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contxt_lounge2018-07-30 08:24 pm
cinco) wrote in contxt_lounge2018-07-30 08:24 pm
Panel Notes from Fuck This Grim Cyberpunk Dystopia, Bring me Luxury Queer Space Communism!
Mods: @v_grayson and @cincodemaygirl (the t shirt cinco and Rosemary wore is available here)
The agenda:
This is a media con; we want to talk about media
We will go over the 101 concepts and then talk about some of this stuff in fiction
The concepts:
Grimdark: co-opting struggle for ~the Aesthetic~
Cyberpunk dystopia: hyper connected, hyper surveillance
Hopepunk: - DIY, "Look for the helpers," resistance, "kindness is a political act," found families
Fully automated etc etc: it's a meme, it's not 100% serious. Kind of in that semi-ironic, semi-sincere late millennial humor vein. “I can haz chzburgr” is not veterinary nutritional advice. But it has an actual desire at its core
Fully automated - I for one welcome our new robot overlords!
Luxury - for all. Things that are necessities now were once luxuries.
Communism - sux in the execution. But super hardcore capitalism isn't doing great for a lot of people.
In Space - a fresh start
Now make it queer!!!
Why is this worth doing /now/?
Weaknesses:
Has its origins in a British political movement, Western perspective
Not necessarily super intersectional, especially with regard to race
“The future is here, but it's just not evenly distributed” - William Gibson h/t zvi
Questions for the audience:
- In the words of The Good Place podcast, what's good? what works sustain you? (What things are giving you hope and motivation?)
- What works present aspects of a future that you want to work toward?
Questions from the audience (sorry, our notes were...incomplete):
- Humans as space orcs
- Why does space also include death/slaughter
- Ableism
- Maybe the rich people will go to space and we stay here and be awesome?
- Solarpunk (which we think fits into hopepunk)
Background reading:
- Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism from Know Your Meme (helpful 8-minute YouTube video from Aaron Bastani is linked in the article)
- "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism": Has the time finally come for Universal Basic Income? from Paste Magazine.
- Fully Automated Luxury Communism from The Guardian. Good overview article of the phrase's beginnings in real political movements.
- Tumblr gifset and transcription from a speech given by Scott Benson
- GRIMDARK from TV Tropes
- Tumblr post with poster images and a comment: “Optimism is not always dumb. Pessimism is not always deep.”
- Ariaste's post on hopepunk on Tumblr
- Why isn’t cyberpunk better at trans representation? from The Daily Dot
- The Decolonize Mars org has resources and reading
Brainstorming media sources time!
Grimdark/dystopia:
Relies on -isms, violence (also sexual violence), dark aesthetic (often visually bad to watch b/c light levels are too low), serious, "suffering tourism"
Dystopia is often shallow, not even as bad as reality (the “current” dystopian problems have been happening for people of color for a long time)
No more white man pain!!!
It's only a dystopia when white men are suffering
Batman is the quintessential example
Game of Thrones
Westworld
The 100
Sometimes there's a middle ground between grimdark and hopepunk, ymmv:
Killjoys
Imperial Radch
Hopepunk: the opposite of grimdark
Thor Ragnarok
Mad Max Fury Road
My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
Tank Girl
Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer
New Star Wars?
The Holographic Principle-Epica
Saga (comic, TBD, not yet complete)
The True Meaning of Smekday
Medium.com article on Star Trek's economy
Studies on univeral basic income
Solarpunk! Lots of Tumblrs. Start with solarpunkprincess
- Sun Vault anthology
- Story "Water Into Wine" by Joyce Chng
Search Google or AO3 for "commune" or other types of co-housing for intentional communities
"A Day in the Life of Everything" KS
Hvellur (Icelandic documentary)
Octavia Butler's Dawn series
Yuri on Ice as a hopepunk AU of actual Russia/skating
Afrofuturism has been dealing with these issues for a long time - see the resources from zvi’s panel
Mars Evacuees (book?)
Space Opera (book)
Star Trek
Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Ohlone Way (book)
In Another Land (book)
Leverage
Discworld
Your mods were very tired, so please comment with anything we forgot and your recs for any other media that sustains you during these grimdark times!
