I had high hopes for steampunk. By combining the technological with the hand-crafted, it might have carved a path into a pleasant future. It circled back into the Victorian era but even that was forgiveable. Sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward. Steampunk, I thought, just needs to mature. But, like all high hopes, mine are proving to be wrong.
As evidenced by this phone, it’s just a cumbersome and ridiculous affectation. It’s an aesthetic done by rote. A geekish dogma. It serves no purpose other than to make something “steampunk.” It’s aesthetic does not emerge organically from the logic of its function. Instead it’s just pasted on top of something else. It’s just copper bullshit.
When I look at the phone, I cannot think of a single way that all that effort has improved the device. It’s made it heavier, larger and clunkier. The thing is not better. The phone has just become a weapon in identity politics, an assertion of tribal loyalty to the cost of function. “I’m a steampunk,” it screams. “Pity me!”
Beauty always emerges from function. A bird’s plumage or the shape of tiger is striking because it is efficient. This phone is an ugly contraption and too crude a flag to wave. And this is what steampunk has become.
These problems were once forgiveable as growing pains. But steampunk has had time to grow. Now it’s like a twenty year old with the mind of a two year old. Its retardation is cause for concern.
2 comments
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Nadia Lewis says:
August 26, 2009 at 2:08 am (UTC -5 )
It’s only ugly in this world. The technology just isn’t relevant here in this universe and there’s no amount of retconning that will make it useful.
Leave steampunk in videogames and anime, cyberpunk to books and movies, I say. Oh! I also say to play Arcanum, a videogame with globs of steampunk charm. And read the accompanying manual — it’s freaking adorable.
Ratpick says:
August 26, 2009 at 10:37 am (UTC -5 )
Geekish dogma indeed.
Steampunk has never truly progressed beyond what I’d call cake decorating. Making a MacIntosh look like it’s made of riveted iron with clunky switchgear and frilly labelling is just as tedious as building North York condo towers with Chrysler-Building-knockoff sheet metal and spires.
It would be more interesting if Steampunks were throwing themselves off bluffs on wonky, birdlike flying machines.
Ryan Oakley says:
August 25, 2009 at 1:48 pm (UTC -5 )
Steampunk Phone: Steampunk is Dead http://bit.ly/5UrLQ