Milleniumpunk & And core aspects for story & setting of this genre

I just recently have idea for new punk punk subgenre based on Future Prediction & Pop Culture of 1990s-Early 2010s name Millenium Punk

may I explain it more

Milleniumpunk:Retrofuturism genre that focus on aestetics of Future vision during Early 1990s-Early 2010s as well as Pop Culture at that time such as Neon Genesis Evangelion,Terminator,1990s DC & Marvel's Comic,Power Rangers,Ultraman TDG Era,1990s-2000s Super Sentai,Mobile Suit Gundam X,Wing & G etc alongside Important Event of our world at time

what would be core aspects of this punk punk genre for setting & story of this world and how we should expanded it more

I'd probably go with an aesthetic aping electronics and toys from the 90s and early 2000's. A step above cassette punk, disc punk if you will.

Lots of clear plastic showing visible circuitry as an aesthetic choice, for example. Advanced programs stored on still mostly physical storage mediums like discs or cartridges, internet mostly still requiring a wired connection, that sort of thing.

Think maybe... Gameboy Color-like aesthetic?

Like, you might have a blaster pistol in this setting that has different firing modes (automatic, scattershot, explosive, etc) set by a little cartridge you plug into it.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Mar 29th 2023 at 8:47:52 AM

That kinda feels like it would take some aesthetic cues from vaporware and Steampunk (particularly on the exposed electronics bit)

I might also suggest adding minor Grunge and extreme sports aesthetics as well since those also seem very 90s.

As for themes, I'd say going with an "innocence lost" one might be interesting since...y'know, it might also be followed with an "innocence regained" kinda feelind playing on the mood following Obama's election and his "HOPE" campaign. Like a kind of optimism for the future contrasting with a moody present.

Oh, I might have misused the word "exposed". I meant more "behind transparent plastic"

For example, something like this◊ or this◊

Edited by Protagonist506 on Mar 29th 2023 at 8:54:45 AM

I think you might just be describing the Y2K aesthetic but as a genre.

Not to get too pretentious or anything but I think the overall theme of the millennial generation is the idea of the rug being pulled-out from under the generation. The apparent security and financial stability of the post-Cold War era being whisked away by 9/11, the recession, Katrina, Catholic Church abuse scandals and a growing belief that the political, financial and cultural institutions don’t have the people’s best interests in mind.

I think the issue you’d run into in trying to write for this genre might be the lack of stock characters and conflicts. Like, with cyberpunk, you got a hacker going against a megacorp in an urban environment. With steampunk, you got an inventor-adventurer on a zeppelin probably going up against some colonial European power stand-in.

I have no idea what the stock “millennialpunk” story would be.

I'd say the bad guys could be terrorists, government conspiracies, or both.

I'd add real estate agents to the list of potential villain archetypes since, you know 2008 crash and all.

Tying this altogether, what I'd go with is something like:

I'd probably have the setting, at first glance, appear to be a utopia. This utopia built on some kind of phlebotinum. The place has a shiny, perhaps even toylike, aesthetic, and the future appears to be bright.

Aesthetically, I'd go with there being a lot of technology involving discs, physical cartridges, and cables. Computers are important, but programs are stored on physical media and communication between computers is generally not wireless. Technology does cool stuff, but you have to put the right cartridge in the machines first.

For example, you might have virtual pets stored on little gameboy like cartridges, or robots whose behavior and abilities are determined by what cartridge is put into them.

Going back to another example I gave earlier, the hero's main weapon might be something like a modular energy gun whose functionality changes depending on the cartridge loaded. For example, a machine gun cartridge, a sniper cartridge, that sort of thing.

Now, going into the catch of this "utopia": There's something sinister underneath, and the utopian society might not be able to sustain itself much longer. Terrorists, megacorps, corrupt politicians are all starting to rise to power.

I'd probably go with terrorists as the initial threat. Importantly, they should be portrayed as a real threat. They aren't a false flag operation, they aren't actually good guys, they aren't even well-intentioned extremists.

