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It was definitely the aesthetics of it. It was _incredibly_ cyberpunk - this great combination of digital storage format, small-size tech-looking disk, the way
by roughly 4y ago
It was definitely the aesthetics of it. It was _incredibly_ cyberpunk - this great combination of digital storage format, small-size tech-looking disk, the way the players looked and opened - the whole thing was straight out of an anime. It's this artifact from the last moment before tech swerved off that cyberpunk mixture of physical and digital to just straight digital - after that, everything became ephemeral bits, and increasingly the hardware "existed to not exist," as it were - the iPhone, iPad, etc. were all designed as "blank slates" for the software, which was where all the action was.
I think that's why the original Motorola Droid is so loved - it's not just that the hardware was useful and interesting, but it "existed to exist" - it had an aesthetic and was trying to be something by itself, not just to disappear.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago>It's this artifact from the last moment before tech swerved off that cyberpunk mixture of physical and digital This perfectly fits with the best definition of cyberpunk I’ve ever heard: “the future, but the 80s never ended.” (Incidentally, I’ve heard Japan described this way as well.)
- reaperducer 4y agoIncidentally, I’ve heard Japan described this way as well While I won't pretend to know as much about Japan as someone who lives there full-time, I've visited 14 times, often for several weeks at a stretch, and in real life, modern Japan is very different from the cyberpunk fantasies spread around the internet by people who have never been, and never will. It's still my favorite country to visit, so I watch NHK World every day. But it's not the cartoon/tech/ninja cliché world promulgated online. It's actually much better.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]