There are some insightful comments in this thread.
No, I don’t have anything else to add. I love steampunk, but don’t role-play or anything. I guess I didn’t really think that hard about why I love it, and a few people in this thread have been able to articulate things in a way which I believe explains why I like it. I’ll just add, or re-iterate,
Steampunk has a connection to Victoriana, which I like.
The concept of technology you can tinker with is a good one. Everything isn’t a black box.
Steampunk often happens in a world where there’s still mystery, still some unexplored lands, still the chance that you can fly your zeppelin to South America and find tucked away in a hidden corner of Bolivia the Tepui of the Stegosauruses. Or if you voyage to the bottom of the sea, you might find a sunken temple filled with Atlantean refugees.
For some few delusional people, yes. People who have no concept of living off of onions and fennel in a hut that barely qualifies as “shelter”, working a hardscrabble piece of ground while you watch half your family die of cholera.
Indeed. I went to a New Year’s Eve party which was Steampunk themed. While I’m not into Steampunk on my own, I found that adding a few chains and other metallic elements to a red and black Victorian dress (with requisite corset underneath for shaping) were really all that I needed to do. Everyone loved it, even those who are *really *into Steampunk.
I suggest that Renn Fest and SCA aren’t about that level of real medieval life any more than steampunk is about real Victorian imperial adventures and their victims. Both pursuits are equally matters of alternate realities. Both are fantasies. That’s not meant as a pejorative.
Steampunk was named about twenty/ twentyfive years ago. As a type of written science fictio it goes back about forty years, with roots going back to the 1950 for recreation of a “Victorian” style in movies.
The current fad is the sudden increase in popularity of the stories and style, including the clothing design fashion aspects, and the use of the term as a searchword on eBay.
I am full of contradictions and whimsy. “Steampunk” is a heck of a lot of little things that are related by aesthetic considerations; I do not believe there is a single Steampunk Phenomena, although certain facets may be waxing or waning in popularity at any given time.
I am involved in Steampunk roleplay. I think that different people would give different reasons for being involved. What attracts me?
Creativity. Steampunk authors and artists create stunning works of creativity.
Culture. Where else can you combine the “good old” days of Victoriana with politeness, high tea, and hoop skirts and put it into any sort of modern context without looking stoopid?
As has been mentioned above, there’s a cultural awareness of the individual inventor, bravely contending with the Elements for success and failure over Science, carefully adding rocket engines and a Top Secret ray gun turret obtained at high cost from the Sky Pirates’ black market bazaar, not the black-box gadgets of today.
There was a “steampunk festival” in Waltham, MA, last weekend.
It seemed to be a bunch of 20-somethings walking around in Victorian-era clothing. The goggles I could not understand-nobody seemed to be actually wearing them.
A lot of people on those “pennyfarthing bicycles”-dangerous and uncomfortable.
Seems to be mostly adult roleplaying-are there any people who do 1950’s or artdeco roleplaying, akin to steampunk?
This makes sense to me. I can’t really speak to the trend or genre of steampunk, but that pretty much sums up why I sit here typing on my MacBook while I have a Smith-Corona in the next room from the year my mother was born (1934) and I find the feeling of typing on it absolutely delicious. I don’t long for the days before digital technology, it’s not just nostalgia; there’s just something visceral, tangible, satisfying about having such things in your hands and SEEING and FEELING how they work.
I’m not a techie and even though I (somewhat) understand how digital things work, it feels sort of empty. How do computers, cell phones, cable television work? It’s all invisible - it’s PFM! (pure f…ng magic) There’s something awesome about seeing and understanding a steam engine, taking apart a watch to see the insides, looking at the guts of a piece of machinery, etc. It’s physical.
This probably explains why I dislike reading books on Kindle and why I’m plotting to obtain my dad’s 1947 set of Funk & Wagnall’s… I can buy anything on the internet and have it shipped to me, but the cost of sending a set of encyclopedias through the mail - obscene!
My daughter was bored this weekend. Like, *terminally *bored with life as only a six year old can be. Her Leappad was boooooring. Her cell phone was boooooring. A movie was booooooring. Her Talks-To-Me Princess was booooooring. Her Furry Friends electronic pets were booooooring. My computer was boooooring. Electric Company’s website was booooooring.
So we made a water wheel. Cut up a plastic cup and some egg cartons and duct taped the whole shebang and made a working water wheel. She was fascinated! Look! You, you just hold it under the faucet and the water pushes the paddles and makes it turn! Oh, my gosh, Mama, did you see that? Daddy, come look! We made a water wheel! Big brother, come look, come look! Isn’t it cool? Can I bring it to school on Monday? This is the most awesomest toy EVER!!!
We couldn’t stop laughing. Forget all the cool digital and electronic games she has; the most exciting thing she’s seen in six years on this earth was a frickin’ water wheel. Because she made it, and she made it work, and she can figure out *how *it works. It’s the power thing, I tell ya. We don’t ever outgrow that fascination with our own powers of creation.
