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One reason I’m writing this at all is because there’s this girl that I see running around the forums on Gaia, and her signature talks about how clockpunk and dieselpunk are so much better than steampunk. And I saw her a few days ago—I just see her in some of the forums I hang out in—and her signature got me thinking about how when I first came across clockpunk and dieselpunk as subgenres of steampunk I really felt like “What’s the point? They’re so similar that you might as well just call it steampunk.”
But the more I thought about it—the more I explored what these two other things were—the more I realized that clockplunk and dieselpunk are really so different from the basic ideas behind steampunk that they really do need their own name. And that started me thinking about what steampunk really is and why people sometimes have a really hard time understanding it. Because I come across that a lot. People who are just like “I don’t get steampunk—I don’t get what it’s all about.”
In the past, we’ve had a lot of members who expressed difficulty with the concepts behind steampunk and understanding what it really is (not to mention those who seemed to think they had a grasp on it but where completely off track by, say, being completely convinced the Victorian era took place in the 1700s, for instance). And so I guess I decided it would be cool for us all to discuss it and talk about what we really think steampunk is as a subculture, as a genre, as a fashion and what that really means for WINGs. Maybe to identify the reasons people have trouble understanding steampunk and clear up some of the misconceptions and confusions behind it.
I’ll admit that some of the recent issues that have cropped up in the RP did also spur me on but this thread isn’t geared at any one currently in the guild. It’s not a “I told you so” or anything like that. It’s just a sharing of ideas. People are bound to disagree so I do want to put this up front:
If you do not think you can discuss politely with every member of the guild, don’t post. That means that no one is going to poke at any one else—don’t use examples from current members who you feel have ‘messed up’ steampunk and don’t call people elitest for wanting people to adhere to specific guidelines for steampunk. Don’t take things personally, don’t assume you’re being attacked. No one should be excluded from this discussion just because they do or do not think a certain way and no one needs anyone to be snide at them. At the same time, if someone tells you that you're wrong, don't overreact. People are allowed to tell you that you're wrong--but if you tell someone they're wrong, be prepared to back it up. All discussions include a level of debate. If you can't handle it without getting emotional, don't partake.
If you feel you’ve been snarked upon, put on your big kid pants and move on. Sometimes grownups snark at each other. It happens. And when it does, the universe manages to continue along without imploding in on itself, so relax. If people start fighting, I’ll simply delete the thread and we won’t get to have mature discussions about steampunk.
So what are my ideas on steampunk?
When I first got into the genre, I thought it was little more than little Victorian, a bit of modernization and that’s it. As I’ve grown into the style, the genre, the subculture, over the past few years, I’ve come to realize there’s really a lot more to it than just that. And one of the biggest mistakes I see people make with steampunk when trying to get into it is assuming from the get go, that ‘anything goes.’ I think the reason people get into this mindset is because, in a lot of ways, steampunk really is pretty versatile but the problem is that it a lot of ways, it’s also very rigid.
You can have a lot of different types of steampunk—fantasy steampunk, post apocalyptic steampunk, western steampunk. All of them have a slightly different look and feel but the core elements are the same. Everything else is just built up around that core.
And then you have things that have steampunk influences or inspiration but that you’d never outright call steampunk. Look at Final Fantasy—a lot of their airships look really steampunk but you’d never actually say the games are true steampunk. There aren’t enough of the core elements present to say more than it has some ‘steampunk influences.’ Just like some clothing may have a steampunk inspiration, but you need more than a few gears, a pocketwatch and a corset to have something that is truly steampunk.
Things got even more confusing, I think, with the rise of subgenres to steampunk (which is, itself, a subgenre of fantasy). Suddenly, we have clockpunk and dieselpunk, both of which were inspired by steampunk, but have grown into something completely different because they replaced some of the cornerstones of steampunk with their own foundations. So I guess that brings us back to the original question—what is steampunk, really, when you strip away everything down to its core values, concepts and ideas? I can tell you, at least, what it is to me—all based on my research and observations, of course.
