All Things Cyber

I originally intended to focus this web site on cyberpunk music, but in the course of my research, I found that it was difficult to center on one subject music without including the entire genre of cyberpunk. With that stated I will attempt to encompass the complete features of the cyberpunk group.

What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk means many things to many people, depending on what subgenre you are referring to, for example: music, literature or fashion. In fact, disputes are ongoing as to what cyberpunk means and what it includes making defining the limits of cyberpunk difficult. Tracing when and where cyberpunk was first used and in what context hopefully we will begin to formulate a loose definition of the word.

It is interesting to note that cyberpunk was first used by Gardner Dozois in 1982 as an insult; it was meant to convey a low-life rebel writer who dabbled with talk about computer technology.

With that said there are several definitions, which I think are all relevant to help understand the essence of cyberpunk. They are as follows:

Originally the term 'cyberpunk was meant to be only a character type name, meaning 'a young, technologically facile, ethically vacuous, computer assisted vandal or criminal.

The word 'cyberpunk' first appeared as the title of a short story "Cyberpunk" by Bruce Bethke, Amazing Science Fiction Stories magazine volume 57, number 4, in November 1983.

Cyberpunk itself is a fusion of two very different words: 'cyber' and 'punk' and this fusion is the key to understanding cyberpunk.

'cyber': derived from cybernetics, a control theory that studies, for example, human/machine interaction and is often used in connection with information technology.
'punk': defies definition by its very nature, seeking to escape the confines of society all together.

is a troublemaker, an antisocial rebel/hoodlum commonly associated with loud hard-core rock.

in literature and social movements, 'punk' refers to counterculture and a sort of street-level anarchy and tends to focus more on attitude and outlook than on music and criminal activity.

So, the words 'cyber' and 'punk' emphasize the two basic aspects of cyberpunk: technology and individualism. Making the meaning of the word 'cyberpunk' to be something like 'anarchy via machine' or 'machine/computer rebel movement'.

A common misconception is that William Gibson invented the word 'cyberpunk, that is not true however, Gibson did coin the word 'cyberspace', which we will discuss in another section.

Cyberpunk began as an offshoot of science fiction literature and came into its own by the mid 1980's. Keep in mind that most of the cyberpunk genre refers back to literature and what is written.