Cyberpunk is a Thought Provoking Culture...



 The future... neon lights, glowing signs, holograms, pulsing electronic beats, and- are we seeing that right? Real-life glitch effects?? With my own eyes... is reality seriously starting to crumble?

In this blog post, I will be delving into the ins and outs of the culture of cyberpunk. For those of you who are not too familiar with the subject, cyberpunk is a genre and subculture of science fiction that explores the ideas of a dystopian future. This is a future in which technology would not only be extremely advanced, but also often dominated by large corporations. It is also a future that loses equality between humanity and overall minimizes the importance of human-centered approaches to life, and focuses more on a technology-centered approach. Often in the genre of Cyberpunk, technology is ultimately used in poor ways that negatively impact the dystopian society that it has contributed to making.

Specifically, I am going to delve into some details and analyses I noticed while playing a video game called Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk 2077 is a role-playing video game made by studio CD Projekt Red, it is a story-based game that covers a dystopian future in which the main character attempts to break free of the restrictions of their high-tech, corporate-controlled society.

As I was playing, I noticed that Cyberpunk 2077 is not simply a fun, bright, colorful video game with a compelling story... I began to notice some patterns that reflected the world we currently live in. It scared me. Truthfully, if our society doesn't start stepping towards real change, we will turn into the society that many of us lived through playing the game. Already, corporate control is on the rise. Companies dominate in a lot of sectors of society. Specifically, I am worried about the use of our personal data and the process of data collection that these big corporations use. Ultimately, it is something that would greatly aid these corporations in taking further control over societies.

Tying into my previous statement, there has been a significant loss of privacy for society. In Cyberpunk 2077, the over-surveillance and monitoring of citizens was proven to be a big point to consider in a bit of a scary way. Again, in reality, we can be easily tracked by our every move with technology. EVERYONE has a phone, and everyone has technology. We give governments and corporations direct access to our data and essentially whatever we may be up to. They can easily be watching us if they really want.

The last point I would really like to emphasize would be the clear divide of society based on wealth that was emphasized in the game. There were run-down neighborhoods where you would see the majority of crimes take place, and right next door you would find the bright city lights full of skyscrapers and dreams. Is that not the society we live in today? A lot of cities struggle to address the gaps between the wealthy and the impoverished.

Overall, the stark parallels between Cyberpunk 2077 and our real world and society has made me realize that this video game could be considered a true call to action. This video game can almost be considered as a window to our potential future if we don't change our ways. Our we ready to live in a society like that?

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