[tangenter]

So much of this space has been collapsed into homogenized entertainment. Nowadays, by the time a child is ten years old they have seen every form of the hero’s journey in the cartoons they watch, to the degree where there are tropes and nods to source material or even sometimes derivatives of source. Sci fi, fantasy and other genres are blended in as hooks because cartoons have to keep viewership and eye balls, so they throw everything they can find at it.

As a result, unfortunately, there is very little “new” material. The old material that took centuries to develop and longer has been flattened and duplicated, over and over again. I sound like a curmudgeon (I probably am), but I stopped watching movies entirely not too long ago because it became a farce of seeing cliche writing. Shows are even worse so as to not even warrant discussing.

[PurpleRamen]

Cyberpunk specifically has also been outdated fast by real world developments, and other genres emerging with similar topics, but different design(?)-language. The whole cyberspace-element for example kinda died (or evolved) with the rise of the real internet, the Matrix-Movies and recently with stuff like VRMMO-stories from asia.

The overall concepts and elements are still around in some way, but the specific combination and language that makes cyberpunk are gone. At the end I would say they were a result of their time, and time has changed, so not it's just nostalgia and retro.

[simplicio]

I always find it kind of funny that after Cyberpunk was coined "X-punk" (steam-punk, diseal-punk, etc) became a construction to denote a particular type of "retro-future", sci-fi as imagined from a past time period.

This wasn't initially true of the word cyberpunk, but over the intervening years its become true, as cyberpunk has more and more denoted the future specifically as seen from the perspective of the 1980s and early 90's. Its become "retro-actively retro".

[tetris11]

I'd go the other way and say Cyberpunk was meant to be capitalism taken to its logical extreme (unregulated industries rife with corruption, with markets/regimes perturbed only through acts of violence and espionage).

As life begins to imitate art, we're met with a The Thick Of It type situation where the satire of reality is no longer applicable and would be further diminished by continuing it

> "Time and again, The Thick of It led and reality fell in behind."

[toyg]

Yeah, the issues of political critique that were key to early cyberpunk have largely been lost. It's partially the fault of the first Blade Runner movie, which exploded the genre while also sanitizing it of the harshest elements.

[butlike]

I'm intrigued. What's some good unsanitary cyberpunk that predates Blade Runner? I'm new to the genre.

[pennomi]

It feels like the last remaining promise of cyberpunk is widespread cybernetic augmentation. The rest of the genre is not really fiction anymore.

[fooqux]

I got a flier in the mail last week, offering a subscription service for ambulance rides. It was the most cyberpunk thing I'd seen personally.

[everyone]

The most Cyberpunk thing imo is the bird's nests made using fibre optic cable from Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/bird-nest...

[fluoridation]

It's not really any more cyberpunk than, say, a crow collecting expended ammo casings because they're shiny. Just involving electronics technology doesn't make something cyberpunk.

[cgannett]

Disagree, corvids collecting bullet casings because they are shiny is heavily Shadowrun/WoD/Hellboy coded aesthetically. Regular birds gathering fiber optic cables for nests is EXTREMELY CYBERPUNK are you kidding? The image evokes so much: capitalist excess, tech waste involving computers/internet/cybernetics, war bad, environmental degredation etc... the only part about this concept that isnt heavily cyberpunk is that the bird isn't sick, dying, or dead and is somehow happy to find such a workable and durable nest building material.

[loudmax]

Incidentally, here's a recent article about how the economics of ambulances are broken in the US: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-american-ambulance-rides-are

If municipal emergency services in yout area don't cover ambulance rides, that subscription service might not be a bad idea.

[PurpleRamen]

We do have some degree of it, but it's more on the realistic side of performance. The remaining body has to handle them after all, so it's hard to enhance performance beyond human limits for real. Maybe with some more decades of development.

But we've also learned that we don't need to change the body itself, when we can just enhance the tools we use. Smartphones are already seen as some sort of half-step towards humans becoming cyborgs. Similar have we now Exoskeletons, which are probably more practical than replacing a full limb.

