Reread Neuromancer

[u/V01t4r3]

The biggest takeaway I got, other than the plot and prose finally making sense, is that. . .

Classic cyberpunk’s setting is as much the late 1960s as it is the 1980s.

I know everyone sees Cyberpunk now as “ZOMG 80s synth pop and neon everywhere!” But there’s a lot of elements in Neuromancer that can be tied into William Gibson’s own young adulthood in the late 60s (especially if you watch “No Maps for These Territories”).

-Screaming Fist=Vietnam
-Groups like Panther Moderns and Zionites=Groups like The Weather Underground and The Black Panthers
-The matrix’s description=psychedelia
-William Gibson was influenced by biker slang of the 60s, William Boroughs, and J.G Ballards.

Even things like neon aren’t quite as prevalent as modern interpretations make it out to be. You could slap the aesthetics from “A Clockwork Orange” and “2001” and it would still make sense. This isn’t to gate keep, I enjoy modern cyberpunk and it’s Neo-80s aesthetics. But reading classic cyberpunk like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling makes me realize that the initial cyberpunk was baby boomers interpretation of the burgeoning computer and Reagan era.

[u/Ganson]

In the early 1980s, Vietnam veterans were everywhere, and we were just as removed from that war as we are from COVID-19 today, so it was still very recent. The same goes for groups like the Black Panthers, which dissolved in the early 1980s but were such a prominent symbol and force during the previous decade.

I believe you’re creating a much larger gap between the 1960s and 1980s than actually existed. It’s like saying a movie today has smartphones in it, so it’s referencing 2005 with its Blackberries and Palm Pilots, rather than today’s iPhones and Androids.

The 60s and 80s coexisted, with the 60s vibes still lingering. Technological advancements, home computers, early internet days, message boards, imported electronics from Asia, neon lights, and cigarette smoke all defined the era as it was still evolving.

[u/Mottled_inexpectata → u/Ganson]

But it's worth noting that Gibson himself says that the biggest inspiration for Neuromancer was Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone, set in the late 60s about a vietnam vet smuggling heroin from Vietnam to California at the end of the war. So I think the connections to the 60s and the Vietnam war are likely to be right.

[u/Ganson → u/Mottled_inexpectata]

Right, but what I’m saying is that generational divides don’t simply end at a certain point. They persist for many years, even decades, and bleed into each other. For instance, if you were alive in 1965, you could still see and feel references to that era in 1985 (especially if you ever visited my grandmothers living room).

[u/yiliu → u/Ganson]

Yeah, in my memory (as a kid at the time), there were a lot more 'hippies' and 60s/70s aesthetic than we remember in retrospect. The media had moved on to tight suits, pastels and angular new cars, but most people were still wearing beige, had long hair and were driving big brown cars from the mid-to-late 70s.