Opinion

If there is One Thing I can tell you about living life as a pirate, its that you will get a lot of attention for doing it. It’s not for the faint of heart, trust me. But, while I glamorize piracy, and historical pirates like Henry Morgan and fictional ones like James Hook, real piracy is nothing glamorous.   Historically, most pirates were thieves and murderers, cowards and bullies. They preyed on the weakest ships they could find, because exchanging broadsides with the British Navy was a good way to get killed. In the modern age, the word piracy...

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Decimononic published a very interesting opinion piece today about what Steampunk is at present, with their main thesis appearing to be that values are what’s important in a movement, or subculture. I’ve shared part of the article below, but I encourage you to click through and read the rest. Steampunk raison d’etre: it’s all about values Steampunk aesthetics are a strong influence for Decimononic and if you are reading these lines we are probably in the same boat. But, what happens when you try to go deeper? What’s Steampunk at present? Is it a movement, a counter-culture, a subculture,...

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Justin Bieber supposedly going Steampunk has caused quite the stir among a lot of my friends on Facebook and elsewhere, so after forcing myself to watch the video a half dozen times to write this, I decided to offer up my take (read nitpick) on what it really is. I will be honest, halfway through the first time I watched this video, I had to mute the sound.  The song, which I’m sure appeals to the Bieber fan base, is not to my taste.  To be completely honest, saying its not to my taste is like saying I find...

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I promise more than an attempt at clever reference to my favorite sippin’ whiskey. But you go with what occurs to you in this business. So, onward. The world of Steampunk continues to expand to include everything from Zynga games to manufactured Human Entertainment Products (aka: pop stars), and, as one might expect, the movement now echoes with cries of pity for the death of our poor abused friend who Neverwas. This is nonsense, of course, as there is no surer measure of a movement’s success and longevity than when it finds itself embraced by the mainstream. Any watering-down...

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Watching all of Steampunk communities online lately has been very interesting. “Justin Bieber has gone Steampunk!” “Steampunk is dead because of him!” “Bieber has ruined Steampunk!” “Steampunk has gone mainstream, now it sucks!” Relax kids, the sky is not falling, I promise you.  Even if it were, we are steampunks.  We are prepared. Justin Bieber will not ruin Steampunk, neither will the so-called “teenyboppers” or “posers” his video may or may not bring into the fold. Let me state from the beginning that I am NOT a Bieber fan in any way, shape or form.  His voice is like...

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Editor’s Note: This has been cross-posted with permission from http://sophieplayle.com. Steampunk celebrates the aesthetic goodness of the Victorian era – and herein lies the problem. When steampunk becomes all about the way things look (a pretty parasol here, a cog-powered machine there), and the theory of advanced technology is applied to the creation of a superpower/empire, the genre is in danger of losing the most important part of its namesake: punk. Paul Jessup addresses this danger in his article ‘The Future of Steampunk‘ which can be found on his excellent blog, Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf & Book Review: Novels not...

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally appeared at The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf & Book Review. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. Steampunk is a schizophrenic old codger who doesn’t know his own name half the time, let alone what century he’s in. I say this with love. It’s a genre that goes back, way back, yet at the same time it’s recent popularity barely resembles the crazy alternate history that gave birth to Steampunk. We’re inundated with steampunkers wandering around wearing Victorian clothing, cracking wise about Empires and Britain and speaking in some of the worst faux British...

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