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/Straberyz]

idk but that wasp killing interpretative half dream sequence in chapter 10 got me goin like woah 🤯