[ajmurmann]

NIMBYs have managed to "safe" us from the architecture.

[jdw64]

When society is affluent enough, people say it will become corrupt and fall apart. But when society has truly deteriorated, stories of heroes come to mind. If you look back at the era when cyberpunk social critiques emerged, the world that led that movement was wealthy, with a thick middle class. But when society starts to become poorer, those kinds of stories become stressful for the public. When you have room to breathe, such macro-level critiques serve as a 'healthy amount of stress' for survival. But when survival itself is at stake, it becomes much harder to be tolerant of criticism.

That's why the countries where cyberpunk flourished were wealthy ones

[api]

I’ve toyed around with this hypothesis about dark music and edgy culture.

The roaring 90s were full of this: dark music exploring critical themes or things like depression and addiction, lots of social criticism, and edgy offensive humor. The mid to late 90s were an economic boom time for a broader segment of people and were optimistic in a way that’s hard to explain today.

I like to put it this way: it’s not that things were all better in the 90s. They weren’t. But people thought they were getting better.

Now people don’t want those things. They want light entertainment, either no criticism (the right) or only approved types via approved critical theories (the left), and offensive edgy stuff is out and may get you cancelled (which side cancels you depends on the content).

[jdw64]

It seems like we think alike. I feel like the dark and critical themes of the 90s were ahead of their time back then. A lot of what they predicted actually turned out to be accurate. The cultural media of the 90s said things like 'this is what will happen if wealth becomes concentrated or corporations take over'—and it's actually playing out in a similar way.

But as our society has become more stratified by wealth and the vast majority have become poorer, people no longer have the mental space to think deeply. They've come to love clear, simple answers. I interpret this as the world becoming too excessive. Because there's so much information that it's hard to even find meaningful content. Critical interpretation has also become difficult. Just look at AI. It's different today and different tomorrow, and for freelancers like me, it's like we have to deliver immediately.

There's material poverty, but I think mental poverty is more due to the pervasive FOMO, the fear of falling behind in the flood of information

As you said, it's 'only approved types via approved critical theories.' As people lose their margin for error, they also lose the capacity to consider others' perspectives.

I think you explained it better than I did.

[butlike]

You're right. I just got a 3 day ban on reddit for a dark (not explicitly dark) joke. People don't want to look at shadows nowadays.

[whilenot-dev]

I meant to write quite a long response to your comment, but let me just bring it down to a single question: How is your feeling different from melancholia?

There is and always will be mainstream, niche, the unknown and everything in between. There was always very little new material and a lot of works just gained recognition when their zeitgeist was long overdue, too. I think experimentation is hard, and it's even harder to justify experimentation in the evolving economic climate.

Genres are meant to be collapsed, or rather they should blend and dissolve into each other. The earlier (and good) seasons of The Simpsons are a poster child when it comes to "flattening and duplicating old material". Almost every episode cites a movie or work of literature, and there was nothing wrong with it! It's part of why I understand the 90s as a cultural era of citations, and I had to grow up with that sentiment. It took me quite some time to understand that we moved past it.

Nowadays, we are fortunate enough that a lot of things from the past 10 decades have been digitized and are readily available on demand. That's amazing! Nothing is stopping me from asking myself some naive questions, like "What makes a good drama?" or "If Die Hard is considered to be a Christmas movie, why isn't Falling Down considered to be a summer movie?". I think there is still stuff to explore.

I'll just leave this unfinished thought with a recommendation to a niche movie I discovered recently: Sleep Has Her House (2017)[0]

[0]: https://scottbarley.com/Sleep-Has-Her-House

[ChoGGi]

Thanks for that recommendation. That looks just up my alley.

You may wish to give On the Silver Globe a watch.

[ozgur44]

imo a good contradiction makes for a good stroy if you know what i mean

[api]

I don’t watch many movies due to time but those I do watch tend to be odd, unusual, experimental, and sometimes polarizing.

A recent one I enjoyed was Rabbit Trap, a modern take on faerie lore. It was polarizing and got poor reviews.

