Does cyberpunk have to be dystopian or can it be antiutopian?

>>9477154
literally who gives a fuck

>>9477154
these are synonyms

also cyberpunk can be neutral. But it can't be utopian

>>9477154

How are these not the same? Besides, if it's punk, it implies low life: there is futurism (the contemporary trend and not the italian movement) for everything else that does not imply low life.

That said, it doesn't have to be all out dystopian, but cyberpunk must invariably point out the problematic aspects that remain, or even arise out of, high tech.

>>9477282
No, not really. Antiutopia is a society that seems like a utopia on the surface but actually usually turns that it controls the minds of its subjects somehow or manipulates them. Kind of like Orwell or Huxley where most people will be actually happy to some degree but when the characters are confronted with information about what life could be they see how it really is. On the other hand dystopia is just one a society has degenerated, the governement is week, corporations gain too much power, people are dying on the streets etc.

Both want to show a society which is bad, but one is more controlled and one is more chaotic.
>>9477202
Me for one, and a lot of people that claimed a certain work wasn't cyberpunk because it featured a dystopian and not antiutopian society.

>>9477344
You say what Orwell and Huxley wrote were antiutopian? Because that would clarify a lot, and would even change wikipedia failed attempt at explaining the situation with cyberprep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives#Cyberprep

>>9477344

In light of your explanation it would seem to me all cyberpunk is dystopian.

One's antiutopia might as well be utopia in the eyes of some. The alphas remain in favor of the status quo even though they are able to "think freely" in Huxley for example, and the dissidents know they are not to be killed but rather banished to go their own way in their "problematic" non-conformist island.

Cyberpunk however usually implies no sugarcoating of suffering: the punk part has to be all out.

>>9478537
>Cyberpunk however usually implies no sugarcoating of suffering: the punk part has to be all out.
This is why I take cyberpunk anytime

>>9478537
I'm just wondering then, did all stories by Gibson or cyberpunk authors feature dystopian societies? Or were some of them antiutopian?

>>9478790
I haven't read all of Gibsons work but the post jackpot world in The Peripheral could be seen as antiutopian.

>>9478814
*post-jackpot