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The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

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Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#381

Post by barbecue_sauce »

Tr3nton wrote: post #340
mmaunder wrote: post #68

I’m constantly amazed at how Metaverse aficionados quote Snow Crash and and other 1990s works as cornerstones of cyberspace, when Gibson invented the term and Neuromancer was written in 1984. Gibson is the original. The passage where Case connects to the matrix (also a Gibson term) again for the first time once his nervous system is repaired is heartbreakingly beautiful. I relate to it as a young phone phreak growing…

I couldn't even finish Snow Crash. The fact the protagonist's name was "Hiro Protagonist" is a good example of the intellectual tone of the novel. Every character reminded me of Poochy from The Simpsons, an over-written "edgy" anti-hero, as compelling as an episode of Saved By The Bell. Neuromancer on the other hand I still think about, and I haven't read it in a decade.

I've never read Snow Crash but that name strikes me as Pynchon-esque.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#382

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

pmoriarty wrote: post #329
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Josan Gonzalez “Deathburger” images on the article could be lifted directly the Heavy Metal movie. And Gonzalez did artwork for the Heavy Metal magazine. When Musk launched a Tesla into space, there was a lot of speculation that he was inspired by the opening scene in the Heavy Metal film [0] [1]. This film was Ivan Reitman before he did Ghostbusters and same year he did Stripes, and became really famous. A film…

There's a striking similarity between Josan Gonzalez's work and that of Geof Darrow[1] who was famous for his 1990'ish collaboration with Frank Miller on Hard Boiled [2]. Some samples of Darrow's work: [3] - [8] Gonzalez also seems to have a bit of a Moebius vibe. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geof_Darrow [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Boiled_(comics) [3] - https://i.redd.it/wfb1561hqbe01.jpg [4] - ht…

Thanks for this. I did not know about Geof Darrow.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#383

Post by sho_hn »

wink wrote: post #356
sho_hn wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but is there a Chinese or Japanese or Indonesian film or TV show you think just as many people around you know from the same time frame? And I mean, that's still anecdotal - what isn't anecdotal is that the upscale KaDeWe department store I live nearby in Berlin had a Korea week a while ago, and so on. And whose pop music export has flash mobs and dance troupes dancing to it in the streets of every major city f…

I've also not noticed anything besides Squid Game and Parasite here in Germany. Also not sure about the esports thing, maybe I'm looking in the wrong corner. 20 years ago when StarCraft was still on people's minds there was a meme about Koreans, but since then I wouldn't say there was anything spectacularly popular. And because a few K-Pop bands are now a bit more famous I wouldn't call this a hype cycle. Then again…

Well, I won't rule out Berlin being weird ... :)

But it also raises the question of whether Japanmania was as big in Germany in the 80s as in the US to begin with (the pop song "Big in Japan" notwithstanding!), or if this was a BBS/Usenet discussion 30 years ago and I had written the same post about Japan instead, a hypothetical 80s you would have felt similarly.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#384

Post by orev »

aspenmayer wrote: post #374
orev wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And nothing can be more conformist and anti-punk than lazily copying a now classic aesthetic and doing nothing else with it. In Pattern Recognition, the character Cayce is “allergic” to Tommy Hilfiger clothing because the style is so completely generic. Your comment makes me wonder if that was a commentary on the works derived from his initial vision in the Sprawl trilogy.

> In Pattern Recognition, the character Cayce is “allergic” to Tommy Hilfiger clothing because the style is so completely generic. I remember this a bit differently? I thought she wore nondescript de-branded clothing specifically because she had a behavioral/neurological/information processing/sensory overload condition that caused her to have tics and flip out in the presence of excessive visual input. I remember he…

> next to a display of Tommy Hilfiger, it's all started to go sideways … Some people ingest a single peanut and their head swells like a basketball. … Tommy Hilfiger does it every time … A mountainside of Tommy coming down in her head

This is about an unexpected encounter with these clothes (not wearing them), and it doesn’t sound good to me.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#385

Post by brazzy »

pydry wrote: post #244
brazzy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The Nazis are evil" is also an overused trope and is hardly radical but by reusing it it helps protect us on a civilizational level from actual nazis. ...or helps a dictator dehumanize the population of a country he wants to conquer for propaganda purposes.

Yeah, so creating a nazi military batallion out of a nazi paramilitary to fight an ethnic civil war against Russians may not have been the genius military move Poroshenko thought it was :(

Yeah, so you're basically pushing Putin's narrative, which is bullshit.

The invasion would have happened anyway because it's motivated by fascist imperialism, and the propaganda is mostly made up and would have been the same as well, minus some specifics.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#386

Post by aspenmayer »

orev wrote: post #384
aspenmayer wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Pattern Recognition, the character Cayce is “allergic” to Tommy Hilfiger clothing because the style is so completely generic. I remember this a bit differently? I thought she wore nondescript de-branded clothing specifically because she had a behavioral/neurological/information processing/sensory overload condition that caused her to have tics and flip out in the presence of excessive visual input. I remember he…

> next to a display of Tommy Hilfiger, it's all started to go sideways … Some people ingest a single peanut and their head swells like a basketball. … Tommy Hilfiger does it every time … A mountainside of Tommy coming down in her head This is about an unexpected encounter with these clothes (not wearing them), and it doesn’t sound good to me.

