I have trouble understanding when a genre becomes “post-” so I’m curious what people here might think.

What cyberpunk work do you think moved us into post-cyberpunk? Is there one? Or is this “post-cyberpunk” stuff nonsense and it’s all just cyberpunk?

I’ve heard an argument that Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992) is post-cyberpunk because it’s a satire of the cyberpunk genre, but I’ve heard the same thing said about Bruce Bethke’s Headcrash (1995). And is satire of the original genre a requirement to move post- a genre?

I could see an argument that post-cyberpunk takes place in worlds that know what the modern-day internet looks like (with social media and disinformation) but I’m not sure if there’s a cyberpunk work that really carries that flag. That is, I could see an argument for post-cyberpunk being a “refresh” of the 1980s cultural fears to fit our modern times, but I’m not sure if there’s a work that ushered in this new genre. I’ve made the argument that Elysium updates cyberpunk with modern cultural fears, but I don’t think it led to a wave of updated cyberpunk works (it was an outlier, not the progenitor of a new genre).

So what do you think? What requirements would you have for the cyberpunk genre to become post-cyberpunk? And does that cyberpunk work already exist?

(Note: for the picture in this post, I was trying to show the juxtaposition of “classic cyberpunk” vs “modern cyberpunk”. I’m not arguing that Deus Ex is post-cyberpunk.)

  • kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    I guess you could call post-collapse stuff like Horizon Zero Dawn post-cyberpunk, but that kind of feels like a cop out

    But on your point, I think cyberpunk has, and will continue to evolve as our modern day technology develops. I don’t think that really makes a newer work post-cyberpunk, just different imaginations of a possible future.

    Defining cyberpunk, as with any genre, is difficult. Where is the line between sci-fi and cyberpunk? Is 2001: a Space Odyssey or even Metropolis cyberpunk? Maybe, maybe not. Star Trek or Star Wars, probably not (is it the aliens?)? Blade Runner? Almost certainly. But there are commonalities between all of those that are parts of the cyberpunk genre