A departure from The Horror Project today. Instead, I’m going to cast back to the ancient days of the early to mid 1990’s – the post Regan cocaine crash, where all our sins came to roost in a recession and ugly prospects for the future. Hoped for change was being undercut by guys with corporate interests and an unhealthy love of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The days of grunge.
Yes, grunge. At the time, I was in college. I took an elective course on popular music and culture. The teacher was very sharp, discussing the cultural currents under music trends. But when he got to grunge, he struck a hopeful note. “When punk did break, it changed everything. And it isn’t going back to the way it was any time soon.”
(Stick with me – I’ll bring this to the 21st century)
The funny thing is when discussing the original punk, he talked about how companies at the time were focused on selling images and lifestyles, not just products. Identification. He also talked about how the companies quickly pivoted to start profiting off of punk, toning it down and re-selling it. New Wave. New Romantics (Neuromantics?). Any music scene would run into the same issues.
So, why did he think grunge would escape it? The co-opting was already happening. We had a few years where, for once, the music we heard on the radio or saw on MTV reflected what we spun on our cassette tapes. But, then came the Grunge fashion displays. The excessive flannels – a practical thing in the pacific northwest no fashion icon. “McGrungie and the Waif.” Bands drowned into breaking up, suicide, drug use, or just going completely off grid and literally walking away from fame.
Roll up to the end of 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077‘s disaster of a launch ending up as a huge think piece for many writers. In making a game based on the writing of a black man growing up in 80’s Oakland CA about fighting against corporate domination, CDPR – the game’s publisher – acted just like the companies they rallied against. Today, on my feed, I saw an article from the Jacobin demanding “Cyberpunk Needs a Reboot.”
The gist of it is Cyberpunk has been captured by the Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos style capitalists who give you the appearance of anti-capitalist revolt while supporting it. And I hate to say it – that’s always been the case. I wrote about this in the past, about our nostalgia for the cooler cyberpunk dystopia than the one we live in, but it should be no revelation. Everything gets co-opted. Everything. It happened to the original cyberpunk as soon as folks found there was money in it. Same with any music style. How did the song go?
“And let me tell you the name of the game, boy. We call it riding the gravy train.”
How do you survive in this? If everything you think speaks to you inevitably gets co-opted, what can you do to keep the fire going?
Look in the cracks – in the isolated places. Let’s take CP2077 directly: In all the missions, there are hidden moments. I think they were created under the radar of CDPR’s dude-like CEOs. (Look at the Witcher 3 if you don’t believe CDPR is a dude studio. It’s raining, in fantasy Poland, and the ladies are wearing vests… or less… ). The Delamane mission is a great little short story about artificial intelligence and self-driving cars. The Claire Russell character snuck in under their radar – a trans character voiced by a trans woman, who wasn’t an advertisement for fetishization. Oh, and then there’s Mike Pondsmith himself as a radio personality. If there’s one benefit to all of this, R. Talsorian Games and CyberpunkRED has been getting a big boost.
If you don’t like what CP2077 offers, play RED. Support a family run, minority-owned business. Record your games and put them out there. DIY. (Remember that punk ethos?)
Speaking of DIY – AxonPunk. I featured an image from the recent Kickstarter on the entry. Brought to you by WrongBrothers gaming and SugarGamers out of Chicago, this is Cyberpunk via hip-hop and Afrika Bambataa. Earlier versions of the game are out there so you can take a look but check the rules about building a Community, and running missions against the Corps threatening that community.
Cyberpunk rebooted? Cyberpunk is constantly rebooted. Search these terms:
– Milton J. Davis. CyberFunk.
Interested? Well, let’s check back before Cyberpunk was ‘compromised.’
– Steven Barnes. John Akomfrah and “The Last Angel of History.” Naomi Onwarah and “Welcome II the Terrordome.”
Keep looking. If you can’t find, build. Rebuild. Remix. Reboot.
The machine is always hungry. Until folks are willing to break the machine, keep it fed with candy and decorations. Don’t let it eat the real substance beneath.
Biomechanoid Blues 