This Is Not Steampunk
by xaosseed
Steampunk has gone fucking mainstream – I’m not quite sure why this makes me so hacked off but it does.
First, full disclosure – deep in my heart of hearts, I’m still a techno-utopian – I do believe that we will design and engineer our way through/past/around whatever challenges the future holds. I was raised on Star Trek: Next Gen and it just stuck. I am not blind however and it is not implicit that we will get from hither to yon while not paying much attention without some serious hiccups and relatively easily avoidable death and destruction.
So I think what annoys me so much is the pratting about sticking gratuitous cogs on the side of computers and claiming this is indicative of some deep seated ingenuity and self sufficiency. No, no its fucking not, thats beautiful and decorative and very nicely made, but its…. its not a new thing. It is in fact taking something and probably making it heavier and possibly worse. But thats by the by – I can actually get behind the aesthetic aspect of the ‘movement’ *shudder* because whats the difference between this and dozens of other bizarre fashions? In fact this ‘steampunk’ couldn’t survive at all without the huge modern power and technology infrastructure behind it. Not unless you’re going to brutally oppress people back into pre-safety standards factories again – but such could be said for anything, lets set this aside, or at least, approach it from another angle later.
I get angry reading the ‘oh, we live by victorian values’ ‘structured gentility’ and such like – I can see how its a backlash against the ‘more relaxed than thou’ style trend over the past while… but call it like that – don’t pretend it has some deeper meaning. How is this different from just being civil to people as one ought? As the NYtimes bit says – it’s such a damn catch-all its just turning into a ‘marketers dream’ to flog brass widgets to people.
And… and I suppose this is really the core – I like steampunk a lot, and all this mucking about with goggles and petticoats just strikes me as a way to make steampunk into something exclusive to take what used to be a literary genre where you could read a book or two and be as far in as anyone, to a ‘live it’ subculture where the visible people get to define it. Part of my hobby’s have been stolen and I didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt.
If I could believe that these people were really going to walk the talk –
If steampunk has a mission, it is, in part, to restore a sense of wonder to a technology-jaded world
– then I would be happy, hell I’d throw my top hat buy a top hat to throw in the air – but the *things* we need are not stylish and pretty, they’re kind of dull and need hard work and slog to get them going – cleaner, greener tech can’t be bodged together out of brass and solder. There are serious issues about that need us looking *forwards* not back… using less metals and leaving a smaller resource footprint not making everything bigger, heavier, kludgier.
The only thing associated with steampunk thats lighter is airships and they’re not coming back.
If this steampunk mainstream can make bodging and building cool, if it can get kids making kit and wondering how stuff works that would be awesome – I will gladly wear waistcoat and suspenders for that – but I have the horrid suspicion its going to be cosplay and little more.
They call themselves steampunks – I haven’t seen a *waft* of steam…
Comments
Steampunk’s fallen victim the way cyberpunk did before it. It’s become a lame fashion movement for some new variant of goths.
The thing about the Victorian age that appeals to me is that there was an aesthetic associated with every piece. The great cathedrals of industry of that age were exactly what you describe as needing now. They were the green tech of their day, and look at them: Markfield, the ironwork at Crossness and the old Abbey Mills station.
They’re all at the height of their aesthetic, floral ironwork in bright colours, Crossness even obtained permission to name the beam engines (which pump sewage, mind) after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
That sort of aesthetic should be encouraged to return, I think, and that’s the appeal of steampunk – a move away from the ipod-designed simplicity towards a more intricate and complex visual effect.
Next up is going to be Artnouveaupunk, then Modernismpunk, then maybe Classicalismpunk?
From what I can tell it is indeed cosplay and not much more. It’s the same goths and emo kids, just different clothes. And like the goths and emo kids before them there’s the same breakdown of 2% people who know and understand and like the philosophy behind the style mixed in with 98% people who like suspenders and long coats with lacy cuffs.
Maybe I was exposed to too much history at a tender age, but I can’t think of Victorian era beauty without including the overlay of exploitation and slave labour it was all built on. (Yes, I know who made my clothes, and that bothers me too.) The thing that drew me to the steampunk family of settings is not so much the aesthetic (though it is cool) but the interesting and seedy juxtapositions — affluence and exploitation, civility and sexuality, beauty and grit, and so on. All with a nice frosting of masterwork architecture.
One by one, all the things we got really excited about are being appropriated by the mainstream. It’s not getting less weird.
Actually, unless I miss my guess, ‘Classicalismpunk’ is already with us as ‘Sandalpunk‘ – or rather, Classicismpunk and Sandalpunk will be very, very hard to tell apart set aside each other.
Isn’t there some sort of rule that as soon as you’ve thought of it, someone, somewhere on the web has started the website?