And in particular, the protagonist of that short story who is so happy he lives in his grim and grotty but real cyberpunk future, instead of the sterile, facile

And in particular, the protagonist of that short story who is so happy he lives in his grim and grotty but real cyberpunk future, instead of the sterile, facile utopia imagined by the retro-futurism aesthetic. It's an interesting idea! You can learn a lot about a decade by studying what they thought their future would look like. And in the 90s we were definitely thinking it would involve neon translucency.