Cyberpunk and the Techno-thriller

First, a quick recognition of where the idea for this post came from. The other day I had a conversation with someone about the USA network show Mr. Robot and how it was (or wasn’t) cyberpunk. I think it is very much a cyberpunk show, one of the few shows that can claim the title, in fact; but this someone called such labeling blasphemy. So, in part, this post is to discuss why I think Mr. Robot is cyberpunk and why calling it thus is neither sacrilegious to the show nor to cyberpunk in general. I was also inspired by a reading and signing I attended a few days ago. I got to see my literary idol, William Gibson, read from his new novel The Peripheral. (I’m linking to a review so as not to lead you to spoilers.) I love Gibson’s books for many, many reasons, and I was very happy to find out that he is just as astute and witty and quick in person as he seems from his prose. During the Q&A section of the reading, someone in the audience asked if Gibson thought cyberpunk was viable now, as it had already predicted today. Did it have a place in our consciousness and our culture or had it already run its course? (That’s my phrasing of the question, as the someone who said it was a bit more aggressive with his words.) Gibson’s reply was to discuss Ned Beauman and his latest novel, Glow, a book that seems to have taken cyberpunk and dragged it into the 21st century. (I want to talk more about cyberpunk and postcyberpunk, but that will have to be in another post.)

This question of whether cyberpunk is viable today inspired me to think about the difference between cyberpunk and the techno-thriller in earnest. What’s the difference? Why is Mr. Robot cyberpunk when CSI:Cyber isn’t? Though that question seems to have an easy answer, I think going through some of the details will really help us to understand what cyberpunk is, not so much in terms of the many manifestos that have created the genre and the academic work that has been done on it (my own included), but in terms of its weight in popular culture. This is going to be about the popular vision of cyberpunk as a thing we interact with for entertainment, not a treatise on cyberpunk as the important literary genre and movement that has led us into the 21st century. (If you want something on the more academic side of things, try reading a chapter or two from The Cybercultures Reader or Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” or Bruce Sterling’s Preface to Mirrorshades.)

So… cyberpunk? What is it? TV Tropes defines it here and Wikipedia discusses it here. Both sites agree about some aspects of the genre, though I think TV Tropes comes closer to listing what it really encompasses. To make things easier, let’s list the main ingredients of cyberpunk so we can see how it differentiates itself from the techno-thriller:

1. To begin with, cyberpunk deals with the future. That future may be tomorrow, it may be 20 years from now, or it may be a generation or two from now – but it won’t be centuries hence. What’s important is that cyberpunk speaks to the present time, even as it envisions the future. This isn’t a future that is trying to predict something; instead, it is a future that reveals what’s wrong with today. And that future doesn’t have to be in our timeline. As it lives in the speculative fiction section of the science fiction universe, cyberpunk can be a possible tomorrow, not just a potential one.

2. Cyberpunk is also dystopian. The futures it portrays are usually caught in some kind of downfall created by the commodification of culture and late capitalism. Life isn’t that great, at least not for the protagonists, and there is a big split between the haves and the have-nots. The dystopias within cyberpunk are usually based in some form of city noir. Most of the action will take place in the dirty, crime ridden streets of some megalopolis, though that doesn’t mean there isn’t some shining city on a hill somewhere else in that world. The haves get the nice places, while our protagonists have to deal with the rest.

3. The hero, or heroes, usually come from the lower rungs of society, or the outskirts. They tend to work against the big corporations in the overall plot scheme, though they also sometimes nominally work for those same companies in some way or another over the course of the story. These protagonists are whistleblowers, hackers, thieves, misfits, or madmen. They somehow don’t fit in to the “perfect” world the rich and mighty are trying to sell to the masses. This is where the punk part of cyberpunk comes from. Cyberpunk’s grittiness, its ‘realism’ and rawness, comes from these punk roots.

