"Kids asking for instructions on how to be punk about sums up the problem, doesn't it?"- a random, and correct, Tumblr user
So you have discovered cyberpunk. It looks pretty cool. You want in. Or maybe you don't even know what's going on yet, but you're interested. You want to know more.
Congrats. Curiosity is very cyberpunk.
"Cyberpunk" means different things to different people. I'm sure someone out there will read this and say "No way! Not even close! You're a middle-aged librarian who raises chickens in her backyard; the hell could you possibly know about cyberpunk?!"
All these are fair (and true) criticisms. I can't tell you how you understand or relate to cyberpunk. (It would be extremely Not Punk of me to try.)
What I can do is break down some basics, as I see them. The rest is up to you.
Look at you, starting with the hard questions. Cutting to the chase is also very cyberpunk.
The shortest-and-sweetest defintion out there currently is "Cyberpunk = high tech, low life." Cyberpunk (the media, the philosophy, the aesthetic) deals with what happens when technology seeps into so much of our lives it becomes inescapable. How do we stay human in that situation? Do we use tech to indulge the dark parts of our natures, or do we fight back - reclaiming some tiny scrap of being human in the middle of it all?
Stephen Lea Sheppard has a description of cyberpunk I like very much:
Transhumanism is about how technology will eventually help us overcome the problems that have, up until now, been endemic to human nature. Cyberpunk is about how technology won’t.
Sounds bleak, right? We created all this technology to live in some kind of future utopia, only to discover we're the problem. We are the reason we can't have nice things.
But this view also gives me hope. It means that, if there's something in us that technology can't help us "overcome," then that thing is also something technology can't take from us. Technology (or, more specifically, the people using it) can't take control of our pettiness, or self-interest - or our kindness or willingness to help other humans, even when there's nothing in it for us.
In other words, no matter how high-tech the world gets, there's something in us that all the technology in the world can't touch. That thing belongs to us. It's human, and it's ours.
Getting and staying in touch with that thing is the core of what "cyberpunk" means to me.
For plenty of well-thought-out alternate takes, I recommend the "What is Cyberpunk?" thread at Cyberpunk Forums:
I'm not going to try to summarize them all here, or this article will turn into a book (and probably get very dry and academic. no one wants that).
Besides, the goal here isn't to make you a Professor of Cyberpunk. It's to get you in touch with what "cyberpunk" means to you. For that, the most important thing to keep in mind is that despite all the tech involved, cyberpunk is actually about what it means to be human.
Yes.
Not to send you back to the Cyberpunk Forum right away, but the forum organizes the cyberpunk universe in a three-part way I think works very well:
As might be obvious by how I defined "cyberpunk" above, I am very interested in the "subversion" part.
Like other punks, the beauty of cyberpunk is that we adapt it as we live with it. Running out to buy a leather trenchcoat and a pair of mirrorshades won't "make you cyberpunk" - but if that coat and shades fit like a second skin, rock them! You'll meet people who can hack anything and people who are still tragically trapped in Google and Facebook. People who can recite Neuromancer start to finish and people who ask "William Gibson who?"
Like any other human quest, cyberpunk takes a village. (This may have something to do with why humans are the reason humans can't have nice things.)
In my day job, I'm a librarian. To my mind, there is no occupation more punk. My entire job is to show impressionable children that an entire universe exists to satisfy their curiosity and lead to more questions - and that no one can extinguish the flame of exploration once it's lit.
Because I'm a librarian, I tend to be very into knowledge, learning, and curiosity as sites of subversion. I'm also pretty into technology, especially tech tools that get my work done without letting big tech companies spy on me. And I'm huge on learning about all the ways (some legal, some not) media gets distributed outside corporate "pay for access" channels.
(Fun fact: I'm not even online right now! I'm writing this in Emacs, offline, sitting in my living room in the middle of a snowstorm with an 80s record I bought at a flea market on the turntable I've also had since the 80s. Cyberpunk can be many things!)
My personal style, however, leans more "librarian" than "The Matrix." I don't need to look high-tech and intimidating in ordinary life. I do need a cardigan (the library is cold!) and to let kids and teens know they can approach me. On the weekends, I'm usually covered with manure and/or chicken feed - neither of which go well with black.