However, there are opportunistic politicians, allied with sinister megacorps, that are using the threat of them to rise to power, threatening the utopian nature of society.

If you want to a sort of post 2008-thing, you could go with the corrupt politicians already being well on the way to victory, with society becoming more and more authoritarian and capitalism without safety nets resulting in massive wealth inequality.

Actually, I think this could be a good setting for something like an immersive sim ala Bioshock:

• You could have gadgets with cartridges serving as your "plasmid"-equivalent.

• Obviously, hacking would be a thing.

• You'd have at least two factions you can play off of each other: The conspiracy and the terrorists. Heck, could easily add in a third with the government-outside-of-the-conspiracy. So, you might get attacked by terrorists, so you sneak away to lure them towards secret police, and let them fight.

How about Protagonists side

Protag has a good set of ideas laid out, and I would read a story in that setting with interest, but I would make one adjustment: it's the fear of terrorism, etc. that causes an over-reaction by the corporate and government establishment, which results in a slow loss of rights and opportunities, the main burden of which are borne by the young. This fear, in turn, is being used to conceal the fact that the utopia was never sustainable to begin with, and was always going to collapse, primarily as a result of decisions the politicians made decades ago.

I was thinking some kind of investigative journalist type would make a pretty good protagonist for this hypothetical genre. Their career would force them to get involved in uncovering the sinister underbelly of the setting.

I guess thematically, the millenniumpunk protagonist should demonstrate the idea of “leaving the cave” and being exposed to the darker elements of the world and then trying to overcome them. Like, the burden of being worldly. Something like that.

for fantasy version of milleniumpunk what could be main influence of this version 2000s-2010s Anime & Manga or not

"I guess thematically, the millenniumpunk protagonist should demonstrate the idea of “leaving the cave” and being exposed to the darker elements of the world and then trying to overcome them."

And for extra noir style goodness, they can succeed with respect to the specific antagonist they were facing, but the world itself will always continue to be a hostile and corrupt setting, regardless of what anyone does.

For added tragedy; it’s not the world remains bad but it’s likely to get worse.

Anyways, the big question I have now is what precisely will separate a milleniumpunk story from one that is set in a contemporary setting? There should probably be some kind of ethos concerning society’s relationship towards technology and scientific development since, at the end of the day, all -punk sub genres are ultimately sci-fi.

Edited by Woosmo on Apr 22nd 2023 at 3:43:50 AM

I hate to be the guy who dumps on everyone else's parade, but I'm having trouble with this overall concept. I'm not convinced that very much has changed culturally since the 1980's. Take a photo of people in, say, 1993, and unless there is a car in the background it's hard to tell when the picture was taken. There are lots of pop songs from back then that could blend into the top 40 of today without really standing out. It seems like life online has taken the oxygen out of the rest of the culture, and I wonder how deep those changes have really been.

You can argue that the aesthetics had changed, but at that point you would sooner point towards Everything Is An I Pod In The Future as a better example instead (come to think of it, how old is that particular aesthetic anyway)

@Morning Star 1337 The Ipod aesthetic developed gradually over time and we see proto-examples of it as we go back in time. The TR-1 radio from the 50's seems to have been an inspiration, for example.

I'd say the Space Shuttle is a pretty good pre-Ipod example of the aesthetic, but not sure if that's an actual inspiration or not.

IIRC, the Space Odyssey movie was also an inspiration for the look.

I wish the aesthetic had a proper name other than "Ipod-look", as I actually rather like it.

“Minimalist futurism”? You could probably also point to stuff like THX 1138 or Logan’s Run (maybe even Tron) for that aesthetic.

I imagine millennialcore as having more of a Y2K/Memphis-Milano look or like a music video directed by Hype Williams. Less iPod and more Windows XP, maybe. I’d imagine it would be a lot more colorful than the iPod look but all the colors would be glossy and reflective (or semi-transparent). Probably more chrome than stark white.