Fortnite, Cyberpunk, and the Shifting Cultural Tide
Fortnite’s new season has recently come out. It features a cyberpunk inspired cityscape with a good amount of space to give off a semi-genuine city type feel with expansive indoor areas and some backstreets to get lost in. What also caught my attention (aside from the super cars and Japanese sports bikes) was the corner of the map being heavily east Asian themed. Including castles reminiscent of previous Japanese eras.
Cyberpunk isn’t a new concept. Most have probably been made aware of it culturally through movies like Blade Runner, Ghost In The Shell, or even The Matrix. America especially isn’t new to the concept so why is it coming back into style again and what does it mean that we find ourselves drawn back to this culture of the 80s?
The rising interest in cyberpunk as a theme across mediums can’t be understated in the past few years. From the popularity and anticipation for Cyberpunk 2077 from CDProjekt Red, Blade Runner’s cultural influence, the popularity of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and the recent adaptation of Ghost In The Shell to introduce a new audience to one of the most influential pieces of cyberpunk media, it’s impossible to not notice the cyberpunk trend reemerging in the cultural consciousness.
At the same time, anime is becoming Japan’s largest global cultural export to North America, Kpop has risen to dominate American charts and sales figures, TikTok is the largest app in the world while being owned by a Chinese internet company, the global box office shifts to focus on China’s growing theatre market, and streaming services pick up more steam in Japan rapidly.
The previous time cultural anxieties were this high about east Asian influence in the cultural sphere of the world was during the 1980s in Japan’s bubble economy. The main difference between then and now is that it’s not just speculative value that is going up to cause this sense of growth but the rise of businesses that have adjusted to or interest global markets more. Even on a smaller cultural scale, we’ve seen this rise in Japanese cultural influence online with the rapid growth of VTubers as a cultural export. VTubers have become some of the highest earners on both YouTube and Twitch leading to a boom in VTubers amongst the online creator space as well as impressive profits for those who were there to break new ground in this field.
What I’m trying to get at is that signs are pointing to the idea that global culture is shifting into the hands of a new era again. We’ve seen this reverse before due to an economic bubble bursting but this time it’s not reliant on just one speculative economy to influence this shift in market focus. This time it’s several economies with tangible growth dominating various markets from different sectors at the same time. As a result, the anxieties are creeping up again in the global consciousness which leads to why cyberpunk media seems to be getting a second breath in the limelight.
Cyberpunk has a history of orientalism and fears stoked deep during the yellow-peril. The very sensation that “those of the east” are different and need to be watched before they take over in the blink of an eye. It’s a very stereotype focused and colonialist way of interpreting people of a different culture. The genre can’t escape it’s cultural ties to the idea that America doesn’t lead the world in the technologically advanced decades to come which feeds often into it’s melancholic tones and backdrop. It’s a reflection of a fear of no-longer being the dominant global culture. It puts it’s (often cis white and male) protagonists into a future they don’t fully understand, in a culture they can’t escape from, and have to navigate as an outsider. They don’t dictate what is normal in this world. They lost that power.
Due to these changes we are experiencing the shift in the global cultural hegemony as a result of economic incentives. What this results in is change. The world and the internet don’t see America as the center of the world/culture anymore. Things have changed and we simply have to accept that fact. I don’t think cyberpunk is inherently problematic for bringing up these cultural anxieties again. It can be used as a means to tackle these questions and uncertainties head-on without resorting to orientalism as the root cause of both current and future problems.
So why write this? I saw a vaguely Japanese location in the world’s largest videogame owned by a company who is 40% owned by Tencent (the world’s largest video games company) and I’m suddenly seeing the end of American cultural domination as we know it. I write this less as a way to “predict” the world to come and more as a following of trends. America is simply experiencing the other side of what it was like during the 1980s for Japan. The trend was already beginning and the global pandemic has only caused that to speed up. America is going to lose another decade.
Cultural anxieties during times of change is natural. It has happened before and it is happening now. While I do advocate for accepting and learning about new cultures through various forms of art and media, we must be cautious that we aren’t rewarding self-fetishization and promoting orientalism along the way.
