1. It’s Geekery The Genders Can Share
On the most basic, most appealing social level, steampunk is a way to masculinize romance. That is to say: Steampunk takes something stereotypically feminine that most boys hate — Victorian lace and frills and tea and crumpets — and says, “Hey, how about some robots with that?” It’s like the Dance Dance Revolution of nerd culture: now we all have something we can play together!
2. An Aesthetic Response To The Science Fiction In The Culture
The ’80s and ’90s gave us totally ergonomic sci-fi, as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation –smooth, glossy black touch panels that call up whatever display you want, then you wave your hand goodbye and there’s no mess. Picard’s Enterprise led straight to the iMac: clean, happy technology with rounded edges. Which is great in that it’s completely user-friendly — but terrible in that “user-friendly” means “predictable” means “totally not exciting at all.” Having 120 gigabytes of information storage in solid-state flash memory is like having the entire knowledge of a hundred ancient libraries of Alexandria in your pocket. But who the hell wants to explore your pocket?
Steampunk says: Let’s store that knowledge in a colossal mechanical brain the size of a skyscraper that runs on punch cards, and whenever we want to know something, we’ll get to feed in our punch card and watch it go zipping and flipping through a behemoth full of gears, all the way summoning little clockwork librarians to spring up from behind panels and inscribe notes on it with miniature styluses, and they will all be well-oiled except that one that’s just screech-screech-screeching up a storm all along its track, and the spectacle will be frakking awesome.
3. Like Being Goth Without Scaring Your Parents
A lot of kids in today’s steampunk music & style scene used to identify with the goth aesthetic — and are pleasantly surprised to discover that normal adults seem intrigued by this new thing rather than alarmed. Well, yeah. People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can’t help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are — what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?
4. Bridging The Subgenre Gap
Sure, steampunk “proper” may simply be retro-alternate-19th-century science fiction — but in practice, writers and artists and filmmakers and musicians are all starting with this basic aesthetic and then mixing in some fantasy, some horror, some superheroics. We’re seeing steampunk pirates, steampunk faeries, steampunk Wonder Woman, steampunk Cthulhu cultists! Steampunk is helping to bring us back to the days when the subgenre categories didn’t matter so much and it was all just a big lurching conceptual mass of “weird fiction” — and we’re realizing that it’s really rather a lot of fun that way.
5. The Future: UR Doin It Wrong
The heyday of science fiction — the mid-20th century — was fueled by near-universal excitement about the promise of science. We had a definite vision of “The Future,” in which the details might be variable but the overall picture was clear: new discoveries and technologies would lead us to a glorious golden age, in which robots would free us from drudgery and we’d use rocket ships to colonize the galaxy, redeeming manifest destiny in the name of all humanity together. That future — that was IT. We were going there. Our parents knew their grandkids would have jetpacks.
…except not. Today, that classic vision of the future — not only hasn’t it happened, but right at this moment, as we stare down the barrel of resource shortages and rising global temperatures, the people of Earth don’t really believe it’s going to. We know now that 20th-century technology helped us solve lots of problems while creating entirely new ones that might be even scarier. In effect, we were expecting Star Trek and we got Blade Runner; all the quirky little bits of science fiction have come true, but we lost the big dream.
Steampunk basically lets us go back, at least in our imagination, and try again — lets us tap into that sense of wonder at the unfolding universe that our grandparents might have felt when modern science was just beginning to open up all its incredible new pictures of the world. And you might just call that escapism into nostalgia — but I actually think it’s more than that.
Whether you’re reading and identifying with Girl Genius or making yourself a pair of functioning telescopic brass goggles, the fact is that when you have to get your hands or brain dirty puzzling out how stuff works, you can’t be blasé about technological miracles — you’re forced to realize what miracles we’ve actually wrought. And once you’ve got that sense of appreciation, once you’re not taking all our modern-day scientific accomplishments for granted because you finally understand deep down that people had to sweat them out, experiment by experiment — it seems to me you can’t help but approach the world around us, here, today, with fresher eyes and a more adventuresome spirit.
