Cyberpunk in the context of "Frank Miller"

Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is the genre of speculative fiction that imagines advanced and futuristic scientific or technological progress. The elements of science fiction have evolved over time: from space exploration, extraterrestrial life, time travel, and robotics; to parallel universes, dystopian societies, and biological manipulations; and, most lately, to information technology, transhumanism (and posthumanism), and environmental challenges. Science fiction often specifically explores human responses to the consequences of these types of projected or imagined scientific advances.

The precise definition of science fiction has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. It contains many subgenres, including hard science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk, which explores the interface between technology and society; climate fiction, which addresses environmental issues; and space opera, which emphasizes pure adventure in a universe in which space travel is common.

The culture of Shanghai or Shanghainese culture is based on the Wuyue culture from the nearby Jiangsu and Zhejiang province, with a unique "East Meets West" Haipai culture generated through the influx of Western influences since the mid-19th century. Mass migration from all across China and the rest of the world has made Shanghai a melting pot of different cultures. It was in Shanghai, for example, that the first motor car was driven and (technically) the first train tracks and modern sewers were laid. It was also the intellectual battleground between socialist writers who concentrated on critical realism, which was pioneered by Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Nien Cheng and the famous French novel by André Malraux, Man's Fate, and the more "bourgeois", more romantic and aesthetically inclined writers, such as Shi Zhecun, Shao Xunmei, Ye Lingfeng and Eileen Chang.

In past years, Shanghai has been recognized as a new influence and inspiration for cyberpunk culture. Futuristic buildings such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the neon-illuminated Yan'an Elevated Road are examples that have boosted Shanghai's cyberpunk image. The city is well known for having a vibrant international flair.

Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, an Internet aesthetic and meme that emerged in the late 2000s-early 2010s and became well known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator music, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s, similar to synthwave. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates 1990s Web design and imagery, glitch art, anime, stylized Ancient Greek or Roman sculptures, Memphis Design geometric shapes, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.

Vaporwave originated as an ironic variant of chillwave, evolving from hypnagogic pop as well as similar retro-revivalist and post-Internet motifs that had become fashionable in underground digital music and art scenes of the era, such as Tumblr's seapunk. The style was pioneered by producers such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Ramona Langley, who each used various pseudonyms. In 2010, Lopatin would release the influential cassette tape Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1, which was later followed by Ferraro's Far Side Virtual. After Langley's album Floral Shoppe (2011) established a blueprint for the genre, the movement built an audience on sites such as Last.fm, Reddit and 4chan while a flood of new acts, also operating under online pseudonyms, turned to Bandcamp for distribution.

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative, futuristic and scientific concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances.

Science fiction is related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many subgenres. The genre's precise definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk, which explores the interface between technology and society, climate fiction, which addresses environmental issues, and space opera, which emphasizes pure adventure in a universe in which space travel is common.

William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is a speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans, a "combination of lowlife and high tech"—and helped to create an iconography for the Information Age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" for "widespread, interconnected digital technology" in his short story "Burning Chrome" (1982), and later popularized the concept in his acclaimed debut novel Neuromancer (1984), published by Susan Allison. These early works of Gibson's have been credited with "renovating" science fiction literature in the 1980s.

After expanding on the story in Neuromancer with two more novels (Count Zero in 1986 and Mona Lisa Overdrive in 1988), thus completing the dystopic Sprawl trilogy, Gibson collaborated with Bruce Sterling on the alternate history novel The Difference Engine (1990), which became an important work of the science fiction subgenre known as steampunk. In the 1990s, Gibson composed the Bridge trilogy of novels, which explored the sociological developments of near-future urban environments, postindustrial society, and late capitalism.

Megacorporations are a form of corporate entity differentiated by their global scale of activities and broad scope of influence, which exceed even those of a multinational corporation (MNC). They are often characterised by monopolistic control over multiple markets—and sometimes even trade in general—and the exercising of quasi-governmental powers, either via control of the government (such as through a private militia or extensive corruption) or through the governing of their own sovereign territory.

Although megacorporations are most frequently a trope of science fiction (particularly the sub-genre of cyberpunk), historical examples have been proposed, including the Dutch East India Company, the (English and later British) East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. The term has also been applied to the members of Big Tech, such as Alphabet Inc. (Google), Facebook, and Amazon.

Punk literature (also called punk lit and, rarely, punklit) is literature related to the punk subculture. The attitude and ideologies of punk rock gave rise to distinctive characteristics in the writing it manifested. It has influenced the transgressional fiction literary genre, the cyberpunk genre and their derivatives.

Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is the genre of speculative fiction that imagines advanced and futuristic scientific or technological progress. The elements of science fiction have evolved over time: from space exploration, extraterrestrial life, time travel, and robotics; to parallel universes, dystopian societies, and biological manipulations; and, most lately, to information technology, transhumanism, posthumanism, and environmental challenges. Science fiction often specifically explores human responses to the consequences of these types of projected or imagined scientific advances.

The precise definition of science fiction has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. It contains many subgenres, including hard science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk, which explores the interface between technology and society; climate fiction, which addresses environmental issues; and space opera, which emphasizes pure adventure in a universe in which space travel is common.

The near future has been used as a setting in many works, usually but not limited to the genre of science fiction. It has become increasingly common in works from the 18th century onward, with some of the classic works in the genre being Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) and H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898). 20th century saw works such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) or the novels of William Gibson, the latter representing the emergence of the popular cyberpunk genre. While some, particularly early, works of this genre are optimistic showcases of technological and societal progress, many others are discussing emergent social problems such as environmental problems, overpopulation, oppressive political regimes or the possibility of a nuclear holocaust.