Among the many labels I stick decoratively to my personality, I like to call myself a steampunk. You probably think that means I wear goggles on a tophat (true) and have an etched brass case for my iphone (false). Or maybe you've never heard the term, but I doubt that. In any case, I'm going to let Bruce sterling describe what I mean by steampunk because he's so much better at it than I am.
People like steampunk for two good reasons. First, it's a great opportunity to dress up in a cool, weird way that baffles the straights. Second, steampunk set design looks great.The Industrial Revolution has grown old. So machines that Romantics considered satanic now look romantic.
If you like to play dress-up, good for you. You're probably young, and, being young, you have some identity issues. So while pretending to be a fireman, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever your parents want you to be, you should be sure to try on a few identities that are totally impossible.Steampunk will help you, because you cannot, ever, be an authentic denizen of the 19th century. You will meet interesting people your own age who share your vague discontent with today's status quo. Clutch them to your velvet-frilled bosom, because you will learn more from them than you ever will from your teachers.
Stretching your self-definition will help you when, in later life, you are forced to become something your parents could not even imagine. This is a likely fate for you.Your parents were born in the 20th century. Soon their 20th century world will seem even deader, weirder and more remote than the 19th. The 19th-century world was crude, limited and clanky, but the 20th-century world is calamitously unsustainable. I would advise you to get used to thinking of all your tools, toys and possessions as weird oddities destined for the recycle bin. Imagine starting all over with radically different material surroundings. Get used to that idea.
That's part of a longer essay he wrote about steampunk, and the most useful idea in it is that one day, maybe within our lifetimes, the lifestyles and tools we have now will seem as weird and silly and clunky as victorian stuff does today, that one day everything will be obsolete not because there's a better version but because the way we live no longer needs those tools. By rejecting the tools and aesthetic of the present for those of the past, we're really preparing to reject them for the tools and aesthetic of the future, whatever that turns out to be.
Steampunks are also masters of junk-tech, the skill of converting old salvaged machinery into useful things. And steampunks are all DIY people, because steampunks look back to a day before the assembly line when every manufacturer was a craftsman and backyard tinkerers invented the future. And we're ready and waiting for the opportunity to do it again.
The future is, of course, a world of new problems, and the massive tools of modernity aren't responsive enough to solve them. We're heading into a steampunk future. Once again the backyard tinkerers are inventing the tools the people of tomorrow will use. Craftsman will make things for local markets because factories can't get their goods to market. We'll DIY our lifestyle not because it makes economic sense, but because it's a political act of independence from exploiting and/or failing companies, governments, societies and civilizations.
In fact, at the bottom of this page of
steampunk magazine, you'll find "The steampunk's guide to the apocalypse." Within you'll find a quick primer on how to prepare for a civilization-interrupting disaster, and several projects for the Do-it-yourself steamer to attempt. From sand-filter water purifiers to composting toilets, and a bibliography to boot. I suggest a download and a quick read.
Oh, and Zepplins are making a comeback. Just saying...
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