Once upon a time, there was a genre called cyberpunk. It was given this name because it had computers, internet and hackers (cyber), and a bitter, anarchist, dystopian viewpoint (punk). Although cyberpunk was primarily a literary genre, some of its written works spawned movies, such as the nearly-unwatchable Johnny Mnemonic. And obviously the Matrix trilogy is cyberpunk. Then there was a genre of sci-fi that turned its gaze away from the future and back to the past, and asked "what if this technology had taken off?" Airships, prototype computers, crazy inventions, with a distinct Victorian flavor. Someone jokingly suggested it be called "steampunk" and the moniker stuck. Steampunk remained a little tiny subgenre of sci-fi for decades, with many people either unaware of it, or at least unaware of what it was called. My own first exposure to it was seeing a book in a gaming shop called "GURPS: Steampunk" and asking my man what the heck steampunk meant. I filed it away as something interesting and gave it little thought, until Girl Genius came along and I thought "Oh hey, this is neat, and it's steampunk. I like it!" But within the past few years, darn near everyone has discovered steampunk, thanks to the internet. And don't get me wrong - I am not one of those people who grumbles "steampunk was so much cooler before everyone knew about it" - I'm pretty happy about this surge of popularity in some ways, because it means lots of pretty stuff for me to look at, and a huge influx of interesting books for me to read. But then... then there are those people who know about steampunk, but they don't know about steampunk. As I mentioned when I wrote about my beaded Cthulhu, a big chunk of my life is dedicated to beadwork and jewelry. The jewelry community found steampunk, and many of them embraced the look, without having any idea that it had literary roots, or that it was a cultural movement for some people. They went around blissfully gluing rhinestones and crap onto salvaged watch guts and patted themselves on the back for capitalizing on this "new" trend. Ok, that was bad enough, but whatever. Can't blame people for trying to make a buck in a struggling economy, even if they're rather misguided about it. It's not as if there aren't plenty of people making religious jewelry without studying the religion, so why should a subculture be any different? But then.... then! People said to themselves "Gee, this steampunk thing sure is popular, how can I capitalize on that recognition?" And thus, the over-abuse of "-punk" began. Monk-punk. Bustle-punk. Diesel-punk. All literary genres who seem to believe that "-punk" is not in fact the word "punk" but a magical suffix that means "this story is a sci-fi or fantasy story that is fused with some unexpected element." No thought given to the connotations of punk, just hopes that people will associate it with their beloved cyberpunk and steampunk novels and give them a try. And then there was beadpunk. Yes. Some beader decided that she wanted to make steampunk jewelry that involved beadweaving techniques instead of the more popular mixed-metal constructions. More power to her. Her designs are very nice. But "beadpunk"? Yes, there's no steam involved in her jewelry, but there's also not punk. We're left with a stupid, awkward neologism that makes me want to punch someone whenever I see it. I feel like punching myself just for typing it! I don't even like the name steampunk, honestly. It applies to some things that call themselves steampunk. Steampunk Magazine prides themselves in putting the "punk" in steampunk, with articles on anarchy, survival in a post-apocalyptic world, and the darker sides of Victorian life. In fact, it was almost too punk for me. I kept worrying that government operatives were going to put me on some watch list because of my reading material. But then there are all of these novels I love. They're labeled steampunk... but they have little to no steam and even less punk, but because they're set in an alternative Victorian-era history, or a world with that level of technology, the front-cover blurbs gush about the next steampunk masterpiece, because marketing is king. There are other names that could have stuck. Gaslamp fantasy. Neo-Victorian Sci-Fi. They could have been labeled alternative history, like all those books about how the American Civil War would have been different if they'd had dragons dropping nukes on zombie soldiers. Or the publishers could have just given them appropriate cover-art and back-cover descriptions and we would have said "Hey, this novel has airships! How awesome is that?" without having to be told that we had to read it to be a real steampunk. My hope is that, like most trends, steampunk will fade back into near-obscurity, before the publishers go truly mad and decide that our old sword-and-sorcery has to be called "wizardpunk" and traditional sci-fi will be "spacepunk" and romance novels with well-endowed men will be "junkpunk." Ok. I think I'll stop it there.

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Copyright © 2010 By AJ Reardon E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.net