Editing Cyberpunk (section)

== Style and ethos ==
Primary figures in the cyberpunk movement include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Bruce Bethke, [[Pat Cadigan]], [[Rudy Rucker]], and [[John Shirley]]. Philip K. Dick (author of ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'', from which the film ''Blade Runner'' was adapted) is also seen by some as prefiguring the movement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/0003637k/project/html/litaut.htm |title=The Cyberpunk Movement&nbsp;– Cyberpunk authors |publisher=[[Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute]] |access-date=2009-03-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090720051349/http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/0003637k/project/html/litaut.htm |archive-date=2009-07-20 }}</ref>

''Blade Runner'' can be seen as a quintessential example of the cyberpunk style and theme.<ref name="Graham"/> [[Video game]]s, [[board game]]s, and [[tabletop role-playing game]]s, such as ''[[Cyberpunk 2020]]'' and ''[[Shadowrun]]'', often feature storylines that are heavily influenced by cyberpunk writing and movies. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in [[cyberpunk fashion|fashion]] and music were also labeled as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is also featured prominently in [[anime]] and [[manga]] ([[Japanese cyberpunk]]), with ''[[Akira (franchise)|Akira]]'', ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]'' and ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' being among the most notable.<ref name=CWCcyber>{{cite book |last=Chaudhuri |first=Shohini |title=Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qOXoeyesZOIC&pg=PA104 |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |year=2005 |page=104 |isbn=978-0-7486-1799-9}}</ref>

=== Setting ===
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| footer            = [[Shibuya]], [[Tokyo]], Japan<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/travel/17tokyo.html|title=Hidden Tokyo|first=Julia|last=Chaplin|date=17 June 2007|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> (the latter three images depict the [[Shibuya Crossing]]).
| image1            = Shibuya Nights, Japan -- 2017-05 (unsplash.com).jpg
| image2            = Shibuya crossing night.jpg
| image3            = Shibuya Crossing at night (14738088849).jpg
| image4            = Shibuya Crossing, May 2017 1.jpg
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| footer            = Life in [[Kowloon Walled City]] has often inspired the dystopian identity in modern media works.
| image1            = KWC - Alley.jpg
| image2            = KWC - Night.jpg
| image3            = Kowloon Walled City - 1989 Aerial.jpg
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Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from [[crime fiction]]—particularly [[hardboiled]] [[detective fiction]] and [[film noir]]—and [[Postmodernism|postmodernist]] prose to describe an often [[Nihilism|nihilistic]] underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of a [[Dystopia|troubled future]] is often called the antithesis of the generally [[utopia]]n visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian science fiction in his 1981 short story "[[The Gernsback Continuum]]", which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian science fiction.<ref>{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Edward |author-link=Edward James (historian) |last2=Mendlesohn |first2=Farah |author-link2=Farah Mendlesohn |title=The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55wUHXiay-gC&pg=PA221 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2003 |page=221 |isbn=978-0-521-01657-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Neil |title=The Cultures of the New American West |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bG3H3kxLhU4C&pg=PA159 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2000 |page=159 |isbn=978-1-57958-288-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Seed |first=David |title=Publishing |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HO_z5WFKwpoC&pg=PA220|publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell]]|year=2005 |page=220 |isbn=978-1-4051-1218-5}}</ref>

In some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place [[online]], in [[cyberspace]], blurring the line between actual and [[virtual reality]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cyberpunk.asia/index.php?lng=us|title=Cyberpunk 2021|access-date=2011-04-20|archive-date=2009-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212155752/http://cyberpunk.asia/index.php?lng=us|url-status=dead}}</ref> A typical [[Trope (literature)|trope]] in such work is a direct [[Brain–computer interface|connection]] between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk settings are dystopias with corruption, computers, and computer networks.