To put it bluntly, steampunk really is hyper-industrialized, punked out, Victorian.
It hearkens back to the Victorian era (not just in clothing, but also in architecture and even, to a degree, values and etiquette) but it also has an air of modernization. It’s “punked out” into something that’s neither modern, nor Victorian, but a bit of both, and has a slight flair of science fiction/fantasy technology that blends old fashioned elegance with more modern sensibilities. If the punk element isn’t strong enough, you have pretty much straight Victoriana or Neo-Victorian but if the Victorian element isn’t strong enough, you usually get something more along the lines of dieselpunk or clockpunk.
Because, while steampunk truly is very versatile in many ways, you really do need to understand the era, the fashion, the values, before you can really get something that truly is in the correct genre. In my opinion, there is a huge difference in the look and feel of, say, a steampunk outfit made entirely of store bought, mass produced "steampunk" clothes, and an outfit pieced together by things custom made, hand made and designed by the owner. And that is what I think people have to realize. You can’t create steampunk—whether in writing or art, whether in fashion or anything else--without understanding where the roots are based. You can sometimes create replicas but they have a very plastic, false feel to them.
As for the "roots" of steampunk? Well, at least some of them are firmly placed in Victoriana-- stray too far away from that, you’re leaving behind one of the crucial elements that makes it what it is. For instance, if you place it in an earlier era, prior to Victorian, you get what we call clockpunk. Because this is a sub genre of steampunk, it does have certain similarities. It also is introducing industrialization and certain technologies into society far earlier than what really occurred—just like steampunk. But this time, the era with which we’re dealing is the Renaissance and periods surrounding it. Instead of the steam and clockwork you see in steampunk, the focus is just clockwork. It also takes heavy inspiration from the concepts and designs portrayed in Leonardo DaVinci’s work. It takes nothing from the ideals or fashions of the Victorian era and is somewhat more rugged and less elegant due to the more medieval overtones. It does blend modern and old fashioned but the look and feel is completely different.
And if you go post Victorian era—from about WWI onward, you get diesel punk. The entire look is more modern, the sensibilities are based on a punked out 1920-1950 era, a time when warfare was rampant. There is usually a heavy military influence and steam and clockwork don’t play as big a role as diesel fuel because the technological aspect has become too advanced. While there tends to be a slight fantasy/science fiction flair and the idea of hyper industrialization beyond what really occurred historically, in general, you lose entirely the sensibility, ideals and elegance of the Victorian era. It’s a similar concept in some ways but the end result is totally different.
But, regardless, I do think that one of the major contributing factors to the confusion about steampunk is the fact that people eventually did decide to apply the concept of “punking out” other eras to pre and post Victorian times, to create these two subgenres and others like them. Because the inspiration was initially steampunk, there is a slight overlap in ideas that blurs the line between what is what and a lot of people have never really encountered true steampunk because there are so many things out there related to, or inspired by steampunk. That’s why I’ve generally changed my thinking to accept these subgenres as valid and necessary to preserve the definition of steampunk because it’s impossible to carry over some of the core principles of steampunk into other time periods.
It’s great that some of the original ideas were versatile enough to be adapted in other areas but it also helped muddy the waters and I think there are aspects of steampunk that you just cannot pare away or alter, without losing the underlying ideas behind what it is. And it’s important—for the people who are in the sub culture, for those who want in, for those who want to write in the genre or dress in the fashion to really get that. At the same time, because it’s very “trendy/popular” right now, I think a lot of new people are being introduced to it and finding it intriguing so they try to just sort of jump in without understanding it and then end up floundering around not really sure what to do once they get there.
But the more I thought about it—the more I explored what these two other things were—the more I realized that clockplunk and dieselpunk are really so different from the basic ideas behind steampunk that they really do need their own name. And that started me thinking about what steampunk really is and why people sometimes have a really hard time understanding it. Because I come across that a lot. People who are just like “I don’t get steampunk—I don’t get what it’s all about.”
