Mr. Ottens, has it occurred to you that perhaps this is not only a natural cycle, but one that must take place regularly? And a cycle that will take place out of phase depending on which country or region you observe? Why does it have to be this tremendous tragedy about right VS left wing, or post-colonial politics killing Steampunk? Why is this the end of Steampunk? I find your point of view somewhat narrow minded if not hyper-localized to the English speaking world.
I will offer a much less nefarious alternative: If you are aware about the movement's evolution, Steampunk by nature is multi-generational, unlike many other movements that favor one particular age group. But it wasn't always that way. The original DIY and Goth crowds who joined the movement 20 years ago were obviously younger back then, and by the mid 2000s Steampunk was very much growing. But not only did the first wave of non-literary Steampunks age from youth to middle age, but much older people began to learn about the movement and joined in. That's how you suddenly got your children and your parents to go along with you to the Steampunk picnic in the UK, or the Steampunk convention in the US. Please consider for a minute that at one point or another, the younger generations will diverge and get bored about the whole Steampunk affair. Teenagers live at a very different speed from adults. For them time passes at a much slower rate, and thus what happened 5 years ago, looks like ancient history to your children, whereas you barely notice the change. You may want to spend the next 20 year dressing as a Steampunk, but your teenager simply won't think the same way. He's got a life of his own.
Is it not possible that the younger crowds simply got tired of the Steampunk fad and want to see something new like Elven Fantasy or Wizard Students? I've met co-workers who never saw The Matrix. When I told them they should see the movie they reacted with disgust. "What is my age?" one of them asked sarcastically. I must admit the reality that as a Gen-X, my "cool" is no longer. Michael Stipe now looks like an old curmudgeon.Teens today have to deal with a completely new reality in which even gender itself is being redefined. There's so much stuff out there to see. Could you entertain the notion that the congruence of generations in Steampunk just happened for a passing moment, like the beats of sound waves interacting with each other? I postulate that well developed Steampunk movements in First World countries have peaked and a generational divergence of opinions within the movement has already happened and likely will occur cyclically, at "generational frequency," so to speak. People will drop the fad to go to the next one, only to come back later. Check back in 20 or 25 years from now, that seems to work for music as well as aesthetics for anything "retro." Brassgoggles, admittedly may not be around. But I don't think my life as a Steampunk aficionado will come to an end immediately because of that (Is that heresy what I just wrote? Get over it and do something if you want to keep it!)
I understand the process whereby politics can spoil a movement. Let me make clear that is not a wrong conclusion, just an old and narrow view of what happens to the Steampunk movement globally, and most importantly does not determine a final outcome. So I'll postulate further that the concept of Steampunk transcends generations and is greater than any of our feeble organizations, be it blog, vlog, forum, convention, or live social event. Sorry, you're not as important as the movement you promote.
Classical music is not dead. Neither is Baroque, Renaissance or Medieval music. Each one of those was called "a fad" at some point. And fads are meant to be adopted, used and then dumped unceremoniously, until someone finds it again decades later. Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons was derided by contemporary critics as a forgettable "gimmick," and rumor has it that by Mozart's time JS Bach's written music was treated as garbage (toilet paper even!). The other day I was watching a video about ancient Scandinavian music. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm sure there's plenty of organizations dedicated to the curation, reproduction and study of every single style of music ever played, no matter how esoteric. Beethoven is not a fad now, but neither is his music dead. Why can't Steampunk be the same as Agatha Christie styled mystery novels or medieval armor studies? What makes Steampunk so unique that it MUST die now? What movement actually dies, never to come back?
We, at Brassgoggles have survived multiple attacks, from all sorts of directions, by a multitude of ideologues, all of whom left empty-handed. I assume the same thing happened elsewhere. But that didn't happen only in 2019 or 2017, 15, or 13. I remember having that argument in 2010! Steampunk Magazine was highly controversial back then! And yet according to your thesis, one would expect such vitriolic attacks would have stopped Steampunk dead on its tracks long ago. But did it? The political gangrene argument explains a localized death but does not explain how, around 2011, there was an expansion of Steampunk outside of the UK and English speaking world in general. I assume that was possible for the simple fact that history, culture and politics differ in other countries. For example, here at American venues we've had our bloomers tied in a knot forever over the presence of guns and gun rights in Steampunk venues. That's a very American argument. I remember around 2009 when I joined Brassgoggles reading in amazement how American Steampunks argued over and over about the right to bear arms at conventions, as if it concerned every Steampunk who came to the forum from any part of the world. Other countries won't have that same political argument, and most likely will have their own brand of political arguments that could sour the party. I guess some things are universal, Socialism, Anarchism, Totalitarianism... But they don't have a 2nd Amendment to fight over.
Look at the time period around 2010. I postulate that upon death at one place you will find life elsewhere. In 2010 Steampunk, already touted as "old and tired" by some hardliners and criticized by others of "going mainstream" (eg Justin Bieber, 2011),was actually exploding into the underground scene in Latin America. About the time I joined the first Mexican Steampunk forum, I got to witness the breathtaking speed with which it expanded into Argentina, Chile, Brazil, you name it, the Spanish speaking world was on fire.
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,29562.msg650616.html#msg650616Those Steampunk folk were very young. They were all connected by Internet by newly installed cellular and optical networks. The kids were very different from the middle aged English speaking Steampunks in the UK and the United States. In Mexico, guys tended to be college aged, and coming from the Metal and Goth crowds. The girls tended to be high-school aged and come from the Lolita movement. Sadly Steampunk Mexico imploded shortly after takeoff mostly due to infighting over what to do and how much to do. They wanted to do too much. Mexico is a big country. The college age students wanted to have a national organisation including conventions, podcasts and even museum exhibits. There were fights over the leadership of the forum, and people fought bitterly until the forum fragmented into various other organizations spread over the country, and by then I had lost interest due to their infighting. No politics in the traditional sense were involved.
The maturity of a Steampunk movement in a given country is generally correlated to the age of the average Steampunk. You will find older people in well developed Steampunk scenes. I suspect that is when politics come into the picture. It is the older-than-teenage crowd, most likely middle aged or golden-aged people who will express interest in political discussion. It's an assumption on my part, correct me if I'm wrong. But if I'm right, then the political gangrene argument is really a generational argument.
I tend to view Steampunk's apparent demise as more of a generational effect. The world will not come to an end and Steampunk will not die. The only people who should be having a screaming fit over this are those who make their living from Steampunk. They will bear the impact of the fad's demise.
And I can tell you from experience that this particular train left the station long ago. Steampunk stopped being a viable business for me back in 2013. The reason was a change in national laws regarding health insurance requirements. Suddenly the average American family had to spend a few hundred dollars more per month to keep the family's policy. That stopped many middle aged women (my primary clientele) from spending on their new found passion, Steampunk. Seventy percent of my income came from the US, and that meant my business became inviable. So politics will not kill Steampunk, but will kill your business!