4. Cyberpunk is very much about technology, though in most cases that technology is neither good nor bad. The tech therefore takes on certain attributes depending on who is using it and what they are using it for. You can have evil malware or AIs who have a part in trying to destroy humanity, but those same AIs or malware can be used by hackers to try and save humanity. Above all, however, the protagonists must use technology in some way to try and overthrow their dystopia. And the technology needs to feel real, even if it hasn’t been invented yet, since cyberpunk’s target audience wants to know how all of this works.

5. The outcome of these narratives tend to be very ambivalent. Many cyberpunk stories end with few major changes in society. They can become nihilistic in some circumstances, though there may be a few small gains over the course of the story. Society is never fully put right, and if the hero does get some kind of happy ending, it’s probably not going to last, nor change the world in the long run.

6. Cyberpunk plots are usually based on detective fiction, especially the settings, plot structures, and characters of film noir detective narratives. Cyberpunk therefore tends to have convoluted plot lines, heists, multiple locations or settings, and an emphasis on dramatic tension and emotionally heavy backstories for even the smallest characters.

But how is this different from the techno-thriller? First, the techno-thriller usually takes place in the present, so it can keep its target audience from getting too lost. While it deals with science and tech, the techno-thriller is not actually science fiction, so it expects something different from its readers or viewers – the future would take too much explaining. The techno-thriller therefore doesn’t get into many of the technical details of its technology, as its audience is usually not all that knowledgeable about that kind of thing. These stories also have smaller stakes: this isn’t about changing the world or overthrowing a conglomerate; instead, it’s about clearing somebody’s name or winning a trial or solving a crime. The heroes in these narratives don’t have to be very punk, either. They tend to be normal, middle class citizens, not hackers. People who are out to right a wrong, yes, but also people who have fallen from some height (like their middle class lives) and are trying to get back to where they were. And, usually, they find some kind of resolution at the end of their stories (mostly because they aren’t actually trying to save the world).

A good example to explain all this is the difference between two mediocre films (that I also happen to love) that came out around the same time: Hackers (1995) and Sneakers (1992). Hackers is a cyberpunk film, while Sneakers is a techno-thriller. Hackers tries for a punk aesthetic, and though it does not take place very far into the future, the use of the Internet in the movie goes beyond what most of the general public could do at the time, which gave it a futuristic feel. And while the film seems watered down compared to, say, Blade Runner (the quintessential cyberpunk movie) or The Matrix, it still ticks enough of the boxes to count as cyberpunk. The eponymous hackers are misfits who fight an evil corporation, and though they win in the end, that doesn’t change the status quo – it just lets a boy and a girl make out in a roof top pool. (Yes, I know I’m stretching this a bit, but not all the requirements have to be fulfilled perfectly). Sneakers, on the other hand, has many of the hallmarks of a cyberpunk film (tech, evil corporation, convoluted plot, anti-capitalistic characters), but it has no punk aesthetic – it’s mostly a bunch of middle aged, middle class guys who happen to be really good at tech stuff. And that automatically disqualifies the movie from being cyberpunk. The same goes for films like The Net or the more recent Blackhat. You can’t have cyberpunk without the punk. It’s like trying to argue that Fight Club is a cyberpunk movie: it’s definitely a punk film, but it has nothing cyber in it, hence it’s not cyberpunk. (I know it’s more complicated than that, but you get the point.)

So, to finish… is Mr. Robot cyberpunk? Yes! 1. It takes place in a very close tomorrow. I don’t want to include spoilers here, but the last few episodes show us the difference between their world and ours. 2. Evil Corp runs the show and has fingers in all sorts of pies, which automatically puts the show in a late capitalistic dystopia. 3. Elliot is about as mad a misfit as you can get, as well as being a hacker. His life in New York also gives the show its punk aesthetic, down to the drug use and random acts of violence. 4. There is a ton a tech in here, and it all feels very real. 5. The show isn’t over, but nihilism seems like a good word to use at this point. 6. Each episode is a mini-caper, leading us down the road to the end of the world as we know it – and by the end, I doubt any of us will feel fine.