I do still own my mirrorshades from high school, though.
Anyway! Here's what I have on cyberpunk as media, as aesthetic, and as Way of Life.
There are literally dozens of guides to cyberpunk as a genre available online. I'm not sure it helps if I type out more. I recommend Cyberpunk Hub for a regularly-updated list of books, TV/movies, and video games that are cyberpunk or cyberpunk-adjacent:
Instead, let me drop in a few links to places you can find various titles - without breaking the bank.
Some of this stuff requires some search-engine-fu to turn up. Practice till you find something interesting, then share it with others. Skill-building and knowledge-sharing are both very cyberpunk.
Hoopla
Libby
Kanopy
Internet Archive
Z-Library
DailyMotion
NewPipe
FreeTube
The Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling.
online repositories of old hacker/cyberpunk/etc materials
If you're going to read/watch/listen to just one thing....
Here's what I recommend. (Recommendations are entirely my opinion. If you don't like it, return it to the library and check out something else.)
For extra cyberpunk points (these do not exist), keep a list of your favorites. Make a little website and post your list online. Update it as your opinions change. Remember, building the Web ourselves instead of just letting eight billionaires take it over is very cyberpunk!
Confession: I found this section the hardest to write - not least because I actually had to look up "lifestyle." We use the word a lot but never seem to define it.
Wikipedia suggested:
Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviors, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture.
Per Wikipedia, "lifestyle" includes elements of location, individual identity, health, class, media exposure, and how one navigates relationships.
Ecosia's built-in dictionary got a bit saltier:
lifestyle: 1. the way in which a person lives. 2. denoting advertising or products designed to appeal to a consumer by association with a desirable lifestyle.
I actually find the Ecosia dictionary definition more useful. It breaks the problem into two chunks: how people actually live, and how people shop to don a persona that matches how they want to live, are expected to live, or think people they admire live. We're going with that.
Swallow this red pill: Most of us in the developed world are already living a cyberpunk lifestyle.
For example:
You want a cyberpunk lifestyle? If you're reading this on an Internet-capable device, you're probably already living one.
When people go searching for info on a "cyberpunk lifestyle," it's usually not because they want to hear they're already living in the high tech low life dystopia. It's because they want to feel cool while they do it.
I have looked like a librarian since I was seven years old. Before that I looked like an American Girl doll. I have no idea what "looking cool" is or how to do it. But if you're more interested in the aesthetics part of the lifestyle than the part where you actually have to deal with the dystopia, here's what my handful of bored Ecosia searches over breakfast turned up:
In all seriousness: I doubt that moving to Tokyo, wearing mirrorshades, and subsisting on Jolt Cola and Cheetos are going to change your life for the better. I know they won't let you escape yourself (that's the point of cyberpunk!), and they definitely won't make any difference to the dystopia we all live in.
For that, what matters isn't that you be cyberpunk but that you do cyberpunk. Which brings us to....
Subversion is the soul of cyberpunk. Strip it out, and all you have is Matrix cosplay and LARPing. Which are just fine, if they're your jam. But our cyberpunk future is the present, and sticking solely to fantasy will do nothing to address the needs of the moment.
If cyberpunk is about how tech won't save us from ourselves, then subversion has two goals. One is to find that within us that resists being overwritten by impersonal forces wielding technology against us. The other is to take a stand there - against the corporations and other forces hell-bent on strip-mining the human soul.
These two goals are, of course, interlinked. I'll deal with the second one first, for reasons I hope will become obvious by the end.
"I will never forgive them for what they have done to the computer." - Ed Zitron
Over the past 40-50 years, "technology" - by which I mostly mean personal computing - has developed along two parallel tracks.
One track belongs to individual people: coders, hobbyists, hackers, "users." People who make and share freeware/shareware, who create open source communities, who share information on message boards and blogs and the like. This track seeks to make the computer a machine belonging to the person who uses it, set up to do what that person intends.
The other track belongs to corporations. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google are the biggest names, but nearly every corporation that uses or sells computers is involved somehow. This track seeks to make the computer an extension of the corporation, for the corporation's benefit. Devices do what the corporation says, and the corporation can change the terms on its whim. Every device does surveillance, because they belong to corporations, not to the people who buy and use them.
