More Mid-Century-Punk
I think everyone’s heard of “atomicpunk” to describe the -punk aesthetic applied to the cold war. A few weeks ago, I offered “spypunk” for the sub-genre of high-tech, sometimes ludicrously-gadgeted spies that hearken to the same era.
Today I came across two more concepts, both more design-oriented and thus more related to Datamancer-style object modification: modpunk and eamespunk. Both are suggested somewhat facetiously, but I think it would be worth exploring what the -punk aesthetic is and what it means to apply it to the Victorian, pulp, or any other era.
Thoughts?
August 12th, 2008 at 5:11 am
“Modpunk” seems dieselpunk to me. And isn’t “Eamespunk” just retro?
August 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I think you can take any timeperiod or style and stick -punk behind it and :voila another genre is born.
So here are some ideas for you: nouveaupunk,jugendstilpunk,bauhauspunk,baroquepunk etc etc
August 17th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Thoughts? Yes. The idea is retarded. Do we really need 5000 sub-genres for 5000 one-off ideas? No.
I’m not just trying to be mean. Seriously. But think about it. “Spypunk”? Why? Because there was a neat thing and it’s uncomfortable to not have a pigeonhole for it? And there’s not a single speck of “punk” in Get Smart. The “punk” in the original term “cyberpunk” is the gritty, dismal, and anarchic themes and feel of the literature. When “steampunk” was spawned from it, those themes were carried with. If there’s none of THAT then there is no “-punk” to stick on the end.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I dont feel all the themes inherent to cyberpunk (”the gritty, dismal, and anarchic”, as you put it) are obvious in steampunk also. Indeed, I’d say, steampunk is rather more light-hearted, and definitely without an anarchist focus. I’m not even sure there was much anarchism in cyberpunk to begin with. As I understand it, “punk” was put together with “cyber” only because it evoked a sense of rebellion, underground, youth protest, alienation, etc. However, all those themes are nearly absent from steampunk, and so it’s safe to say that, in this sense, “punk” has gone on to mean something rather different.
Now, I do agree that we shouldn’t try and invent dozens of “genres” while really, it’s all either steampunk, pulp, or, when it comes to “spypunk”, spy-fi.
This begs the question, however, is dieselpunk relevant then, as a genre in its own right? I like to think of it more as a subgenre of steampunk, with somewhat different themes. I think that in dieselpunk, the cyberpunk-esque is more obvious: dieselpunk tends to be grittier than steampunk, neo-[i]noir[/i] in the sense that it focuses also on the underside of society, where steampunk is typically all fun and adventure.