> It's the combination of high tech and lowlife, the grungy city streets, the street food, the rain, and the urban East Asian elements.
I would argue that none of those elements make anything cyberpunk :) The cyberpunk genre (per my understanding) involves elements of technology, its effect and force on human life, and the pushback against those effects and forces. There has to be some "punk" for something to be cyberpunk, I think. So necessarily some subversive elements, motfis or themes that challenge a greater power or status quo. That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
I mean, you're free to make up your own definition, but it won't be shared by the vast majority of other people.
From the Wikipedia article: [1]
> Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
> The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things").
> Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir
All of this comes from the foundational literary and cinematic works that defined the cyberpunk genre, namely (in rough chronological order): Blade Runner, Neuromancer, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, Akira, Snow Crash, Johnny Mnemonic, and The Matrix.
The visual aesthetic representation of the cyberpunk genre is firmly rooted in a vocabulary involving dense cityscapes, night, neon lights, and rain (echoing the film noir vocabulary), often set in slums of East Asian metropolises or US Chinatowns.
Deciding that the common elements of all these works isn't what "cyberpunk" is is simply creating your own, personal, idiosyncratic definition.
> ...juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
Hmm, I guess I didn't see that in the video, maybe I viewed it differently? Robots were making human food, which seems whimsical to me, and makes me wonder why would something (maybe autonomous) want to do that. I am not sure simply using an Asian setting and neon lights makes something cyberpunk, but maybe the artist did intend it that way.
This part from my comment is just my perspective, not me defining:
> That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
I find this characteristic about the genre boring and unnecessary as I think it's reflective of the views and relationships of the various authors to technology and its effects.
it may be boring and unnecessary but being dystopian is an integral part of what cyberpunk is. you may want to take a look at solarpunk as an alternative that is distinctively not dystopian:
I would argue that none of those elements make anything cyberpunk :) The cyberpunk genre (per my understanding) involves elements of technology, its effect and force on human life, and the pushback against those effects and forces. There has to be some "punk" for something to be cyberpunk, I think. So necessarily some subversive elements, motfis or themes that challenge a greater power or status quo. That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.