I think that’s where a lot of the young people jumping on the steampunk bandwagon right now are coming from. It’s not just cool because it’s trendy — it’s cool because it’s inspirational. You know… like science fiction at its best always has been.
Steampunk is helping to bring us back to the days when the subgenre categories didn’t matter so much and it was all just a big lurching conceptual mass of “weird fiction” — and we’re realizing that it’s really rather a lot of fun that way.
What you said.
To add to your first point Steampunk seems to introduce a level of decorum to fantasy. Victorian ideas that are stolen by steampunk, although quaint, are about kicking ass while maintaining your hair, dress, and civility to each other. Saving the world all before tea time.
“What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?”
Fortunately, few people are aware of how many rounds of ammunition a pocket-watch has….
http://bp1.blogger.com/_HZxjZs9ytRU/R6eCI-890OI/AAAAAAAADpc/oZyUVzzvjy0/s1600-h/gun_08.jpg
I think you’ve got the gender thing spot on. At an Abney Park concert recently, I was contemplating the gender-bending factor. Steampunk lets me be badass in heels, lets me wait for my chair to be pulled out & doors to be opened. Meanwhile, my good friend got to wear guyliner for the evening, and there were many a poofy shirt. Everyone looked awesome and seemed to feel at ease with each other. It was one of the most genteel crowds I’d ever been in. All without losing my right to vote, get married (or not) to whom I wish, and earn a living. This may tie in with your last point, that we can go back in time & do it right, do it better.
It may make for interesting fiction, but I’m happy to leave the rest of it to all of you crazy white people.
To expand a bit on #5: More so than “expecting Star Trek and [getting] Blade Runner“, we were all expecting to be Da Vinci or Thomas Edison and instead we get DRM wars and corporate-owned patents. (See also: this article about a man whose bio lab equipment was confiscated from his basement.) There’s plenty to love about the steampunk aesthetic (if that’s your forte) but there’s even more to love about its DIY ethos. It’s emblematic of a time when anyone could tinker and invent (for the betterment of mankind, or for worse), when anyone could be master of their destiny, and we are all one clockwork automata run amok away from adventure.
You just knew someone was going to mention this; but ‘Tom Baker’ era Doctor Who was 1974 to 1981.
Then again Tom was a zillion times cooler than yer actual early eighties Doctor Who, Peter Davidson, so I can kinda see why you’d be in denial!
Anyhoo, notwithstanding growing up reading Wells, Verne & Zamyatin, the first time I realised there was an actual genre for this stuff was watching Wild Wild West!
James: I live in the United States. Back then we didn’t get Doctor Who in U.K. realtime. I watched Tom Baker imports on PBS in the early eighties.
Also, just out of curiosity, in what way are 1980 and 1981 not the early eighties?
[...]There are reasons galore behind the popularity of “retro-alternate-19th-century science fiction”[...]
@Peter: 1980 and 1981 didn’t actually happen. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.
My thoughts exactly on why we’re getting such a great response to this October’s convention. Steampunk’s fun for a lot of reasons that appeal to both sexes.
Dex Garvey
California Steampunk Convention 2008
http://www.steampunkconvention.com
“@Peter: 1980 and 1981 didn’t actually happen.”
Oh, thank God!
If 1980 and 1981 didn’t happen, I am owed a LOT of money for that damn time trip….
Perfect simple list of what I’ve been trying to explain to friends and family for months now.
Been a Steampunk all my life and didn’t even know it until I found brass goggles (http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk)
http://300pockets.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-i-hate-steampunk.html
I don’t like where the movement went.
The point of view in question is not one accessible only to a single individual. ,
Furthermore, there are various technology tools available to ease person-to-person communications or to recreate a networking environment. ,
I love every single thing you just said. I was going to comment on it but I don’t even know what I would add to that.
I’m one of the “Just reading and identifying with Girl Genius” guys, and I’m only just reading articles like this one to find out that this thing is an entire movement. Steampunk MUSIC? Really? And a sub-culture to rival goths? I thought this was just a style of fiction! Must do more research.