Each track has a different vision of who the computer (tablet, smartphone, smart speaker, "device") works for. Does your computer work for you? Or does it work for a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires?
These days, most of us have devices that work for the billionaires. This is the default setting of the computers, phones, and software we encounter every day. Large corporations have done an excellent job of crowding out even the knowledge that other options exist. We buy an Android or an iPhone because we don't know there are other options. We run Windows or iOS for the same reason. Everyone uses Google, so why not me? And so on.
The first step in "cyberpunking," then, is getting curious about what's beyond Big Tech.
If you're brand-new to the idea of not using Big Tech products and services, start with The Cyber-Cleanse.
The Cyber-Cleanse is a 21-day program for regaining control of your digital life, created by Princeton professor Janet Vertesi. It assumes you're stepping into the wilderness beyond Big Tech for the first time. By the end, you'll have a much better understanding of what your options are and how to evaluate them.
The Cyber-Cleanse is a starting point. Yes, you absolutely need a browser, email, and the rest that don't track you and sell your data. Yes, you need to know what open-source software is and how to find it. And yes, I absolutely recommend getting some flavor of Linux. (I'm writing this on a ten year old laptop I salvaged by putting Ubuntu on it. Runs like a dream, cost me nothing.)
For a list of the stuff I use, see /instead:
Whether or not you do the Cyber-Cleanse, I also recommend doing some threat modeling. "Threat modeling" sounds cyberpunk as hell, but it's really just about asking yourself what you're trying to protect and who you're trying to protect it from.
These days, everyone could use some protection against tech companies seeking to mine our data for their own profits. Data is the new oil: valuable, versatile, and profitable. Every company wants your data and few rules constrain how they get it from you.
Whether you also need protection against people trying to steal your passwords, employers seeing your embarrassing teenage photos, or a stalker ex trying to figure out where you live, is up to you. Threat modeling is a personal thing - and it's something every cyberpunk hero does, even if it's off-screen.
For more information and context, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense page.
Alternatives to Big Tech's proprietary offerings tend to be open source. "Open source" means anyone can have a look at the code. If you know enough about coding, you can actually read the entire program. You can understand exactly how it works. You can find out whether it does what its developers say it will. If there's anything in there you don't like, you can find that out too.
And if you can't make heads or tails of the code? Good news: there's someone out there who has. If there's something untrustworthy in the code, they'll say something. The open source community is huge on complaining and tattling whenever someone finds something hinky in someone else's code. Which is why it rarely happens - and why most Big Tech companies never release their source code.
Also, open source projects tend to get tested a lot. People like to download them and then customize them. That's a thing you can do when you can get your hands on all the parts under the hood. When issues crop up, they get crowdsourced out of existence pretty quickly.
Some options to find open-source software to replace the Big Tech stuff you've been using by default:
AlternativeTo
opensourcealternative.to
FOSS Alternatives
opensourcealternatives.org
Aurora Store
Benefits of getting away from Big Tech:
First: you own your data.
The cloud is just someone else's computer. That someone else keeps their computer, with your data on it, somewhere you can't access it. It's probably somewhere you can't even locate, because you don't have an address or coordinates. Where is your data? You literally do not know. Who is in control of it? Not you.
This is an Extremely Not Cyberpunk situation to be in. Get some external hard drives. Bring your data home. If someone else is storing it for you (email, for instance), know who they are, what their privacy policies are, and what they're using your data for.
(Speaking of privacy policies: TOS;DR reads the terms of service of hundreds of websites and ranks them by how horrible they are for your privacy and security. Now you can get to the juicy parts of the boilerplate without having to slog through the exposition.)
Second: Choosing and installing your own software, operating system, etc. feels Very Cyberpunk.
I live for seeing teens get excited when they build their first Web page and realize they're not confined by Instagram's or Tiktok's format to tell their stories. I thrill when family members install Linux Ubuntu or Mint and then want to know what else they can do on their own computers. There is nothing more cyberpunk than the feeling that you own your machine and it does what you want.
The feeling that you are Sticking It to the Man by banishing Big Tech's surveillance-ware is a nice extra. And cyberpunk af.
