to finally fight to break her chains and become a free agent again. And Johnny... Johnny who was so full of rage, hated and suffering bile that he went on a crusade. Instead of triumphing he woke up to realize he was the very thing he hated. He was devouring someone else self and there was apparently nothing he could do to stop it. So with great difficulty he chose to be better. Even if it would cost his life he would at least save one soul. If he could save the soul he was devouring then he could forgive and save his own. This isn't even addressing V which is a very clear and blatant "choosing who she wants to be." Story.

The path to liberation is that technology is used to decrease the amount of time people spend at work, *not*, that the time they are at work is more productive. What it should be is that the work of 1 hour today reflects the work of 8 hours yesterday, and so, you are paid the same, and sent home with another 7 hours in your day. But that, wouldn't increase profit. That, wouldn't be advantageous. That wouldn't be the way to outcompete your competitors.

there's something deeply ironic about all the AI art used here

I believe media always prepares humanity for the future the big companies are creating, so perhaps, we will live in a cyberpunk-like future, we are just being prepared, psychologically, for it

That's pretty simple: we're starting to live in a cyberpunk world. AI isn't a futuristic concept anymore; virtual reality is becoming a routine; everyone has their bank accounts, passports and overall personal data online; e.t.c. In my country you can even pay taxes through the government's official website, which is convenient, but implies things that are scary af if you think about it for a while. Cyberpunk is far closer to us than we'd want to.

In the cyberpunk genre, the powers that be, are too powerful to overthrow, and doing so would spit something nastier out of the vacuum. The genres main core for characters, is usually the need for self preservation.

The part where you refer to the return of slave labour in Cyberpunk, was good… It comes full circle to the video title… Because the hard pill to swallow, Is that we are in that same phase of humanity, Just preliminary, Indentured servitude, That is nothing more than slavery, Rebranded, Under another name. With extra steps, If you will We will decay into this

Renaissance? Cyberpunk has never left!.

Thank you for acknowledging Mr. Robot, it’s so underrated

It does feel like most people are subconsciously aware of the cyberpunk future we're heading to. Everyone see's it but some haven't put the connection together just yet.

I was around for the first wave. The joke for years has been that we're already living in the prequel to Bladerunner

More and more of my cyberpunk short stories are getting published. I bring in “urban” voice to cyberpunk; Central American and Caribbean immigrants struggling in the setting, amplifying the now surfaced child labor found in industrial meat packing (it’s been that way for a decade now) and other exploitive practices and toning down the Asian stereotypes. Plus I add heart by adding elements of family.

Good cyberpunk doesn't master end-of-history capitalism, it just makes the emotional reaction that much more relatable. It's the true literary meaning of catharsis being an intellectual engagement with harsh truths being taught by the gods of experience rather than the false idols of a better life when all that's good is absolutely dead. And that's our world and we know it.

Man I should rewatch bladerunner

Back in the 90s it was cool escapism to a crapsack-y dystopia, intruiging but no more realistic than Back to the Future. Today, where we already had a Biff-presidency (and very likely will get another one) it's more like a trailer for what's to come... ...Probably without the cool music and the chrome. Because we can't have nice things, not even in the dystopian future.