I have viewed the whole Steampunk phenomenon as an outsider looking in, rather than a devoted fan or even someone with a basic knowledge of what steampunk is. I know virtually nothing about the genre, other than that it involves old-fashioned convoluted steam-powered brass machinery and that it has some conceptual roots in Jules Verne’s stories. But it seems to me that it’s all over the internet nowadays, and has attracted a prettty vast following of fans creating all sorts of steampunk devices. Steampunk computers, steampunk phones, steampunk cars and motorcycles, and so on and so forth. The whole thing really seems to have captivated the public’s imagination and I foresee it making even further inroads into popular culture.
I have a theory about this: it is a backlash against the fact that we have digital technology constantly all around us. It’s inescapable. Computers and associated devices like smartphomes have worked their way into every imaginable facet of life. It’s getting to the point where I’m not even surprised upon hearing a robotic-sounding ringtone of “DROIIIID” emenating from the pocket of some ancient old man at a Masonic lodge.
The young people, it seems, are sick of it all. (Not really enough to give up the conveniences of it, maybe - sick of it in the way that a spoiled kid is “sick of” his rich parents who buy him everything he wants.) The backlash has manifested itself in this fantastical orgy of old-fashioned, steam-powered brass machinery that represents the opposite of slick digital technology.
Outside of some social circles I don’t think steampunk is as ubiquitous as you think. I certainly don’t think most young people are sick of their electronic gadgets. Ask most of them what steampunk is and I bet you’ll get a lot of blank stares. Like you, I only see steampunk from the outside looking in. I don’t really get why people like it. I like some steampunk stuff I’ve been exposed to (Dr. Steel for example) but as a genre it doesn’t do anything for me. I think some people just think it looks cool for whatever reason.
That may be part of it.* I personally think that a big part of it is a reaction against the near relentless utilitarian minimalist blankness of modern technology. Black, gray or white boxes that just sit there enigmatically, don’t look like they do anything and don’t do much beyond make whirring noises, if that. As opposed to complicated tangles of piping and gears and pistons that just scream "I do stuff’, and technology that has lots of unnecessary flourishes and fins and a brass dragon head attached to the front of it. Steampunk has style; modern technology generally goes out of its way to have none.
Steampunk is mostly a matter of style, as Der Trihs pointed out. I don’t see it as an “orgy” or Those Spoiled Kids These Days. (Are the steampunkers you know all that young?)
Why don’t you try to pick up a “basic knowledge of what steampunk is”? Or ignore it if it offends you.
I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m against steampunk. I think it’s cool. And I wasn’t trying to be derisive with the term “orgy.” In my book, an orgy is a good thing.
Because I’m obviously trying to get at a larger issue here. “What’s your favorite steampunk device” or whatever - that is a thread for CS. I think the whole genre of steampunk says something profound about the culture it is coming out of and that culture’s fixation with technology. Hence, I think there’s potential for a serious discussion here. Obviously at least one person is already getting contentious about it so clearly I did put it in the right forum.
I agree with Der Trihs, at least part of steampunk is a reaction to the fact that technology today has little to no personality and the aesthetics tend toward the excessively minimalist. One could argue that it’s a reaction against Jonathan Ive.
It’s also related to the fact that the sci-fi future that the cyberpunk authors like William Gibson wrote about showed up earlier than expected, only instead of everyone being cool hacker outlaws fighting against global conglomerates, it’s all pictures of cats and porn and farmville. Steampunk sidesteps the problem of your future showing up boring by setting itself in a world that can’t get trampled by reality.
Also, and this cannot be overemphasized - many steampunk girls like wearing corsets, and corsets are sexy.
I like steampunk because I like that earnest Victorian attitude that saw scientific experiment as an adventure and a world where nothing was impossible with a sufficiently stiff upper lip and regular breaks for tea. Science was exciting and new, and full of swagger. I like the optimism of it all.
