Cyberpunk
There is much controversy on the topic of whether or not technology hinders today’s generation and the influences it has on our future. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, prominent for its focus on "high tech and low life". Generally centered on a conflict among artificial intelligences or a mega corporation, cyberpunk does a great job of taking the technology resources we have now and heightening them but not too much to where it doesn’t seem tangible. The cyberpunk genre also sheds a light on this dependency we as humans have on our personal gadgets. We invest so much of our time and money trying to keep up with the “next big thing” and staying relevant that we become consumed by the very thing that …show more content…
Not long after the prefix “cyber” was attached to other ideas, thus bringing us to cyberpunk. The word “punk” is defined as “rebellious” or “troublemaker” but for literature purposes it is defined as a “counterculture” because it focuses on the attitude and outlook of it all. When talking about the social stand point of the cyber punk genre, I wanted to use the episodes of Black Mirror as an example. Black Mirror is a British television anthology series that features speculative fiction with dark and sometimes ironic themes. Throughout the series characters are tested when faced with unexpected challenges presented by new technologies in a futuristic setting. Most of these challenges or decisions are usually made by a large group of people or by one other person. It is almost never that the decision made is decided by the individual that is affected. This goes back to my point of humans wanting to stay relevant, instead of listening to our own minds we let society decide for us, even if that decision is not the best for us. In Critical Terms for Media Studies, it discusses the …show more content…
In this generation, everything functions properly only if it is connected to the internet: games, texts, applications, music and so on. So we were basically asked to detach from our phones but as I started my observation I could already tell that I was fighting urges. Throughout the day I saw how not only physically attached people were to their devices but also emotionally. Even now as I am typing this essay, I am constantly checking my phone to see if I have been notified or just simply looking for a distraction but why is that? Why is it that we can be so focused on one certain task but still cautious about what is going on in the social world? So worried that we cannot fight the urge to detach and finish one task but instead are willing to sacrifice time or a passing grade. This personal connection we have with technology and being aware that we are immersed in different media realms is called hypermediacy. One thing that I truly enjoy about the cyberpunk genre is the way that it plays with hypermediacy and remediation; which is basically giving the reader or viewer the option of seeing the older versions and the newer version of a work. For example, Harry Potter started off as a book about a boy discovering he had mysterious powers, and then after the movie was released, then came the video games and so on. In every one of these mediums the purpose stays the same
There is much controversy on the topic of whether or not technology hinders today’s generation and the influences it has on our future. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, prominent for its focus on "high tech and low life". Generally centered on a conflict among artificial intelligences or a mega corporation, cyberpunk does a great job of taking the technology resources we have now and heightening them but not too much to where it doesn’t seem tangible. The cyberpunk genre also sheds a light on this dependency we as humans have on our personal gadgets. We invest so much of our time and money trying to keep up with the “next big thing” and staying relevant that we become consumed by the very thing that …show more content…
Not long after the prefix “cyber” was attached to other ideas, thus bringing us to cyberpunk. The word “punk” is defined as “rebellious” or “troublemaker” but for literature purposes it is defined as a “counterculture” because it focuses on the attitude and outlook of it all. When talking about the social stand point of the cyber punk genre, I wanted to use the episodes of Black Mirror as an example. Black Mirror is a British television anthology series that features speculative fiction with dark and sometimes ironic themes. Throughout the series characters are tested when faced with unexpected challenges presented by new technologies in a futuristic setting. Most of these challenges or decisions are usually made by a large group of people or by one other person. It is almost never that the decision made is decided by the individual that is affected. This goes back to my point of humans wanting to stay relevant, instead of listening to our own minds we let society decide for us, even if that decision is not the best for us. In Critical Terms for Media Studies, it discusses the …show more content…
In this generation, everything functions properly only if it is connected to the internet: games, texts, applications, music and so on. So we were basically asked to detach from our phones but as I started my observation I could already tell that I was fighting urges. Throughout the day I saw how not only physically attached people were to their devices but also emotionally. Even now as I am typing this essay, I am constantly checking my phone to see if I have been notified or just simply looking for a distraction but why is that? Why is it that we can be so focused on one certain task but still cautious about what is going on in the social world? So worried that we cannot fight the urge to detach and finish one task but instead are willing to sacrifice time or a passing grade. This personal connection we have with technology and being aware that we are immersed in different media realms is called hypermediacy. One thing that I truly enjoy about the cyberpunk genre is the way that it plays with hypermediacy and remediation; which is basically giving the reader or viewer the option of seeing the older versions and the newer version of a work. For example, Harry Potter started off as a book about a boy discovering he had mysterious powers, and then after the movie was released, then came the video games and so on. In every one of these mediums the purpose stays the same