In the past, we’ve had a lot of members who expressed difficulty with the concepts behind steampunk and understanding what it really is (not to mention those who seemed to think they had a grasp on it but where completely off track by, say, being completely convinced the Victorian era took place in the 1700s, for instance). And so I guess I decided it would be cool for us all to discuss it and talk about what we really think steampunk is as a subculture, as a genre, as a fashion and what that really means for WINGs. Maybe to identify the reasons people have trouble understanding steampunk and clear up some of the misconceptions and confusions behind it.
I’ll admit that some of the recent issues that have cropped up in the RP did also spur me on but this thread isn’t geared at any one currently in the guild. It’s not a “I told you so” or anything like that. It’s just a sharing of ideas. People are bound to disagree so I do want to put this up front:
If you do not think you can discuss politely with every member of the guild, don’t post. That means that no one is going to poke at any one else—don’t use examples from current members who you feel have ‘messed up’ steampunk and don’t call people elitest for wanting people to adhere to specific guidelines for steampunk. Don’t take things personally, don’t assume you’re being attacked. No one should be excluded from this discussion just because they do or do not think a certain way and no one needs anyone to be snide at them. At the same time, if someone tells you that you're wrong, don't overreact. People are allowed to tell you that you're wrong--but if you tell someone they're wrong, be prepared to back it up. All discussions include a level of debate. If you can't handle it without getting emotional, don't partake.
If you feel you’ve been snarked upon, put on your big kid pants and move on. Sometimes grownups snark at each other. It happens. And when it does, the universe manages to continue along without imploding in on itself, so relax. If people start fighting, I’ll simply delete the thread and we won’t get to have mature discussions about steampunk.
So what are my ideas on steampunk?
When I first got into the genre, I thought it was little more than little Victorian, a bit of modernization and that’s it. As I’ve grown into the style, the genre, the subculture, over the past few years, I’ve come to realize there’s really a lot more to it than just that. And one of the biggest mistakes I see people make with steampunk when trying to get into it is assuming from the get go, that ‘anything goes.’ I think the reason people get into this mindset is because, in a lot of ways, steampunk really is pretty versatile but the problem is that it a lot of ways, it’s also very rigid.
You can have a lot of different types of steampunk—fantasy steampunk, post apocalyptic steampunk, western steampunk. All of them have a slightly different look and feel but the core elements are the same. Everything else is just built up around that core.
And then you have things that have steampunk influences or inspiration but that you’d never outright call steampunk. Look at Final Fantasy—a lot of their airships look really steampunk but you’d never actually say the games are true steampunk. There aren’t enough of the core elements present to say more than it has some ‘steampunk influences.’ Just like some clothing may have a steampunk inspiration, but you need more than a few gears, a pocketwatch and a corset to have something that is truly steampunk.
Things got even more confusing, I think, with the rise of subgenres to steampunk (which is, itself, a subgenre of fantasy). Suddenly, we have clockpunk and dieselpunk, both of which were inspired by steampunk, but have grown into something completely different because they replaced some of the cornerstones of steampunk with their own foundations. So I guess that brings us back to the original question—what is steampunk, really, when you strip away everything down to its core values, concepts and ideas? I can tell you, at least, what it is to me—all based on my research and observations, of course.
To put it bluntly, steampunk really is hyper-industrialized, punked out, Victorian.
It hearkens back to the Victorian era (not just in clothing, but also in architecture and even, to a degree, values and etiquette) but it also has an air of modernization. It’s “punked out” into something that’s neither modern, nor Victorian, but a bit of both, and has a slight flair of science fiction/fantasy technology that blends old fashioned elegance with more modern sensibilities. If the punk element isn’t strong enough, you have pretty much straight Victoriana or Neo-Victorian but if the Victorian element isn’t strong enough, you usually get something more along the lines of dieselpunk or clockpunk.