Years ago I adored a two season series called Hellier. I have a hard time describing this. Ghost hunting show for thinking people? You have to suspend disbelief but it reminded me of Primer in terms of a lot achieved on little budget. If you want to see some hipsters try to use transcranial magnetic stimulation to talk to aliens this is for you.

I’ve enjoyed some horror for its tendency to subvert tropes: hero to villain, villain is really hero, everybody dies, etc.

But yeah. I can only watch blockbusters if I’m in a certain kind of mood where I want light entertainment with no thought.

[kraf]

I've noticed this as well and I'm rather concerned about it. Those cheap rip offs will ruin countless classics for her and it's really sad. I'm looking for the most boring stuff for her to watch just so she doesn't become fully jaded by age 18.

Side note: if you need new stories, I've found a lot of weird and fun stuff to read on Royal Road.

[gverrilla]

I abandoned movies too, 5 years ago or so. There's little space for "art" (whatever that might be) when you need to invest giant sums and expect a return. There's still some good movies coming out, I'm sure. But I don't have the time or energy anymore to dig for it like I did in the past.

[soneca]

I think you are right for movies and TV shows, but not for "comics, manga and graphic novels" and I'll add books as well. Since those are much cheaper and easier to produce than TV shows and movies, they can be created independently, without the need to optimize for earning tons of money. Indie literature and comics are very diverse in the storytelling.

But I acknowledged (and dread a bit) that the audiovisual storytelling is such a strong force that any discussion about storytelling, even when specifically talking about literature/comics storytelling, is dominated by audiovisual references. Any creative writing workshop/course that include sci fi and fantasy genres will inevitably mention Star Wars as example for whichever technique. The more literary ones will mention some Oscar winning movie, etc.

[toofy]

it’s been this way forever. the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00, etc… all had generic trash movies and music too.

stop getting recs from algorithms and the entire world will open back up to you. just like top40 music and generic movies from back in the day, you’re getting the lowest common denominator recs.

i read a book about the music industry in the 80s (it’s been a couple years and i can’t remember the name now) but people called the top40 music from back then formulaic. they were convinced record labels had formulas to make their pop music stars. what do you think algorithms are? they’re feeding you trash.

again, stop getting your recommendations from algorithms and the world will open back up. get your recs from actual film or music geeks. go to your local record store, look at their wall of employee recs, or *gasp* talk to them and ask them.

[jijijijij]

Yes, and it's always been hot in summer!

> go to your local record store, look at their wall of employee recs, or gasp talk to them and ask them.

What local record store?

What local cinema?

What local bookshop?

Congrats, if you're resistant to addictive algorithms and same-day delivery convenience, but it's ignorant to deny the new baseline.

[Apocryphon]

Indie bookshops have had a revival in the past decade, it's big box book retailers who are in trouble.

https://apnews.com/article/independent-bookstores-expanding-...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/19/independent...

[toyg]

I understand your point, but it's slightly exaggerated. At least in Europe, any decently-sized city will have at least one of any of those. Not as many as there used to be, sure, but at least one.

[jijijijij]

I live in a big city. There are a few record stores, but if we're being honest, let's also not exaggerate by calling them my local store. And if I would opt for the journey, it's not like I would find this cool group of music nerds sharing secret gems. Vinyl is an expensive hobby and everything else is digital now. It's not like every niche artist got the means to press vinyl and the presumed cozy record store will hardly point you to bandcamp. Bit silly to pretend it's anything like it used to be in "your local record store".

At least in Germany, book shops and (small) cinemas are artificially kept alive through regulations (e.g. Buchpreisbindung) and public funding. Theaters got that too, techno clubs not so much. Lucky are the ones who still got a nice deal on rent, because without a solid revenue, your new whatever local scene experiment won't be in the city. Then recently, conservative politicians also decided to attach ideological strings to the funding. What's a good book shop and what's a bad book shop gets intransparently decided by the domestic intelligence service now. The stories our times need will get you demonetized. As we speak, lobbyists are relentlessly trying to push the compliance machinery onto our devices, so we're not tempted by anything outside of commercial supervision either.