You’re right, of course, that she’s reacting negatively. Do you have a quote describing her attire choices? I think the book does go into more detail on the nature of her condition(s) when it describes what she wears and why she chooses to dress thus.

Tommy Hilfiger clothing was considered kinda prep style, but got appropriated by street style and a lot of rappers would wear it in the 90s up til Tommy outed himself as a racist, by publicly saying that he didn’t want black people wearing his clothes, as he thought it brought down the value of the brand, or some such racist drivel.

That is to say, I am curious what style or aesthetic she’s recoiling against. To me, it seems like she’s vaguely working class attired, and recoils against professional costumes.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#387

Post by novok »

AlanYx wrote: post #373
jvanderbot wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't like snow crash. Does that make me an outlier? The whole thing was silly and far too jrpg for my taste. I mean, stealing the whole "skitchn" thing and slapping "Smooth move, ex lax" on a car when they try to shake you is just campy. "Poor impulse control" -- just slapstick comedy at that point.

I don't think you're an outlier really. IMHO the problem with Snow Crash is that it hasn't aged well. I enjoyed it in the mid-90s, but I recently re-read it, and found it hard to get through (until the very end, anyway). It feels like a frozen-in-time product of the early 90s in a lot of ways, not just in terms of the technological outlook but also with respect to some of the social aspects addressed in the book. The…

Neuromancer was never really about technology according to the author, and that is probably why it feels the same.

Ironically although, I had a hard time reading Neuromancer while snow crash was a breezy fun read in high school

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#388

Post by pydry »

brazzy wrote: post #385
pydry wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, so creating a nazi military batallion out of a nazi paramilitary to fight an ethnic civil war against Russians may not have been the genius military move Poroshenko thought it was :(

Yeah, so you're basically pushing Putin's narrative, which is bullshit. The invasion would have happened anyway because it's motivated by fascist imperialism, and the propaganda is mostly made up and would have been the same as well, minus some specifics.

Putin's narrative? The Ukrainian government are entirely open about what Azov is.

Putins narrative is that the Ukrainian government is run by Nazis. Thats obviously false, but yeah, they absolutely used Nazi paramilitaries to cling on to Russian speaking territory and dont deny it.

It sort of sounds like you're saying that this means Nazis arent the bad guys we thought they were and we should stop villifying them, which is an interesting hill to choose to die on.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#389

Post by wink »

sho_hn wrote: post #383
wink wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also not noticed anything besides Squid Game and Parasite here in Germany. Also not sure about the esports thing, maybe I'm looking in the wrong corner. 20 years ago when StarCraft was still on people's minds there was a meme about Koreans, but since then I wouldn't say there was anything spectacularly popular. And because a few K-Pop bands are now a bit more famous I wouldn't call this a hype cycle. Then again…

Well, I won't rule out Berlin being weird ... :) But it also raises the question of whether Japanmania was as big in Germany in the 80s as in the US to begin with (the pop song "Big in Japan" notwithstanding!), or if this was a BBS/Usenet discussion 30 years ago and I had written the same post about Japan instead, a hypothetical 80s you would have felt similarly.

My point is more if I, a reasonably informed person about pop culture, have not noticed because none of my friends (some of whom have been k-pop fans for years) have never mentioned it or posted about it, then I have to assume I am either living under a rock, all my friends are deliberately hiding it, are also part of a bubble of non-noticers, or it's simply not a *mania.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#390

Post by jhbadger »

tialaramex wrote: post #375
jhbadger wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me I think it's the opposite -- the fact that Neuromancer's technology isn't just a version of what we have makes is what makes it timeless. Kind of how Star Wars tech from 1977 seems less dated than in most SF movies because it wasn't based on real tech. Snow Crash is so obviously just 1992 technology with a coat of paint -- Stephenson obviously played MUDs and that's all his virtual world is -- a MUD. And so it…

I guess in some sense I agree that "MUDs weren't the future" but they are in fact all that anybody keeps building. Facebook's "Metaverse" is just a shitty MUD, likewise for various "Blockchain" projects that produce some sort of virtual land where you... sort of stand around. The art project I visited at the weekend with a friend had a VR environment which was too limited to really be much of a MUD, but it certainly…

I'd argue that Gibson had the most important social prediction in cyberpunk -- one that we kind of ignore today because it became true. In Gibson's future, the real conflicts are not between national governments but between rival tech companies. Obviously Gibson made the mistake common in the 1980s that the tech companies would be Japanese rather than from US or China, but the key prediction was insightful. Later cyberpunk authors like Stephenson also often have megacorps, but they obviously took them from Gibson.
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