Because, while steampunk truly is very versatile in many ways, you really do need to understand the era, the fashion, the values, before you can really get something that truly is in the correct genre. In my opinion, there is a huge difference in the look and feel of, say, a steampunk outfit made entirely of store bought, mass produced "steampunk" clothes, and an outfit pieced together by things custom made, hand made and designed by the owner. And that is what I think people have to realize. You can’t create steampunk—whether in writing or art, whether in fashion or anything else--without understanding where the roots are based. You can sometimes create replicas but they have a very plastic, false feel to them.
As for the "roots" of steampunk? Well, at least some of them are firmly placed in Victoriana-- stray too far away from that, you’re leaving behind one of the crucial elements that makes it what it is. For instance, if you place it in an earlier era, prior to Victorian, you get what we call clockpunk. Because this is a sub genre of steampunk, it does have certain similarities. It also is introducing industrialization and certain technologies into society far earlier than what really occurred—just like steampunk. But this time, the era with which we’re dealing is the Renaissance and periods surrounding it. Instead of the steam and clockwork you see in steampunk, the focus is just clockwork. It also takes heavy inspiration from the concepts and designs portrayed in Leonardo DaVinci’s work. It takes nothing from the ideals or fashions of the Victorian era and is somewhat more rugged and less elegant due to the more medieval overtones. It does blend modern and old fashioned but the look and feel is completely different.
And if you go post Victorian era—from about WWI onward, you get diesel punk. The entire look is more modern, the sensibilities are based on a punked out 1920-1950 era, a time when warfare was rampant. There is usually a heavy military influence and steam and clockwork don’t play as big a role as diesel fuel because the technological aspect has become too advanced. While there tends to be a slight fantasy/science fiction flair and the idea of hyper industrialization beyond what really occurred historically, in general, you lose entirely the sensibility, ideals and elegance of the Victorian era. It’s a similar concept in some ways but the end result is totally different.
But, regardless, I do think that one of the major contributing factors to the confusion about steampunk is the fact that people eventually did decide to apply the concept of “punking out” other eras to pre and post Victorian times, to create these two subgenres and others like them. Because the inspiration was initially steampunk, there is a slight overlap in ideas that blurs the line between what is what and a lot of people have never really encountered true steampunk because there are so many things out there related to, or inspired by steampunk. That’s why I’ve generally changed my thinking to accept these subgenres as valid and necessary to preserve the definition of steampunk because it’s impossible to carry over some of the core principles of steampunk into other time periods.
It’s great that some of the original ideas were versatile enough to be adapted in other areas but it also helped muddy the waters and I think there are aspects of steampunk that you just cannot pare away or alter, without losing the underlying ideas behind what it is. And it’s important—for the people who are in the sub culture, for those who want in, for those who want to write in the genre or dress in the fashion to really get that. At the same time, because it’s very “trendy/popular” right now, I think a lot of new people are being introduced to it and finding it intriguing so they try to just sort of jump in without understanding it and then end up floundering around not really sure what to do once they get there.
Chee
What is Steampunk?
A lot of people do not understand where the roots of Steampunk are. Steampunk is, in its essence, the reimagining of the Victorian era as if the discovery of electricity and crude oils never occurred. The focus is on a society that relies on steam and clockwork to create technology (modern and Victorian era). It also brings in a heavier focus on industrialisation and how the use of steam and clockwork would affect it.
It is supposed to be a mixture of the grit of industrialisation, the edginess of punk and the elegance and invention of the Victorian era. That is, essentially, the basis of Steampunk in a nut shell.
The difference between Steampunk and Victoriana
The line between Steampunk and Victoriana, for people new to the two cultures, is very blurry. However, Steampunk and Victoriana don’t tend to get along overly well. As I will go into more depth later, Victoriana is the recreation of the Victorian era, whereas Steampunk is a reimagining. Victoriana tends towards completely replicating the social niceties, as well as the clothing style. They also lack the inventions and reimagining of the Victorian era found in Steampunk.