The agenda:
This is a media con; we want to talk about media
We will go over the 101 concepts and then talk about some of this stuff in fiction
The concepts:
Grimdark: co-opting struggle for ~the Aesthetic~
Cyberpunk dystopia: hyper connected, hyper surveillance
Hopepunk: - DIY, "Look for the helpers," resistance, "kindness is a political act," found families
Fully automated etc etc: it's a meme, it's not 100% serious. Kind of in that semi-ironic, semi-sincere late millennial humor vein. “I can haz chzburgr” is not veterinary nutritional advice. But it has an actual desire at its core
Fully automated - I for one welcome our new robot overlords!
Luxury - for all. Things that are necessities now were once luxuries.
Communism - sux in the execution. But super hardcore capitalism isn't doing great for a lot of people.
In Space - a fresh start
Now make it queer!!!
Why is this worth doing /now/?
Weaknesses:
Has its origins in a British political movement, Western perspective
Not necessarily super intersectional, especially with regard to race
“The future is here, but it's just not evenly distributed” - William Gibson h/t zvi
Questions for the audience:
- In the words of The Good Place podcast, what's good? what works sustain you? (What things are giving you hope and motivation?)
- What works present aspects of a future that you want to work toward?
Questions from the audience (sorry, our notes were...incomplete):
- Humans as space orcs
- Why does space also include death/slaughter
- Ableism
- Maybe the rich people will go to space and we stay here and be awesome?
- Solarpunk (which we think fits into hopepunk)
Background reading:
- Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism from Know Your Meme (helpful 8-minute YouTube video from Aaron Bastani is linked in the article)
- "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism": Has the time finally come for Universal Basic Income? from Paste Magazine.
- Fully Automated Luxury Communism from The Guardian. Good overview article of the phrase's beginnings in real political movements.
- Tumblr gifset and transcription from a speech given by Scott Benson
- GRIMDARK from TV Tropes
- Tumblr post with poster images and a comment: “Optimism is not always dumb. Pessimism is not always deep.”
- Ariaste's post on hopepunk on Tumblr
- Why isn’t cyberpunk better at trans representation? from The Daily Dot
- The Decolonize Mars org has resources and reading
Brainstorming media sources time!
Grimdark/dystopia:
Relies on -isms, violence (also sexual violence), dark aesthetic (often visually bad to watch b/c light levels are too low), serious, "suffering tourism"
Dystopia is often shallow, not even as bad as reality (the “current” dystopian problems have been happening for people of color for a long time)
No more white man pain!!!
It's only a dystopia when white men are suffering
Batman is the quintessential example
Game of Thrones
Westworld
The 100
Sometimes there's a middle ground between grimdark and hopepunk, ymmv:
Killjoys
Imperial Radch
Hopepunk: the opposite of grimdark
Thor Ragnarok
Mad Max Fury Road
My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
Tank Girl
Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer
New Star Wars?
The Holographic Principle-Epica
Saga (comic, TBD, not yet complete)
The True Meaning of Smekday
Medium.com article on Star Trek's economy
Studies on univeral basic income
Solarpunk! Lots of Tumblrs. Start with solarpunkprincess
- Sun Vault anthology
- Story "Water Into Wine" by Joyce Chng
Search Google or AO3 for "commune" or other types of co-housing for intentional communities
"A Day in the Life of Everything" KS
Hvellur (Icelandic documentary)
Octavia Butler's Dawn series
Yuri on Ice as a hopepunk AU of actual Russia/skating
Afrofuturism has been dealing with these issues for a long time - see the resources from zvi’s panel
Mars Evacuees (book?)
Space Opera (book)
Star Trek
Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Ohlone Way (book)
In Another Land (book)
Leverage
Discworld
Your mods were very tired, so please comment with anything we forgot and your recs for any other media that sustains you during these grimdark times!
no subject
And another Le Guin piece: https://electricliterature.com/ursula-k-le-guin-explains-how-to-build-a-new-kind-of-utopia-15c7b07e95fc