I’m talking about how pockets and islands of cultures pop up everywhere within these settings, how Cyberpunk as a whole does away with national borders and lets everyone from everywhere and anywhere suffer equally.
And we’ve kinda’ missed the mark on that, as now culture is instead becoming eclectic. We don’t have pockets of cultures, we are steadily pushing toward having a single culture, a mass of haphazard associations and little comprehension of meaning.
I don’t think we’re heading towards a monoculture. Actually much like Cyberpunk, you’ll find the most striking pockets of unique cultures in small spaces relevant to whatever group is there. Go to a skatepark and you’ll think the people there are talking another language. Go to a concert or rave and you’ll see all kinds of different subcultures and fashion styles depending on what kind of music is playing. Even here on Lemmy you see different cliques and subcultures. There are astrology conferences and Beyblade tournaments and everything in between. Theres also always little pockets of ethnic groups, foreign to where they are, all over the world. I love finding different groups and the things they orbit around and the lingo they develop and the ideas and values they have. They’re not as easy to find as they are in a video game, but they’re out there and it’s a much more rich experience to get to know those people than in a video game.
I can’t describe it well because I’m not an anthropologist, but the changes in the larger zeitgeist over the years I’ve been around seems to be pretty normal too. I don’t think there’ll ever be some kind of monoculture, just that what makes groups different will naturally change over time.
See, that’s the thing, I rarely see these spaces being used nowadays! We have a couple of areas within the city which used to be high-traffic for skaters, bikers and such, now it’s (and I know how this’ll make me sound, but…) teens staring at their cellphones.
And the creepiest thing is that most people are even dressed the same. One used to see entire herds of Metal peeps, or you could tell the bikers and the skaters apart even without their signature implements. Dunno, maybe I’m getting old, but I miss seeing that variety.
Or, hell, maybe it’s just my country slowly dying off!=)))