On Steam- and Clock-punk....

[digitaldiscipline]

Over at lisamantchev's place, responding to a genre writer's conversation about what is and ain't steampunk, there's apparently been some sort of professional wank going on.

My thoughts on steampunk, tersely, are "Steampunk is the new Pirate."

The recent rise in popularity of S-punk seems to mimic the PotC-inspired crest for all things piratical.

There are some folks who have been sporting this look for a while, and whom it seems natural to associate with it; its recent ubiquity is one of those things that seems to spring from a spontaneous gestalt reaction to a lot of factors, most of which I'm flatly ignorant.

Does it make any sense? There's probably a sociological paper or essay in the subject, which I am singularly unqualified to write, but may blather about anyway.[1]

While I'm fond of weathered brass and leather, clockwork does nothing for me, and steam is too "cutesy" - it's sloppy but prim, clunky but prissy, if you take my meaning, which simply doesn't work for me.

I do not cotton to a world of wind-up dandies.

Also, I *loathed* The Difference Engine, which has essentially soured me on the genre(s) even further. The fact that it was recommended to me by someone who I would not take the time to piss on were I to encounter their body in flames is only further steepening the slope.


[1] An argument could probably be made that the American descent into a secretly-purient Neo-Victorian state of surface ethics and prissiness means the parallels to a plausibly steampunk world are ripe for the picking, and it may be the shortest sideways path to social commentary. It may be a matter of edgy fashion wanting to take a new direction away from the soft, formless, hippie-infused crap of the last several seasons. Maybe there's been a dramatic downturn in the price of broken clockwork, and all the DIY folks are accessorizing with it these days (onceupon, your shit is deeply cool, and I hope it sells like hotcakes).