I’ve been collecting data here at the AGC blog. I’ll admit to being a very curious individual. I like knowing how things work, figuring out the who-why-whens. So having a WP blog means I check my data a little obsessively.
At any rate, of my most popular posts since I started, by and large the majority of views come from a handful of posts I’ve made about steampunk fashion. In fact, the gross majority of searches have been for that same keyword phrase “steampunk fashion”. Sure, there are a few folks that trickle in looking for steampunk novels, short stories, and the like. But more and more the trend is moving toward fashion, and not fiction.
Not that I’m solely a steampunk genre writer (if there even is a thing). But I think this data points toward an interesting issue facing those interested in steampunk. There is an ever growing interest in steampunk fashion, culture, and society, moreso than any other aspect. For something that was born out of literature, this is slightly disconcerting.
I’ve always said steampunk fashion is inspiring to me, and it is and continues to be. What bothers me is a move in the direction toward the sheerly cosmetic aspects of steampunk and away from the tenets of the literature and philosophy that makes it so endearing to us. From what I can tell, people surf here to read about fashion, read it, and leave. Not that I don’t get comments, but the data points to LOTS more surfers/browsers than commentators, lingerers, and readers.
Now that Steampunk is on MTV, etc., you’ve got to wonder what’ll happen eventually. I imagine that as the popularity of steampunk fashion and style grows, the interest in literature may not be something relegated to the subculture, and rather something absorbed by the mainstream.
Hopefully.
Some neat links from recent conversations:
- Neil Gaiman Talks Steampunk
- All Aboard the Steampunk Train @ MTV
- Five thoughts on the popularity of steampunk by Stephen H. Segal
The Aldersgate Cycle 
October 6, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Great Post! I have a huge respect for authors in general. Really they are the sorts of folks that inspire me and make me go all tongue tied in person. Actors, Musicians eh…but show me a wordsmith and I am in awe! Present company included! If the surge in popularity results in a boost to the pocketbooks of talented writers then I am all for it. If it further results in a continued supply of fantastic steam stories then even better. Like most genres it was here before and will be here after the flush of mainstream interest. And the devotees that “get it” will always keep coming back and inspiring eachother. Cheers!
Brigid
October 6, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Unfortunately this transition happened a long time ago.
Despite the pretenses of “philosophy,” the emergence of Steampunk DIY is all about fashion: fashion for your closet, fashion for your computer, fashion for your band… And it’s only the fashion that people who glommed onto Steampunk in the last two years are into. Blogs resound with people sharing that if it wasn’t for the DIY part, they wouldn’t be interested in it at all. That Steampunk was just a nerd ghetto before DIY – all books, games and movies that nobody cared about – proves it.
Nowadays, Steampunk IS all about the fashion.
October 6, 2008 at 7:04 pm
@Cory I think the weird part is that the mainstream, however, can relate to steampunk as fiction a whole lot more than the actual subculture. It’s far more likely that an average citizen will pick up a novel than a corset, in other words, and I think they are hungry for something new in literature.
I don’t see the fashion issue as a problem, per se, just something that continues to be (pardon the pun, but I simply can’t help it) gathering steam.
Where it’ll go from here? I don’t know.
October 6, 2008 at 7:51 pm
@ Cory. As a former 80’s D.C. hardcore Punk I completely understand the natural indignation the comes along when you see the ignorant masses glomming onto a genre or movement that has real significance for you on a number of levels. I about had a heartache when I saw Doc Martens in the shoe store at my local mall for the first time. I eventually got over it. It is what it is. Those that truly get it will continue to get it. Those that don’t will move on to the next thing.
October 6, 2008 at 8:22 pm
@Natania: I’m not so sure about that. Steampunk was “mainstream” already, if you look at the volume of movies, comics, TV shows and things that came out roughly 1999-2001. It didn’t become capital-M MAINSTREAM until it became an “alternative subculture.”
I suspect that while it was a minor, out-there interest in whatever Victorian Sci-Fi symbolicly stood for, it was too nebulous to comprehend. However, when you make it all about fashion and things and the aquisition of things, THAT is something that people can glom onto… A materialist mental environment is something it can understand far better than the subtle emotional and spiritual content of a book.
Asking a 40 or 50-year old why they like Jules Verne is boring. Asking a 20 or 30-year old why they dress in a funny costume is worthy of MTV.
Sorry… don’t mean to be argumentative. I’m just throwing that out there ^_^
October 6, 2008 at 8:26 pm
@Cory Not argumentative at all! I should amend to say that some steampunk has been in the Mainstream, but from a literary point we haven’t seen a huge explosion. And I mean like LoTR for steampunk, something that transcends the genre. People kinda sorta know what it is, but you don’t seem much on the bestseller list though, plenty of folks I’ve talked to in publishing and writing themselves expect it will be.
I just wonder if it’s all connected, or what. I dunno. Random lunchtime musings!
