Pop Culture Challenged Here: Please explain Steampunk/Steampunkery?

[OmahaBlueDog]

I've seen some photos, but fail to grasp this concept.

[Taverner]

1. An alternate universe where steam driven technology gave us the current crop of gadgets

Kinda like this...

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

3. "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

is probably the seminal Steampunk work. Read it about a decade ago and it is a seriously bizarre book.

Taverner is correct in his synopsis.

[Taverner]

4. It's also morphing into a fashion sub-culture

That is Victorian Era dresses with modern touches





Think the 80's New Romantics on acid

[DarkTirade]

5. Modern and futuristic as well.

:)

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. I've seen the pix. I saw a writer's Live Journal where he had a bunch of pix like this

...but I kept hearing the term in other contexts.

Agagin, thanks

[DeepBlueC]

12. The guy looks rather great

The girl not so much

[Taverner]

14. Well guys pulled off New Romantic better than the gals

One of the few instances where the fashion is male oriented

[Odin2005]

17. OMG, those clothes reminds me of the video game Final Fantasy 3

:rofl:

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. Thank you for your synopsis

[Orsino]

2. It's a what-if.

What if eighteenth-century physics were correct? What if electricity were only an interesting toy, and steam power the epitome of technology?

[XemaSab]

6. The Victorians loved and celebrated technology

Old machines are beautiful. What if we took that beauty and workmanship and incorporated it into our modern equipment?

[DeepBlueC]

13. please, someone, make it happen...

Or just disappear plastic...that would be a start (well, except for toothbrush handles and a very few other things)...although I could go for a titanium toothbrish handle.

[XemaSab]

16. No comment.

[Taverner]

15. It would cost 100x the price due to labor

Granted, I think that's a good thing - labor should be paid well

[Odin2005]

19. I've always thought of it as the age of the great inventors.

Where fundamental technology advanced so fast is was dragging science along behind it.

[DS1]

8. I'll bet their bags had handles

[Iggo]

10. Nice.

:toast:

[AlCzervik]

11. and i bet they had servants to carry those bags, thta keeps the underclass employed.

[Odin2005]

18. It's an interesting nostalgia for the positive aspects of the Victorian Age.

Not surprising given that it the final floweing of Western Civilization's traditional naive optimism that was so destroyed by the world wars.