Steampunk: the new LARP

[Cain]

Islamic fundamentalism is the new emo.  Oppression, self-directed violence and never ending whining.  Its perfect.

[Vene]

Nobody understands me
       \

[Von Melee]

oh.
go cut yourself with that sharp wit.

Truly motivational
\                    \

[Jenne]

Islamic fundamentalism is the new emo.  Oppression, self-directed violence and never ending whining.  Its perfect.

tr00f, but it's got that high-horse kick as well...I'm so holier-than-thou, I'll off myself to prove it t'ya!

Fucked up shit

[Cain]

Just another version of musical elitism.

Prima: "MCR suck d00d!  You should totally listen to Dashboard Confessional, otherwise you're a posuer fag!@

Secunda: *Looks at MCR album, cries, cuts self*

[Jenne]

[Von Melee]

But musical elitism implies there's something of value to the culture.
All levels of emo kids need to drink Drano, slash thier wrists, and have a smoking party at 7-11.

[Ghoura Agur]

C'mon, LARP haters, surely even you think this is totally frikin' awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuUUvZLwMU

[Jasper]

C'mon, LARP haters, surely even you think this is totally frikin' awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuUUvZLwMU

That's a cool costume, out of the context of LARP.

[Cain]

The coolest thing about LARPing is "lightning bolt lightning bolt lightning bolt" and overweight women dressing like exotic and sexually attractive adventurers.

Cain,
has spent a lot of time on Google Video researching this topic.

[Faust]

But musical elitism implies there's something of value to the culture.
All levels of emo kids need to drink Drano, slash thier wrists, and have a smoking party at 7-11.

Children?! doing something stupid?!
Heavens to Murgatroyd! what next?
Emo is the closest thing to an identity this pathetic generation has, theres far better reasons to spite them.

[Template]

Islamic fundamentalism is the new emo.  Oppression, self-directed violence and never ending whining.  Its perfect.

Nobody understands me
       \

TO WIT:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/1.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/2.gif
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/3.gif
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/4.gif
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/5.gif
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa268/octareenroon91/uuu/new-adventures-sigmund-freud/6.gif

[Dalek]

I like LARP. In Bulgaria it's pretty new and is still fresh, not got much crap crapped on it. The band tough that you posted in the first post was horrible. Anyway steampunk or cyberpunk shouldn't be music genres. It's not like it means a sub genre of punk. It's just called that way. 

[godspeed2048]

Excellent, "no-holds-barred" rant on the absolute stupidity of Steampunk:

http://coralbaydigital.com/content/steampunk-is-retarded

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Excellent, "no-holds-barred" rant on the absolute stupidity of Steampunk:

http://coralbaydigital.com/content/steampunk-is-retarded

Let me first start by asserting that I am no fan of steampunk. It was obviously played-out as an underground fashion movement the moment "steampunk" jewelry made by middle-aged housewives started appearing on Etsy.

However.

This young Conan Duke fellow, whose blog entry I have to admit I skimmed more than read because, beyond a promising first paragraph, the writing declined into dullness, makes a number of glaringly ignorant errors in his dismissal of "Steampunk" as a literary sub-genre, the foremost being the conflation of "punk" with "punk rock". What? This child is probably young enough that he believes Green Day is oldschool. "Punk rock" misappropriated the word "Punk" just as much as "cyberpunk" and "steampunk" did. He then goes on to equate the word "punk" with "rebel". He should consider consulting a dictionary. The word "punk" is more properly, historically used to denote someone who is considered worthless, or a social castoff. That's why "punk" rockers adopted it in the first place; not to pronounce themselves rebels, but to emphasise their feelings of alienation from social norms.

Second, the existence of terrible steampunk writing no more invalidates it as a literary sub-genre than the existence of Dan Brown invalidates the suspense genre. Which, honestly, the scope and power of his degenerate writing makes a fair effort at doing. Any literate with an iota of aesthetic who has read the His Dark Materials trilogy knows damn well that there is excellent "steampunk" writing on the bookshelves out there; usually not marketed as "steampunk", however, as anything that is, is most likely to be a hastily-written piece of crap churned out to exploit the latest fad fantasy niche.

Steampunk is, fundamentally, a fantasy sub-genre, and apparently takes place in a variety of settings from the post-apocalyptic wherein survivors scavenge and cobble together what they can, to completely alternate universes with different rules of physics...criticizing it for defying the laws of physics makes as much sense as criticizing Piers Anthony for his use of completely implausible, physics-defying plot devices such as "magic" in his fantasy novels.

Are the scores of fashion-steampunk fans running around in steampunk gear annoying? I guess if you were looking really hard for them, you could put yourself in a position to be annoyed. I can't say I've actually seen any swarming my modestly-sized city, but maybe places like, say, St. Paul, Minnesota or Madison, Wisconsin are overrun by them. They must be epidemic somewhere, or he would have no reason to be complaining about them, right? I actually find the look of steampunk fashions rather charming, but then I've never seen any in person. Maybe it's terribly grating, up close and personal. Or, maybe, this guy just hates things that stem from pure imagination.

Finally, who cares if the suffix -punk has been appended to so many genres that it's become ridiculous and meaningless? Those which have staying power will stay, and those which don't will be forgotten. In my opinion, Conan Duke is simply another over-sheltered, overprivileged twit with enough time on his hands to write scathing reviews of incredibly insignificant things that, in his relative ignorance, annoy him, but ultimately matter to no one and will make no difference in the long run. And, actually, I kind of think that the name of his website, "Coral Bay Digital Computer Consulting", probably explains as much as needs to be explained.

There's a real world outside, boy. Go explore it.