I have an Idea for a new subgenre of Cyberpunk: Millenniumpunk
Hear me out: Cyberpunk inspired by the sci-fi of the the mid to late 90s to the early to mid 2000s. About 1995 to 2005.
So watch movies like the Matrix Trilogy, Johnny Mnumonic, The Fifth Element, Judge Dredd, and Hackers. (Maybe even the Coruscant scenes from the Star Wars Prequels.) Watch anime like Ghost in the Shell 1995, GitS: Stand Alone Complex, and Serial Experiments Lain. Also, watch TV shows like, Batman Beyond and Samurai Jack. And play games like Deus Ex 1 and 2, System Shock 2, Syndicate Wars, and Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 (Yes I consider MGS to be cyberpunk.)
Major themes could include the internet, conspiracies (corporate or government), terrorism, virtual reality, and y2k style panic.
For music: Rather than new wave for the 80s style Cyberpunk, Millenniumpunk is much more industrial and Nu Metal, with a little bit of dance techno. Listen to releases by Nine Inch Nails, Front Line Assembly, Gary Numan, Gravity Kills, KMFDM, Rob Zombie, Circle of Dust, Celldweller, Linkin Park, Static X, The Prodigy, and other Industrial, Nu-metal, and Dance groups between 1995-2000.
Lastly take a look at this video on the y2k aesthetic. It should give a pretty good idea of the look of the world fashion and technology wise. https://youtu.be/BMeoeGGEimE?si=tvC_o9Iel5jTP9vr
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I’m in. except for the Linkin Park. But yeah, tiny sunglasses, y2k panic, cell phones, KMFDM, good shit.
Best part of my life…
Please take a look at the opening of the Sony Metrion mall that was in SF CA
it’s was the epitome of “millenniumpunk”
Quick correction: It’s spelt Millennium, not Milenium, So Millenniumpunk.
Also when I said music between 1995-2000 I meant 1995-2005.
Dammit reddit, let your users edit thier posts.
On my last rewatch I kept thinking “this won’t make sense to anyone born after flip phones”.
The style kind of requires you to have an understanding of what the world was before the technology, for you to appreciate how magical the technology was.
For example, the array of flat screens for the operator were new and awesome when that movie was made. CRTs monitors were still everywhere when that movie came out. Now I don’t even think a viewer would notice that detail as anything special.
Agreed
I dont think our problem here and now is not enough new vague labels 🤷♀️
Btw that genre has name. ,Y2K
I miss that period of in-between. It really felt like it. Technology wasn’t everywhere and the internet was still more of a wild west before everyone got a smartphone and social media boomed.
CYBERpunk rather than cyberPUNK
Cyberpunk a genre that appeared in the 80’s is inspired by 90’s scifi???
Y2punk is just nostalgia googles for 20 and 30 somethings. You just have a cyberpunk clash of techno optimism vs the underground of a time where things were looking up given the post cold war boom. You’re just saying 90s things for the most part. I’d separate things pre and post war on terror (where social media started to go big) and then pre and post smart phone if you wanna look at eras of stuff and hackery things. Then make stories or w/e on those notes.
Leave off the Judge Stallone mess, with the whiny Limpy Biscut and Linkin Park shite. Most of the music you include isn’t so much nu metal, but alt/industrial metal. Rammstein and Ministry both ought to be in there, same for Rob Zombie and Marylin Manson, along with some of the hard techno & cyberpunk/goth groups like Suicide Commando. (Kudos for including KMFDM and Celldweller, btw.) Fields of the Nephilim might be appropriate, at least thematically.
The Stallone “Judge Dredd” film was a stupid joke to sell toys when it came out, hasn’t gotten any more amusing in the years since, and honestly, “Demolition Man” would make more sense. “Equilibrium” has a place, as should “Hardware” (1990). Arguably, Fullmetal Alchemist is also appropriate, as it is a very Cyberpunk story in a not immediately obviously cyberpunk setting.
its called dark vaporware
I’m pretty sure this is redundant/an oxymoron.
How dare you not include Appleseed
Nah
.Hack/Sign?
But like… why? There is no need for this. You can have Y2K aesthetics and cyberpunk at the same time. Cyberpunk is not about aesthetic and all of the media you mentioned is cyberpunk by it’s nature already. I mean i get what you’re saying but why do you have to come up with a whole new fucking word for that? And even if you want to i guess more considerable word would be Milleniumcore beacuse punk is in the themes not aesthetics.
All that aside, i was listening to Meteora, driving home from work while thinkin about this few days ago. Ill probably make a project out of this with Y2Kcore aesthetics cyberpunk horror set in 2020s Communist Czechoslovakia
I would expect this subgenre to go heavy on the terrorism and Hysteria that came with 9/11
I mean, I really don’t think that we need more goddamn sub-genres for something that’s already technically a sub-genre.
Do we really need to make up a special name for turn-of-the-century cyberpunk?
Hackers is definitely a “style”
Yeah this is where cyberpunk will go eventually as a genre, I think, at least partially. Like 80s nostalgia is basically dead at this point and as most modern cyberpunk media goes in a more sci-fi direction I can see a niche of Y2K nostalgia cyberpunk opening up.
Also, check out the reveal trailer for Dreamsettler by the Hypnospace Outlaw devs, it’s not super cyberpunk but it has a fantastic early 00s vibe (and it’s shaping up to be an absolutely fantastic game too).
What about the 41st Millennium
Strange Days (1995) anyone??