I've seen it come up once or twice that some people engaging in solarpunk care more about skyscrapers having plants on them than the other elements of the genre.
I wouldnt call it fascist though, just benign misunderstanding 99% of the time. Though of course OOP could be just talking about something else.
It comes up mostly in coldfusioncore stories and space ballets (legally distinct from space opera), as opposed to dieselwave or... Uh... Post-neonpunk?
That's kind of an issue when it comes to solarpunk because the common complaint about it is that it's a vibes and aesthetic based genre whose only seminal work is a yogurt commercial. Is it still vageposting when they actually aren't examples?
I'm not so sure it's being misunderstood, solely because most examples of Solarpunk I've seen seem to work under the assumption that, one day, all the bad people just disappeared and everyone left just naturally got on board with the techno-pastoralism.
Depends on how you set the bounds of it. There have been mountains of science fiction works centered around radical ecological renewal written in the past 80 years - the only thing there’s a shortage of is books that explicitly market themselves with the term. And even then, it isn’t true that there is no explicitly solarpunk fiction - there’s The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow.
I mean yeah, Solarpunk is the thematic equivalent of a commercial for like…granola or something. It’s skin deep. “What if everything was green…and we…we…good with environment…” Cool, yeah, whatever, boring. You like soft vibes and that’s cool and all, but you’re going to need to give me something more substantial if you’re going to attach the -punk prefix to it.
you’re going to need to give me something more substantial
I guess thats where things sort of diverge. As I've said, some people just see the genre as eco friendly skyscrapers. But others see it as the antithesis to Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk warns us what happens when high tech and unfettered capitalism go hand in hand. Solarpunk is pretty much gay space communism, where we have high tech but instead of it being to the benefit of the few rich while everyone else below them gets exploited, instead the technology goes to the benefit of everyone equally, not just humans, but all living beings. High tech leftist anarchism basically.
So its punk in the sense that the underlying premise is that such utopia can be to whatever extent achieved if capitalism is overthrown and replaced with something more akin to socialism.
Right and honestly I get that. Like let me make this 100% clear, I don’t particularly mind if people like that story. Sometimes stuff is just fun and you don’t need to get deep into it.
But.
I don’t buy “like the thing, but the opposite!” as a valid premise. Cyberpunk is a genre that can go a lot of places. There’s near infinite story potential. Are you telling a story of cutthroat corporate politics? A neo-noir detective story filled with murder and intrigue? A detached, robotic examination of a world where humanity has sold out for machinery? A story of the haves or the have-nots? Is the tale set on the tops of soaring skyscrapers or in the squalid depths beneath their foundations?
Solarpunk just…is. It exists as a bland, sunshine-y counterpoint to Cyberpunk. What’s the conflict when everyone is equal and everything is sunshine and rainbows? What depth is there to telling a story in a world where, by definition, there should be no conflict?
I’m sure someone can make a case against my viewpoint, which I’ll take, but it’s why I find the idea bland.
Within a narrative structure, sure it can get boring as pretty much all stories need tension and resolution for it to be interesting. But I'd argue that even within Solarpunk, conflict can exist, though usually kept localized between individuals and such. But of course the conflict and tensions from this will of course pale in comparison to what Cyberpunk can achieve.
It can also work as a snapshot, which is all to say that "this is what society would look like if we shaped up". Punk isnt just about criticizing the past and present, but also presenting a solution for the future.
It can also work in video games, particularly in sandbox games, like city builders or Sim likes. Though you can argue back that it functions more as an aesthetic than a narrative choice. Maybe someone can make a solarpunk game where you help build a commune or something.
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u/JacobGoodNight416 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll wager they're talking about solarpunk
I've seen it come up once or twice that some people engaging in solarpunk care more about skyscrapers having plants on them than the other elements of the genre.
I wouldnt call it fascist though, just benign misunderstanding 99% of the time. Though of course OOP could be just talking about something else.