All language subtitles for Vintage.Tomorrows.2015.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+5.1.H.264-QOQ

People constantly ask me,
what is steampunk?

It's stories and stuff --
movies, pictures, objects.

That draws its inspiration

from the science fiction
of the 19th century.

Based around a fantasticated
Victoriana.

Looking back to look forward
again and say, but what if?

It's not a historical movement;
it's an anachronistic movement.

You get the fantasy stuff, and
you get the science fiction stuff,

and it comes together,
and it's made of awesome!

I would call it the crossroads
of technology and romance.

There's adventure,
there's excitement.

You break away from
the prim and the proper

and the straight and the narrow

and you end up going
just a little bit wild.

Things are on fire.
Things are gushing steam.

Things are powered
by zombies and ether.

I mean, that's exciting.

People ask me
why I like steampunk.

I'm like, "It's fun!"

I love it when a kid
runs up and goes,

"Oh my god, this is steampunk!"

The Society for
Creative Anachronism

never seemed half
as creative as this.

People will debate really
what steampunk is.

People have
different visions of it.

But trying to distill it down
to something

that you can tell your mom
is kind of difficult.

And I think it's been very hard
to explain to people

that, yeah, steampunk
is political.

I made the claim in an issue
of Steampunk Magazine

that steampunk
would save the world.

I'm a little bit into
blind optimism.

We're causin' a riot.

When you walk down the street
in a top hat and spats,

you are causin' a riot.

You're makin' a statement.

We're writing a book
on steampunk.

So we're getting a group
of steampunks together,

along with a futurist

and a cultural historian

to talk about the future
and to talk about

what steampunk can tell us
about the future.

We've got representatives
from all around

the different portions
of steampunk culture,

so everything from literature

You get to fashion to games to music,
You get you name it.

And there's a whimsy to it and
there's a play with the past

that I think can tell us a lot
about how human beings

think about themselves
in relationship to their past

and what that takes them
toward their future.

In the work that I do
in future casting,

it's looking five, ten,
fifteen years out,

and so I'm always searching for
different visions of the future,

and that's one of the things
that I found really interesting

about steampunk because
steampunk gives you

a revisionist history
of the past.

It's recrafting the past,
and that fascinated me.

We've referred to me as
an embedded cultural historian

in a sense,
and so in some senses

I am becoming a part of
this culture increasingly.

In other senses,
I'm studying it.

I have questions.

I have questions
I want answered.

I am here so that I can build
a better future,

so that we can build better
technologies for people,

and I want to learn
from these experts

to get to, what is the future
that we want?

And that's not easy.

In the end, it isn't just about
being fans of steampunk.

It isn't just about thinking
steampunk's cool.

I think that we can really learn
something important

and I think that tonight
we could actually do something

that's quite important
to think about

what is the future
that we want to live in?

And it might take a little bit
of digging,

but I think we can get there.

I want to thank you all
before we start.

Cheers. Thank you so much.

So just give a sort of
a little overview

of sort of what you see
as steampunk

but then, more importantly,
how did you come to it?

It just connects with so many
different things that I love.

Like everyone else
at this table,

I love things that are beautiful
and beautifully made.

I love things that are both
functional and ornamental

and I love the creativity
and the imagination

that go into a lot of the things

that people in the steampunk
community do.

Steampunk is an odd
recursive coining

that echoes cyberpunk.

Certainly ever since cyberpunk,

there's been a kind of,
I would say,

a sort of parlor game
among geeks,

which is, you know, X punk,
Y punk, anything punk.

It's nostalgic cyberpunk.

That's like super interesting.

It's science fiction unshackled

from all that tedious
reality stuff.

It is retro futurism.

It is the science fiction of
the future that never happened.

It's full of grand
and glorious stylish people

doing beautiful, hand-tooled
stuff with technology.

Imagine the Victorians
flying to the moon

in a hot air balloon.

People want to get into things
which will have history,

that have stories that are
unique and personal,

and steampunk is all about that,
and you can do it

not only with the clothes
that you're wearing

but with the ideas that are
in your head.

And people usually get
pretty excited about it.