Third: Every new thing you learn makes you stronger - as an individual, as a computer owner, as a human being.
The more you learn, the more you can expand. For example, I am currently thinking about trying to install Linux from scratch, because it seems like a way to learn Linux thoroughly that is compatible with how I absorb information. A year ago, this computer was still running Windows.)
Fourth: You meet very cool people this way.
The hacker community has matured significantly from the days when I was one of the idiot teenagers posting on boards about all the things one could do with a computer (and, back then, with the telephone system). If you need answers, someone's around to provide them. We just don't hang out on major social media sites, as a rule. Which reminds me....
Fifth: There's a whole Internet out here, and you get to explore all of it.
Ever feel like you're constantly staring at the same four or five Web sites? If your whole life is in the Big Tech walled gardens, you probably are. The Web is a LOT bigger than you realize. For just one example that can eat hours of your day, check out Neocities.
(Next-level tip: The Web isn't even the only thing on the Internet. Check out the Gemini protocol, for instance.)
Jonathan MH: Getting started with Gemini
Sixth: Did you know you can also own your media?
I'm not being facetious here. I work with teens, and so many of them look at me like I'm a thief when I tell them I don't have Spotify. They genuinely believe streaming is the only legal way to acquire media.
Streaming is not the only legal way to acquire media. It's not even the best way to acquire media. You can't own anything you stream, no matter how obsessively you watch/listen to it. Every time you do, streaming companies are harvesting data, which they can and do use to manipulate your behavior. You're spending money every month to be harvested. It's like if Neo had to pay a subscription fee to be used as a human battery.
So, for the good of anyone who has been streaming so long it feels sus to stop: You can stop. You can try Bandcamp for music, the Internet Archive for all kinds of media, thrift stores and online secondhand places for physical copies, and local libraries.
Which is an excellent place to pivot to the second part of Doing Cyberpunk:
When I started the Cyber-Cleanse in January 2025, I thought I was just learning what email options existed beyond Gmail. I didn't realize the process would change my entire life.
First: I began to see just how invasive Big Tech had gotten. The more I read, the more I learned - and the more horrified I got.
Second: I experienced being in control of my computer again for the first time since the early 2000s.
I built my own systems and installed my own OSes from the 1980s until about 2004. Then I had to do things like Be an Adult and Keep a Job, so I let computing slide. Devices also changed significantly in the mid-2000s, from things you were expected to explore to things you were increasingly prohibited from understanding without specialized training.
Doing the Cyber-Cleanse brought me back to that world. I installed a new OS (various Linuxes) on my home computer and my old laptop. I even installed a new OS on my phone (Sailfish OS). I figured out how to navigate filesystems again and how to work through my terminal. I rediscovered Gopher and started exploring Gemini. I didn't realize how much I'd missed being in charge of my own computer until I got it back.
Third: I also experienced being more in control of my life.
As I cut Big Tech offerings out of my life, I regained control of so many things. Eliminating infinite-scroll sites and apps gave me my attention span back. Limiting my online purchases to Privacy.com cards meant I thought through purchases before I did the work to spin up a card and buy something - and it also means I spend a lot less. Staying "connected" to people via social media was no longer an option, so I built real relationships instead.
Fifth: I found that the part of me that is me has been there all along.
There's a "me" that will always move through the world, no matter what shape the world is in. I may not have the choices I prefer, but I always have choices.
A lot of cyberpunk storytelling involves characters making choices when they have little room to maneuver. The act of making the choice matters. So does having the creativity and confidence to create a third choice when the two presented both suck. Those are all things that are much easier to foster when one's attention isn't being drained by social media, infinite scroll feeds, and constant custom-tailored pressures to buy things.
Ironically, this process led me to a daily life that is more Little House than Neuromancer. I'm a country girl at heart; to me, "control" means raising my own food, chopping my own wood, and carrying my own water. It also looks like writing this entire essay in Emacs with my computer in airplane mode, because I can.
Your process will lead somewhere else. Yet it will also lead to the same place: a place where you know who you are and what you expect from the world, and where you trust yourself to figure out how to get it. Nothing is more cyberpunk than that.