927
Cringe
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
927 points (97.3% liked)
Memes
45584 readers
1271 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The sad thing is that a Cyberpunk dystopia is nominally interesting. Violent, terrible, and impoverished, yes, but also fastpaced and exciting. Our world is dull, programmatic, largely predictable, and extremely boring unless you have disposable income. We all have cellphones, yes, but that doesn't make it cyberpunk.
That's because people in cyberpunk settings actually have the volition and guts to make change happen, and to put themselves through adversity against all the odds. People in the real world probably won't attend a peaceful protest in their area for something they support if they aren't in the mood.
The characters the story is written about do. The people living in it that the main character doesn't even interact with don't. Nobody cares about salaryman #97543784 who, at the beginning and end of the story is still pushing pencils but maybe reads about an office explosion in the news.
This is true of any work of fiction. People in works of fiction - at least works of sci-fi or fantasy adventure - are typically more risk taking because that's interesting to a reader/audience and the author knows this.