Steampunk, Nurture or Nature?

[Rose Streiffe]

There is a very fine line between nature and nurture for me, if it exists at all.  The confusion is a result of being born into a normal-seeming yet very eccentric family who collectively had both a love of history and an interest in the speculative future...my brother and sister were huge Star Trek fans.  My mother and father had me late in life, so they are elderly now, and grew up surrounded by the fading trappings and inhabitants of the Victorian age.  My mother collects and deals in Victorian furniture and antiques, and writes poetry having to do with the fascinating human relics she knew as a child.
I was always drawn to the aesthetics of the Victorian/Ascot age, yet I despised the social and political climate of those times.  Being morbidly Romantic, I was a natural Goth, so I was able to indulge my Victorian tendencies that way.
But too much about the Goth scene ticked me off.  My local scene was cool, but I refused to get on the national forums after realizing that so many of the posters were cowardly d-bags who would scream and rant and flame from the safety of their computer, yet be all sweetness and smiles to your face for fear of being punched in the crotch.  To an extent, all forums are like this, yet the Goths took it to a ludicrous extreme.     
I got sick of being told that I couldn't be Goth unless I wore pony falls and plastic (Now Victoriana is all the rage).  I got sick of people screaming that Rasputina "wasn't Goth" (They've played Convergence how many times now?)  Then I realized I look better in brown.  And I discovered Brass Goggles and the related forums.  And, incredibly, I haven't wanted to punch anyone in the crotch for being a craven gasbag.
I wasn't always Steampunk.  But I believe the seeds were there, and this site and forum provided fertile ground. 

[leeps]

For me, it certainly wasn't "nurture". My family spent many frustrated years trying to normalize me after I happened upon a little thing called punk rock in 1981. They definitely did not encourage me to freely express myself, but punk rock just felt "right" to me and there was no talking me out of it (even to this day.) And while I'm not comparing punk rock to Steampunk, I think the creativity and sense of adventure associated with Steampunk were just a natural fit for me.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Has anyone else ever thought that they should have been born 125 years or so earlier? I have thought this to myself many a times throughout my life. Thats why I believe its nature.

I believe I was born 125 years earlier...actually, exactly 125 years ago, I think I was between incarnations. Born 1840, died 1877, born 1899, died 1918. i don't want to start a religious discussion, or even a discussion about reincarnation, it just happens to be what I believe...and it explains a lot. My family were not eccentric in the least, but I always have been. I absolutely love things made of brass, and bronze, quality woods like mahogany and teak...hate plastic. Always have. Fascinated by Side and Stern Wheel riverboats as a child, even though I'd never seen one. Loved Steam trains...couldn't care less about the modern ones. Anything archaic or antique was fascinating to me...Victorian style my preference. Born to tinker, taking things apart by the age of three (not so good at that age at putting them back together, though. Got me in trouble.) Got a pair of goggles when I was seven by saving up wrappers from Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum. Actually wore them around, too, ( this would have been about 1961.) Everybody thought I was the weirdest little kid they'd ever seen. Never knew what to call it, until recently, when I kept running across the word "steampunk" whilst looking for old gauges on eBay. Came here....yep, it fits. I just don't credit Nature or Nurture, not in my genetics, and I wasn't exposed to it..it came from the inside, and I think it was leftover subconscious memories, which compared the modern world to that half-remembered world, and found it wanting...

Regards,
Thistlewaite
 

[The Kernel]

Perhapse a combination, a desire to construct, build and understand, that finds a niche (in part due to the global village - the aethernet )
I was that 15 year old who was bought albums (yes vinyl!) of an A4 performing the London to Edinbrough run up the East Coast Main Line, drove a steam engine (a Horwich Crab 2-6-0) as a 30th birthday present and loves to understand how things (anything, even electronic things) work.
As an illustrative aside the mother of one of my my youngest's friends bought a brand new Range-Rover Sport with the Supercharged V8 engine a couple of years go, and I saw it while on the school run, I expressed an interest so she let me "have a look", she was expecting me to climb in and admire the gadgets (including the magnetic wireless video camera - just don't ask) and was somewhat perturbed when the first thing I did was climb under the bonnet (hood for those in the US)
Maybe I'm just wierd, maybe its a response to teenage acne and social incompetence, or something else - lets enjoy it and the company of like-minded (or at least tolerant) people

[CaptainPhania]

I think it's partly the combination of my parents' attributes and partly my desire to be different from them. Neither of my parents are steampunk, but it wouldn't take much. My father was a train restorer, and is interested in submarines and basically anything that runs on steam. My mother is a lover of elegance and antiques. So I had all the resources at hand and was already interested. However, I think it was up to me to develop the "punk" part. This is the part that disturbs them, I think. While they like it if I walk around in a Victorian dress, they get a bit alarmed when I put on goggles and draw my raygun.

[Skrae]

I've no clue where I got it from, I was a geek from the time I learned to read (age 2) and was always good with Erector Sets, K-Nex, and Lego (especially Lego Technic).  I was always grabbing bits and baubles from toys in my room to make little devices, which my parents didn't really like mainly because I was not neat about it and was always in the way.  I've always had an affinity for machines, especially when it wasn't all electronics, and was actually on my high school's robotics team for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).  I think I just wanted to be a mad scientist, and growing older I began to take more and more interest in the technologies in the past, especially when applied to create modern or futuristic creations.

I love seeing Cyberpunk machines made using Victorian era and Steampunk means.  There's something satisfying about hearing the internal working of a clock and the *pshhh* and hissing of steam.  There exists a fascination of being clearly able to trace the path of the energy from start to finish.  All these are present elements of Steampunk, and that is partially how I decided that here is where I belong.  It just felt natural.