Memepunks officially begins!
This marks the initial post to get the memepunks blog underway. Between myself and my stalwart collaborators, we hope to keep the content fresh and filled with interesting facts, entertaining diversions, and web 2.0 goodness. Here we go!
But wait you say..."what exactly is a "memepunk"?
That's an excellent question. As Bruce Sterling has said, "successful tech neologisms tend to have children". The term memepunk is the great grand child of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk encompasses the writings of people like William Gibson, his predecessors, peers and proteges. Stories like Neuromancer, with a focus on futuristic technology and it's effects on dystopian societies, where hackers and cyborgs brandish chrome middle fingers at the powers that be.
From Cyberpunk, the term Steampunk was was born. Steampunk combined the techno fetishism of cyberpunk with Victorian era steam technology. Clockwork machines, Steam powered analog computers and edgy inventors are often the focus of stories like Gibson's and Sterling's Difference Engine.
A play on Steampunk gave us the title for Cory Doctorows latest novel in progress, Themepunks. A story about visionary inventors, an economic singularity, social networking, hacktivism, and a theme park.
And from Themepunks comes Memepunks. A meme is a thought or idea. And I hope the thoughts and ideas presented at this blog will encompass some small part of the vision of those that have gone before it.
Enjoy!
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton
But wait you say..."what exactly is a "memepunk"?
That's an excellent question. As Bruce Sterling has said, "successful tech neologisms tend to have children". The term memepunk is the great grand child of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk encompasses the writings of people like William Gibson, his predecessors, peers and proteges. Stories like Neuromancer, with a focus on futuristic technology and it's effects on dystopian societies, where hackers and cyborgs brandish chrome middle fingers at the powers that be.
From Cyberpunk, the term Steampunk was was born. Steampunk combined the techno fetishism of cyberpunk with Victorian era steam technology. Clockwork machines, Steam powered analog computers and edgy inventors are often the focus of stories like Gibson's and Sterling's Difference Engine.
A play on Steampunk gave us the title for Cory Doctorows latest novel in progress, Themepunks. A story about visionary inventors, an economic singularity, social networking, hacktivism, and a theme park.
And from Themepunks comes Memepunks. A meme is a thought or idea. And I hope the thoughts and ideas presented at this blog will encompass some small part of the vision of those that have gone before it.
Enjoy!
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton
posted by MEMEPUNKS at 11:10 AM
2 Comments:
memepunk sounds like culture jamming
Although we don't do any Culture Jamming, I'm a fan of people who come up with creative ways to make others think.
Thanks for reading Memepunks!
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