If you’ve been keeping up with my blog (if you haven’t click here) you’d know I’ve been learning about revolutions recently and what makes a revolution. I’ve also been learning about steampunk and what it means. If you don’t know what steampunk is, it is a type of science fiction that has to do with retro-futurism, steam engines, and exposed engines, cogs and such. Lots of people like to make steampunk creations because it has a certain feel to it that’s really awesome.

 

 

Anyways, we were given a task. And that was to come up with another inquiry question but this time instead of a revolution question it has to be on steampunk. So I thought about what would be a really deep and interesting question and I came up with a great one. How did steampunk evolve and grow to what we know it as today?

 

So first off, let’s go way back. Steampunk novels started coming around in the 1970’s and the 1960’s and this is what really kicked off the genre to its fullest. Although, novels written as far back as the 1800’s by several authors were thought of as forerunners of the culture.

As we move into the 1980’s the term steampunk is coined and and the genre moves from a branch of a branch of sci fi to its own sub genre in writing. Up until this point nobody really made steampunk creations it was just a writing genre and nothing much more. As some of the books written in this time period picked up popularity steampunk grew more and more.

After the 80’s and 90’s and moving into the 2000’s is when steampunk really blew up. As the internet also become larger and larger so did steampunk and it become an internet sensation. The internet played an immense role in turning steampunk into what we know it as today. With the internet came more DIY’s and with DIY’s came steampunk DIY’s because steampunk has such a vibrant and unique aesthetic people almost automatically started making their own steampunk creations.

Steampunk now is a huge culture and genre of awesomeness and fun people. Thing the thing that people love about steampunk is that you can turn an old 3 dollar garage sale lamp into a future steam engine lamp with some paper stencils and a bit of spray paint. It is now fashion too. Steampunk fashion is like Victorian clothes with a twist.

In reflection steampunk as a genre, as a culture, and as an industry has progressed more than anyone would have foreseen back when it was first starting up. It went from nothing more than a little idea in someone’s head to a huge sci fi alternate reality. I really enjoyed this mini project because it gave me a much deeper understanding of why we are researching and incorporating more of this into our bigger project.