I think I’ve said this before, but if Cyberpunk as a genre was just getting started now it would be about China instead and would be even more racist. Like the role of Japanese corporations in Cyberpunk was largely anxiety over Japan’s tech industry competing with American industry and nativist fears that they’d turn around and dominate the US instead of remaining a client state, but it also had a fair bit of fetishism and was taking inspiration from Japanese Cyberpunk media as well.
If it were just now forming it would be nothing but frothing hatred and fear of China becoming a hegemon on par with what the US has been, and probably made up of like 90% weird bullshit redditors have memed themselves into believing.
Mainstream cyberpunkerinos are what aging white boomers see/saw as the scary future: the Japanese are seen as taking over, and all that.
I think I’ve said this before, but if Cyberpunk as a genre was just getting started now it would be about China instead and would be even more racist. Like the role of Japanese corporations in Cyberpunk was largely anxiety over Japan’s tech industry competing with American industry and nativist fears that they’d turn around and dominate the US instead of remaining a client state, but it also had a fair bit of fetishism and was taking inspiration from Japanese Cyberpunk media as well.
If it were just now forming it would be nothing but frothing hatred and fear of China becoming a hegemon on par with what the US has been, and probably made up of like 90% weird bullshit redditors have memed themselves into believing.
Cyberpunk always had a techno-orientalist problem. There’s a reason why 99% of “real-life cyberpunk city” is just some city in east or southeast Asia.