I’m not a steampunk, but I think that when you grow up surrounded by really high-tech digital stuff, any sufficiently primitive technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’m not surprised at all that my computer can store audio recordings, computers are really complex, modern machines that we expect to be able to do anything. But to think that something as comparatively simple as an etched vinyl disc or a reel of magnetic tape can perform essentially the same task without resorting to something so mundane and commonplace as a digital chip, that’s actually kind of more impressive and appealing to me.
I don’t see it as a backlash against ubiquitous technology, I think it’s wholly embracing that concept and transplanting it into a different era. A steampunk setting typically has a device for everything; the world is every bit as tech dependent as our current one, and our inhabitants take it as granted in much the same way. It’s not a wondrous marvel that condensation engine can control the weather, it’s simply another accomplishment of its designer, in pretty much exactly the same way that the evolution of mobile phones is taken in hum-drum stride.
I think the aesthetic and simple mechanical wonder that Der Trihs and heathen earthling describe is closer to the root cause.
It has to do with style and personal expression. Very few of the makers of these wondrous devices are mass-producing them – each brass-bound flash drive or Aetheric Disruptor Carbine is an individual expression of the imagination of the artist.
So yes, in a large part Steampunk is a reaction to the faceless, mass-produced, THX-1138 technological world we have now.
I still consider it to be mostly a sub-genre of alternate history science fiction (and fantasy), with some fans who play dress-up as characters who would fit those stories. The gadgets are props for the play-acting. The photos look good, and are attracting a lot of on-line attention, but the Makers are just a part of the aesthetic.
(Disclaimer - I seem to have been a Steampunk since Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang came out, but didn’t know there was a “movement” until about three years ago. I have since fallen in with ariship pirates, adventurers and mad scientists. I have purchased a pair of goggles, but my dress-up all comes from my regular closet.)
Modified laptops, flash drives, cell phones and such all work. The modifications are the equivalent of putting a brass skin and some gears onto the device’s case.
The ray guns, dirigibles, vision enhancing monogoggles and mechanical arms don’t work so well. But they are fun to play with.
Steampunk represents a version of the world where your achievements are limited only by your willingness to pursue them. A world where you don’t spend endless hours in analysis, and quibbling tiny details. You just GO for it! It’s messy, artsy science filled with strangely colored explosions, and discoveries around every corner. A place where things not only are functional, but beautiful merely to look at as well. A place where people take the time to demonstrate craftsmanship, and personal style, rather than the one size fits all world of today. It represents the rejection of all things corporate, white, and sterile. That is for hospitals, not your living room!
Even those are more a matter of financial practicality rather than physical impossibility. There isn’t any reason any of those things couldn’t be designed or finished to a steampunk aesthetic.
I wanted to add, It’s also a world where anyone can do science. It’s not always the most responsible sort, but it is a place where well read enthusiasts are welcome. No degrees, or official positions needed, just knowledge.
Steam punk is to modern technological life as hippies were to conventional white bread 1960s expected lifestyles. In other words, a rebellion of sorts against the status quo.
Agree with the above who mention it’s roots being in style and the blandness of modern electronic devices.
Just visited this train museum yesterday. There is something elegant, amazing and craftsman like about the construction of the steam engines with pipes and tubes, fittings and couplings, brass and steel sprouting all over the place. Little hidden from view, much of the drive mechanism on display. Compared to a modern high speed electric locomotive with with virtually everything hidden away behind uniformly painted steel and plastic.
One looks sleek and fast but simple and bland. The other looks powerful and complicated and a bit Rube Goldberg-esque. The former hides the working bits away from sight, the latter puts them out on display and invites you to ponder its workings.
I seem to recall running into this kind of stuff in bandes desinnées since at least the 1980s, have to say I find the over-thinking here quite unconvincing. Rather seems a bit special to create some proposition of a ‘movement’ behind it, rather than simply writing it down to inspiration from Jules Verne, etc. Perhaps for a certain niche of nerds they’ve built up some over-thought justifications for their hobbies and obsessions, but as a general explanation?