It's all converging towards the brave new mainstream. Pretending like all these trends are just fads is wilful ignorance. Media attention may come and go, but the insects remain dead, temperatures unprecedented and art compliant.

We are hardly in need of cyberpunk fiction anymore, tho.

[korse]

I dunno, I've mostly lived in urban areas but I've always had record shops near to where I live. Sure, there are far less than there used to be, but the ones that made the cut appear to be on solid footing.

[tayo42]

Im in a US suburb and have a few places to buy records, books and to go to a movie. I don't think it's so unusual

[GuinansEyebrows]

i think (safe guess) a plurality of hn users live in cities with most or all of these types of businesses. unless you're somewhere very rural, exurban or suburban, you owe it to yourself to at least try to find these places (and even if you are, you might be surprised at what's nearby).

[rawTruthHurts]

It's been never at this pace, nor in this quantity.

[nightfly]

But it's always been at a faster pace and a higher quantity than whatever decade preceded it

[Animats]

> they have seen every form of the hero’s journey

Popular culture fiction is usually more like Pixar's "Structure stories with: Once upon a time… Every day… One day… Because of that… Until finally…". Real biographies are almost never like that. But almost the entire Marvel/Pixar/Lucasfilm output is about the Chosen One. None of the main characters work their way up.

[JimsonYang]

Unfortunately that's how the system is. New material is risky and hollywood is not performing well financially

At least we have houses like A24 which brings interesting content

[toofy]

a24 was great, they’ve definitely slipped though. as soon as they won their first oscar they’ve been chasing money rather than quality.

their old catalog though, incredible. i’d say like 80+ percent of the movies they released were fucking amazing. but that has fallen dramatically.

neon is still going strong though!

[ElenaDaibunny]

a24 style really hits

[butlike]

Just don't get bored with life. If they live long enough, the wise man sees trends; the ebbs and flows of the zeitgeist.

[dragontamer]

Yeah, back in my day there were Elves, not Vulcans. There were Orcs , not Klingons.

[left-struck]

While there’s a lot of slop out there that just exist to extract dollars, there are still some great movies being made every now and then. Don’t expect them to be the most popular high budget movies, you have to dig a little. The idea that there’s nothing new that’s worth watching though is clearly wrong and a typical bias that basically every person has to fight against as they age. You might even say it’s a cliche to think all new media is junk.

[navigate8310]

Might as well provide a method for good discoveries, as the current channels are extremely lifeless

[pjc50]

The answer is high effort: find a group of people who share your taste.

[Cthulhu_]

And yet. The other day I saw Dune described as this generation's LotR, which was that generation's Star Wars. Dune (and LotR, and SW) are all Hero's Journey stories (what isn't?), yet they're each pretty unique.

Granted, LotR and Dune were written in the 50's and 60's, respectively, with Star Wars following a decade later.

All I'm saying is that what is new depends on what generation you grow up in. And I suppose how much media you're exposed to. Speaking for myself, LotR was the second film I ever saw in the cinema so it was a whole new experience.

For the younger generations, these are old films, much like how idk, Spartacus and co was an old film for me.

tl;dr, the kids will be alright. Actually the kids also appreciate older media, there's a whole generation of late teenagers now rediscovering 2000's music / culture.

[api]

Dune isn’t a straight hero’s journey because Paul isn’t a hero, or at least is a tragic one. He’s not Luke Skywalker or Frodo.

[the_af]

I'd also argue in LotR only Frodo has an archetypal Hero's Journey, but the novel itself is almost (but not quite) an ensemble piece with many other important characters that are not necessarily embarked on a steretypical Hero's Journey (Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli, Merry & Pippin, Gandalf).

[the_af]

Sidestepping the Hero's Journey for a second (which Dune actually subverts, one of its key points being that heroes are bad for mankind), Villeneuve's Dune is nowhere near a massive pop culture phenomenon of its time like Star Wars and LotR were of theirs, respectively.