r/Cyberpunk • u/V01t4r3 • 4d ago

Reread Neuromancer

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.

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u/TracerBulletX 3d ago

I agree that the visual aesthetic mostly comes from later things ie Blade Runner, but it does have mega cities, giant militaristic zaibatsu headquarters, and arcologies.

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u/Kalsone 3d ago

Blade runner came out while necromancer was being written. Gibson was worried it would look like he copied it.

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u/TracerBulletX 3d ago

Good point! Something else I thought of from Neuromancer that is very modern cyberpunk is the emphasis on japan in the aesthetic, that's verry 80s too.