80sboy said:
blackrave said:
I think ridiculous outfits were just a part of bigger issues with style of 90's
In 90's media most of people looked like they dressed themselves in the dark
And let's not even begin with their idea of futuristic clothing.
I really have no memory of people dressing like that in the 90s. Most of what I saw were baggy everything. Flannel shirts and baggy pants was more the norm. Now and then you'd see some Goth trying hard to be 'special' at school and wear a kilt along with his black everything look. But only now and then. Let's face it, no one ever dresses as they do in the movies unless special occasions.
The problem is people are talking about very specific styles among niche groups, or those trying to act like they belong to niche groups. Don't forget that during the 1990s Grunge was a big thing, and guys like Kurt Cobain were at the height of their popularity, to the point where when he committed suicide it was a big thing, as it was blamed for a lot of teens doing the same thing. Grunge being a lot more mainstream at the time, and the point was kind of to look like crap in defiance of social norms. Likewise a lot of punk looks (real punk) holdovers from the 1980s were also into a very "thrift store", the popular image of things like fancy leather jackets and combat boots, wasn't quite the reality of people who would go out of their way to find vintage Chuck Taylors (old, cheap, canvas sneakers).
One thing to understand also about the time period is that there weren't a lot of really serious hackers and phreaks, it's just that it was becoming popular, and really at the time when most online activity took place over BBS systems and things like Echoes, pretty much anyone who knew an admin password to a commonly used set of software fancied themselves a hacker.
The real hackers were groups like Masters Of Deception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_Of_Deception and Legion Of Doom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Doom_(hacking) two groups which eventually met in battle (maybe, since it's been denied) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hacker_War
Likewise a lot of the popularity of hackers in the 1990s happened due to things revealed due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sun_Devil a major crackdown on computer crime which captured the public's imagination.
As a general rule being a real hacker or a phreaker wasn't so much about making a fashion statement, hanging out in clubs, attending conventions, or any of that kind of stuff, it was mostly about information. Indeed one of the big differences between MoD and LoD during their runs was whether information about this kind of thing should be free to all, or whether it needed to be earned and kept within the hands of a few people. Some suspect that this difference of opinion might have lead to the previously mentioned "Great Hacker War" which has also been attributed to some leaders involved in these groups selling out to run cyber-security firms. I'm not the biggest expert on the subject, and honestly I'd prefer not to (again) use Wikipedia because there are probably better sources but I haven't been keeping track of this anywhere close to how I used to.
At any rate, for once I'm actually going to defend the point made by an Escapist article, where usually I play the whole "you've got it wrong" (or partially so) card. The thing is being a hacker was about keeping a low profile, and not wanting to be caught, especially in the 1990s where part of the popularity of hacking was due to a public awareness coming from the government actually taking it seriously. Indeed the whole point of using handles and such is specifically to conceal who you are, and showing up at some goth club in fetish gear going "I'm a hacker" is of course counter productive to the entire process, and is exactly why some of the big groups did NOT want to share a lot of information because when people who did things like that went blabbing around it wasn't long before whatever hole they were talking about would wind up being plugged.
I'm not saying anyone here is wrong specifically, but merely pointing out that those who did "the style" were more akin to what we'd called "Script Kiddies" nowadays than serious hackers.
The odd thing is that now, decades later, it seems some people doing TV and movies and the like are finally getting a better idea about things. Some will laugh at this but, look at the show "Covert Affairs" and the character "Auggie" when he decides to walk around as a hacker. He dresses normally, but wears a shirt with a vintage video game character (old Pac Man ghost) that's not perfect of course, but the point is that it's *fairly* subtle, in showing your really into tech. More so than looking like your an extra from "The Matrix".
One thing I'll also point out about Cyberpunk is that in those novels part of the entire schtick was that the people doing this stuff actually blended into the world they lived in to an extent. Running around dressed like an 80s punker wasn't the same as running around dressed like an 80s punker in the actual 80s. In "Johnny Mnemonic" it's also important to note that the character is a high class courier, not a hacker or punk, he's sort of from the opposite end of the social spectrum, he just happens to get in over his head, Johnny is kind of a douche, he's just a fairly talented/dangerous one (more so than the people setting him up realize). I never thought that movie as very good, especially compared to the story is was based on. Another thing to understand about a lot of dark future settings is the transient nature of society, the basic idea is that the way things have collapsed a lot of people live like gypsies, but technology had progressed to the point where it was pretty easy to have a portable computer interface in a world that was heavily interconnected. Part of the point was that when you force people to live on the streets like gypsies and have no permanent address, they become increasingly hard to track as well, which means they can behave a little differently (though concepts vary from story to story and writer to writer). Basically unlike a hacker at the time with a desktop and/or needing a very stationary internet connection for their modem, a hacker in one of those books could say be hacking from the gutted building across the street once second, from an abandoned subway tunnel tomorrow, or from a passenger platform for an orbital elevator the next. Something which seems a lot less radical with today's tech than it did at the time, and arguably a lot more effort was put into security and finding ways to track users because of those stories than probably would have been if they had never been written (or so I suspect), at any rate that's another big reason why your "cyberpunk hacker" can get away with looking "Radical" in the near future. IRL though, it's always been different.
Ah well, I'm rambling. The point here (which is as much a general post as it is to you) is that the article writer is more or less correct, and you (and others) are all also right in your own ways. There were a lot of clashing fashions in the 1990s, more so than today.