A good example of the difficult line between Steampunk and Victoriana was a recent debate in the Steampunk community about etiquette. A woman at a gathering was offered a seat by a fellow, male Steampunk. The woman declined in a very heated fashion and later argued that we weren’t going back to a culture before women’s liberation. Others, however, stepped in to say that it was more a social nicety and courtesy than an affront to the woman. It led off into a heated debate as to where the manners and social niceties of Steampunk stopped and became Victoriana. The general consensus, in the end, was that strictly adhering to the etiquette of the era (being escorted, standing when a lady enters, etc.) were considered Victoriana, while simple manners – which should be adhered to in modern times, too – were accepted as Steampunk. This included offering another person a chair, or holding doors open for them.
So, then, the difference between the two is that Victoriana is far stricter in its recreation and rules, whereas Steampunk has that modern flexibility. But there is a definite dislike between the genres.
A lot of people do not understand where the roots of Steampunk are. Steampunk is, in its essence, the reimagining of the Victorian era as if the discovery of electricity and crude oils never occurred. The focus is on a society that relies on steam and clockwork to create technology (modern and Victorian era). It also brings in a heavier focus on industrialisation and how the use of steam and clockwork would affect it.
It is supposed to be a mixture of the grit of industrialisation, the edginess of punk and the elegance and invention of the Victorian era. That is, essentially, the basis of Steampunk in a nut shell.
The difference between Steampunk and Victoriana
The line between Steampunk and Victoriana, for people new to the two cultures, is very blurry. However, Steampunk and Victoriana don’t tend to get along overly well. As I will go into more depth later, Victoriana is the recreation of the Victorian era, whereas Steampunk is a reimagining. Victoriana tends towards completely replicating the social niceties, as well as the clothing style. They also lack the inventions and reimagining of the Victorian era found in Steampunk.
A good example of the difficult line between Steampunk and Victoriana was a recent debate in the Steampunk community about etiquette. A woman at a gathering was offered a seat by a fellow, male Steampunk. The woman declined in a very heated fashion and later argued that we weren’t going back to a culture before women’s liberation. Others, however, stepped in to say that it was more a social nicety and courtesy than an affront to the woman. It led off into a heated debate as to where the manners and social niceties of Steampunk stopped and became Victoriana. The general consensus, in the end, was that strictly adhering to the etiquette of the era (being escorted, standing when a lady enters, etc.) were considered Victoriana, while simple manners – which should be adhered to in modern times, too – were accepted as Steampunk. This included offering another person a chair, or holding doors open for them.
So, then, the difference between the two is that Victoriana is far stricter in its recreation and rules, whereas Steampunk has that modern flexibility. But there is a definite dislike between the genres.
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Back on the steampunk discussion--Chee knows that I spent like, all of yesterday, on various steampunk forums just browsing quotes and things to see if people are saying what I want to say, but better. I did find a lot of quotes to help substantiate some of the things I've said.
But I also did notice something that I felt might need clarification.
A lot of times you hear steampunks talking about "punking something out" and I realized that the "punk" in steampunk actually is the source of some contention and debate. Originally the name was coined as something of a joke against cyberpunk. The retro-futuristic, anachronistic Victorian...thing....that existed, didn't have its own name so someone suggested steampunk and it stuck.
A lot of people (it took a lot of reading to realize what this issue was--I had to honestly work through tons of posts of people being pissy about *something* but not stating what to finally figure out what this huge source of drama was and why people kept saying steampunk = rebellion) misunderstand the "punk" element and misconstrue it into something it was never meant to be. That is, the punk part of steampunk has nothing to do with Punk culture. Many people assume there is supposed to be something rebellious or anarchist about steampunk because they're making a connection with Punk culture when there never has been, nor was there ever meant to be a connection.
When people talk about "punking" something out, they're referring less to giving something Victorian, something that looks like it came out of punk culture and more about giving it the anachronistic element that differentiates it from true Victoriana. A lot of times this anachronistic element (in regards to clothes) will draw on some more modern fashion, giving it a sort of "cool" or "hip" look but it seems to me that emulating punk rock, punk ideologies, punk fashion, etc, is not really the goal (not that you can't--it's just, that isn't really what people mean in general).
Just another thought for discussion.
