cyberpunks

Cyberpunks are adherents of cyberpunk, a science fiction subgenre that emerged in the 1980s and centers on futures shaped by advanced information technologies, pervasive corporate power, urban decay, and social inequality. Stories typically focus on hackers, rogue technicians, and other marginal actors navigating dense networks and cyberspace, often under pressure from powerful institutions.

Origins and themes: William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) and Bruce Sterling's collaborations helped establish cyberpunk's aesthetic and ideas, including cyberspace, artificial intelligence, body augmentation, and megacorporations. The movement drew on punk counterculture, noir detective fiction, and real-world hacker communities, shaping a gritty, high-tech noir tone that questions authority and autonomy.

Culture and influence: Cyberpunk has informed novels, films, and games, with notable works such as Blade Runner, The Matrix, and various cyberpunk-inspired video games. It has also influenced real-world subcultures around hacking, cryptography, and digital rights, contributing a DIY ethos and a fascination with the interface between humans and machines.

Cyberpunks in reality: The term can describe individuals who embrace cyberpunk aesthetics, attitudes, or technical experimentation. They are not a formal organization; communities exist online, at fan conventions, and in maker spaces, often overlapping with broader hacker and cyber security circles. Cypherpunks, a separate movement focused on cryptography and privacy, shares some themes but pursues different goals and methods.

Notable figures and works: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan; Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome; Blade Runner and The Matrix are frequently cited as influential in shaping cyberpunk sensibilities. The term remains a broad descriptor for a spectrum of fiction and subcultures rather than a single cohesive community.