Tech Optimism Didn’t Dilute Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk did not lose its edge. Its ideas became influential enough to split into subgenres, including post-cyberpunk and solarpunk, that answer its questions differently.
August 2026
Hope Is Not Optimism: Utopia, Dystopia, and Participation
Hope is not optimism, and dystopia is not hopelessness. Cyberpunk and speculative fiction reveal how participation, agency, and local action turn imagined futures into something more useful.
Agency Was Always Distributed, Not Individual
Cyberpunk was never about a lone hero defeating the machine. It predicted a future where agency became distributed across corporations, networks, algorithms, and fragmented identities, making the system itself the true protagonist.
Cyberpunk Insurgency: The Future of Resistance
(This is the fifth article in our What is Cyberpunk? series, in which we’re examining the various perspectives and arguments that influence the definition of the Cyberpunk genre. If you’d like to start with the first article, click here.) For years, people have argued over whether cyberpunk is optimistic or pessimistic. It isn’t. And that …
Cyberpunk Was Never About Resistance, It’s About Entrapment
Cyberpunk has a branding problem. We think it is about rebellion against corporations. But resistance is what cyberpunk characters do. Entrapment is what cyberpunk is about.