It’s such a shame that so many people forget that the -punk suffix on cyberpunk and solarpunk referred to anarchism and/or anti-capitalism and it’s not just, like, -stuck but for alternate history
Also steampunk although nobody EVER knew what the punk meant there
Steampunk has never been punk. It’s just “wouldn’t it be nice if I was a rich victorian capalist and aristocrat but also with access to a doomsday machine.”
Steampunk was a complex movement centered around proving how the problem wasn’t technology but social customs that kept us divided. Most optimistic steampunk fiction that occurs in a high science fiction setting is either idealized (full automation) and/or an actual commentary on capitalism and classism.
People like to dress up and use the aesthetic because they enjoy it, and as of yet there is no other word (to my knowledge) for the aesthetic side of it.
Also, steampunk has a lot of branches/derivatives as well. In dieselpunk, the focus is on limited resources and the futility of fossil fuels (think of the video game Frostpunk). Atompunk is all about humanity’s doomed obsession with nuclear energy and weaponry (the entire Fallout series). Stitchpunk is just meant to be pretty plainly creepy and dark, bridging the old-fashioned with the modern to create Things That Should Not For The Love of God Exist (Coraline, 9, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) in the eyes of society and then going on to either use that instinctual revulsion as a symbol of evil or to smash down the consumer’s prejudices about the character/item.
Punk addressed more topics than just anarchism and anti-capitalism. It also tackled prejudice, classism, human arrogance, etc..