The economic and technological state of [[Japan]] is a regular theme in the cyberpunk literature of the 1980s. Of Japan's influence on the genre, William Gibson said, "Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk."<ref name="cyberpunk1">{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1956774,00.html|title=The Future Perfect|magazine=Time|first=William|last=Gibson|date=30 April 2001}}</ref> Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes, and "city lights, receding" was used by Gibson as one of the genre's first [[metaphor]]s for cyberspace and virtual reality.<ref>{{cite book | title=Neuromancer | url=https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs | url-access=registration | first=William| last=Gibson |date=August 1984 | publisher=Ace Books |page =[https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs/page/69 69]| isbn=978-0-441-56956-4}}</ref>

The cityscapes of [[Hong Kong]]<ref name="ags">{{cite book | title=Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader | publisher=Wallflower Press | author=Redmond, Sean | year=2004 | pages=101–112}}</ref> has had major influences in the urban backgrounds, ambiance and settings in many cyberpunk works such as ''[[Blade Runner]]'' and ''[[Shadowrun]]''. [[Ridley Scott]] envisioned the landscape of cyberpunk [[Los Angeles]] in ''Blade Runner'' to be "Hong Kong on a very bad day".<ref>{{cite book |last= Wheale |first= Nigel |year= 1995 |title= The Postmodern Arts: An Introductory Reader |publisher=Routledge |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8dGfKmubQIgC&pg=PA107 |page= 107 |isbn= 978-0-415-07776-7 |access-date=July 27, 2011}}</ref> The streetscapes of the ''[[Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)|Ghost in the Shell]]'' film were based on Hong Kong. Its director [[Mamoru Oshii]] felt that Hong Kong's strange and chaotic streets where "old and new exist in confusing relationships" fit the theme of the film well.<ref name="ags" /> Hong Kong's [[Kowloon Walled City]] is particularly notable for its disorganized hyper-urbanization and breakdown in traditional urban planning to be an inspiration to cyberpunk landscapes. During the [[British Hong Kong|British rule of Hong Kong]], it was an area neglected by both the British and Qing administrations, embodying elements of liberalism in a dystopian context. Portrayals of East Asia and Asians in Western cyberpunk have been criticized as [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] and promoting racist tropes playing on American and European fears of East Asian dominance;<ref>{{cite web|first1=Kazuma|last1=Hashimoto|access-date=2021-09-24|title=The cyberpunk genre has been Orientalist for decades — but it doesn't have to be|website=[[Polygon (website)|Polygon]]|url=https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/30/22255318/cyberpunk-2077-genre-xenophobia-orientalism|date=30 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first1=George|last1=Yang|access-date=2021-09-24|title=Orientalism, 'Cyberpunk 2077,' and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction|url=https://www.wired.com/story/orientalism-cyberpunk-2077-yellow-peril-science-fiction/|newspaper=Wired|issn=1059-1028|via=www.wired.com}}</ref> this has been referred to as "techno-Orientalism".<ref>{{cite web|first1=Saba|last1=Gharagozli|access-date=2021-09-24|title=Detriments of Techno-Orientalism |work=[[Imprint (newspaper)|Imprint]] |date=19 May 2021 |location=[[University of Waterloo]] |url=http://uwimprint.ca/article/detriments-of-techno-orientalism/}}</ref>

=== Society and government ===
Cyberpunk can be intended to disquiet readers and call them to action. It often expresses a sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of cultural revolution in science fiction. In the words of author and critic [[David Brin]]:

<blockquote>...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others ''do'' depict [[Orwellian]] accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate [[elite]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=David |first=Brin |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/798534246 |title=The Transparent Society : Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?. |date=1999 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0-465-02790-3 |oclc=798534246}}</ref></blockquote>

Cyberpunk stories have also been seen as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the [[Internet]]. The earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the [[World Wide Web]] entered popular awareness, though not before traditional science-fiction writers such as [[Arthur C. Clarke]] and some social commentators such as [[James Burke (science historian)|James Burke]] began predicting that such networks would eventually form.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Arthur C. |last=Clarke |title=The Last Question |magazine=Science Fiction Quarterly |year=1956}}</ref>

Some observers cite that cyberpunk tends to marginalize sectors of society such as women and people of colour. It is claimed that, for instance, cyberpunk depicts fantasies that ultimately empower [[masculinity]] using fragmentary and decentered aesthetic that culminate in a masculine genre populated by male outlaws.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture|last1=Flanagan|first1=Mary|last2=Booth|first2=Austin|publisher=MIT Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-262-06227-5|location=Cambridge, MA|pages=7–8}}</ref> Critics also note the absence of any reference to Africa or black characters in the quintessential cyberpunk film ''Blade Runner'',<ref name=":0" /> while other films reinforce stereotypes.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction: A Critical Study|last=Lavigne|first=Carlen|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers|year=2013|isbn=978-0-7864-6653-5|location=Jefferson, NC|pages=51}}</ref>