October 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm
@Brigid It’s a good comparison, but I guess my biggest question is how–if at all–does all this relate to the writing? Is it a good or a bad thing? I think it’s odd that the “audience” you’d expect seems reluctant, to say the least. But much of what we think of as steampunk (like Verne, etc) is out of reach for many…
I ❤ my Doc Martens, RIP. Need new ones. 🙂
October 6, 2008 at 9:03 pm
That said, Jules Verne is still one of the most translated and reprinted authors of all time, and Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was fairly phenomenal. I might even argue that 20K IS the genre-transcending “Steampunk” magnum opus.
October 6, 2008 at 9:05 pm
@Cory Verne, though, was steampunk before there was steampunk. He was just writing in his own time, as a late Victorian. I don’t think anything that has been re-envisioned as steampunk has had that much impact.
October 6, 2008 at 10:12 pm
@Natania – I see your point. I think the assessment that people “kind of sort of know what it is” is exactly true. I find when I am trying to describe what it is to various people I do not have one perfect example. One cultural archetype or phenom to point to that will sum it up. Maybe this is good. I dunno. But I find myself saying things like “well some of the ships in The Golden Compass are very steampunk” but personally I don’t find the story there very steampunk at all. I’m not entirely sure that there is a steampunk mindset or philosophy that has been succinctly defined enough to be able to point to as example. Thinking about it now I have to say that – following your train of thought – the modern roots of the genre are very much about aesthetics (brass goggles, cogs, clocks, steam and rivets) and environment (victorian or psuedo such) and occupation (airship pirate, intrepid explorer, bold inventor) and less about philosophy, values, spiritual discovery, and or existential quests for ones place in the world. I think for many of us that are devotees of the genre as almost a life choice – we have probably explored these themes personally. But I haven’t found a modern mainstream steampunkish novel that explored these and did it seamlessly and clearly and with the aesthetics and environment of the novel being an integral part of the protagonists journey. The steamy bits have seemed more a theater set then anything else. But perhaps you own works will fill this void? *wry grin*
October 6, 2008 at 10:26 pm
@Brigid Ah! You flatter, m’lady.
I can’t imagine the AGC would be that story, mostly because I wasn’t writing from a steampunk position when I started. I was just writing, and the story sort of just happened. I’ve always been a little off-kilter, and the steampunk aesthetic is extremely influential and inspiring, but not a defining factor. Dunno if that entirely makes sense. I discovered much more about steampunk after I realized that’s the aesthetic (and yes, the philosophies, tensions, etc. inherent in that as well) I had been writing all along.
Phew. Anyway. It’s an interesting place to be at the moment. We shall wee when and if we get that defining novel/movie/franchise. 🙂
October 6, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I suppose I could defend what I said by pointing out that, largely because of Disney, 20K is the most well-known and oft-adapted works of Victorian Sci-Fi. The runner-up might be “War of the Worlds,” but even if someone doesn’t otherwise know jack about VSF, they know about 20K.
One of the problems with a definitive, genre-transcending Steampunk novel is that, as I was saying before, Steampunk IS fashion. When the sum and substance of the “philosophy” is DIY arts and crafts, writing about them may not resonate as strongly as doing them. In that sense, the Steampunk magnum opus would be the computer case-mod.
October 6, 2008 at 11:39 pm
@Cory I just can’t quite make the leap to “steampunk is fashion” because I guess, all in all, steampunk is larger than that. If the magnum opus is a computer case-mod, then what’s the point? Those of us who write the aesthetic might as well hang up our quills. But we don’t. Because it’s genre, too.
I’ve posted about it a bit, but I view steampunk as our interpretation of the Victorian, just as Tennyson and Morris working from a the Victorian interpretation of the Middle Ages (therefore, I argue that Verne can’t be steampunk because he’s too early for it… though the Disney interpretation is intriguing!). In their case the fashion was huge, the history was gargantuan, and–in Morris’s case anyway–making was a huge component to the movement. But what lingers, what defines, tends to be what can be written down, shared, beyond the stuff.
Like Brigid was saying. It’ll come and go, fashion will change–but what lingers is often surprising.
October 6, 2008 at 11:47 pm
And that said, I think it’s a slippery definition anyway. Maybe I’m more Neo-Victorian in my approach and less “steampunk”. 🙂
October 7, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“If the magnum opus is a computer case-mod, then what’s the point?”
I actually do wonder about that ^_~
I see your point about Victorian Mediaevalism, and have been amused more than once by the resemblance and contradiction between that a Steampunk. However, I will admit that when I think about it, I think about Gothic Revival architecture, Pre-Raphaelite painting and William Morris designs before I think of “The Idylls of the King.” Not that you’re wrong, mind you. That’s just my own perception.
October 7, 2008 at 3:58 pm
@Cory It’s not to downgrade the importance of the maker culture at all, just to notice what’s moving and changing. They are interconnected, and what endures for each of us has to do with a perspective.
As a medievalist and storyteller, I always think the literature. But William Morris was a maker and a writer (and my thesis subject!) so… they’re not mutually exclusive. 🙂