It's a fun thought experiment.

When the Victorians were writing
this sort of material,

they were like,
"Oh, this is great!

"Let's build a gun big enough

"to shoot a bullet at the moon!"
You know?

And it's like, sure,

and you know what it's
gonna get there? Paste.

But you don't have to deal
with that in steampunk.

It has more of a sense of fun,
and people like that.

When it comes to steampunk,
the appeal is so much broader.

It's about 50 - 50 men and women,
and you see people of all ages.

I found science fiction
very early on as a kid

by watching television shows
like Star Trek.

The idea of mashing up
science fiction and robots

with this Wild West aesthetic
just blew my mind.

And I love the rivets

and I love the gears
and I love the steel

and I actually get kinda
kinky about that stuff.

I grew up reading books like
James Gurney's Dinotopia,

which is a fantastic example

of just a beautifully
designed world

that embraces science fiction

and embraces
the Victorian setting.

The actual movement,

I probably started to pay
attention to it around 2004,

and at first I had a
very heavy disdain for it

because, um, as I summed it up:

"It was just robots
with top hats."

And I think I had already
become tired of the tropes

that I would later associate
with steampunk.

But then I met like-minded
artists and craftspeople

and I realized that the only way

that subculture is going
to improve

would be if we
participated in it.

We did Burning Man in 2008

and we discovered this
whole steampunk thing.

I come upon this Victorian
house on wheels

and this entire camp of people

dressed up like they came
out of the 1890s,

and it just seemed like
a nice transition

from one subculture
to another subculture.

My husband was into
neo-Victorian things and goth,

and I was a little bit into it.

I was mostly a huge
science fiction fan.

So I started wearing steampunk

to general science fiction
conventions,

and people would come up and go,
"Oh, is that steampunk?

I've heard of this.
This is cool!"

Probably since the early '80s,

I've been wearing
bowler hats and vests,

and I've been making models of
airships and things like that,

but it wasn't until
a few years back

that I went to my first con

and they had a big
steampunk theme,

and I thought, I like this,
you know,

and it's right up my alley,
and, oh, look, it's got a name.

We started a comic
quite a long time ago now,

and we called it
"gaslamp fantasy"

because we felt that
we didn't quite fit the mold

of what was out there
being called steampunk.

So it was already in full swing

by the time we found out about
the whole subculture part of it,

and it was a really cool
surprise.

Somebody said to me,
"Oh, well, you should really

look into steampunk,
'cause I think you'd really

like the aesthetic."

So I started hunting around
on the Internet,

and it was a really wonderful
environment to share

and we started talking about
what would happen

if this became a subculture,
hypothetically?

I actually started
Steampunk Magazine

in, essentially,
a cultural vacuum.

I was only aware of steampunk
in this very periphery way.

And what I found right away was
that there was actually already

a small and growing community
around steampunk.

To me, the fun part
was the punk part.

I like the idea of taking
history and just twisting it.

It has a pleasingly
counterculture aspect to it,

but it's not the kind of
angry, antagonistic

kind of counterculture
which you often see

in the original punk movements.

We can do this ourselves.

We don't need this
handed down to us.

You know, the government
or culture, you know, writ large

has nothing for us.

We can go out and find it
ourselves.

You find a lot of artists
in the movement:

writers, musicians, makers...

What might bring all of these
people together, I think,

is a sense of theatricality
and of wanting to live

in a reality that's slightly
different.

If you were the kid who took
the light bulb out of your lamp,

wet your finger, and stuck it in
just to see what would happen,

that kid's gonna go grow up to
be a steampunk, if they survive.

We're not steampunks 'cause
there's something wrong with us.

We're steampunks 'cause
our brains are exploding

from this plastic world
we've been put in.

That's why we're breakin' out.

It's not because there's
something wrong with us.

It's because we need to be more.

That was definitely
my gate to steampunk

was the literary genre.

I think a lot of things
came later

as it started to grow and expand
and include more things

or be expressed in more venues.

But for me it was that literary
gate that brought me in.

I'd picked up the novel
Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter,

and at the time
it just struck me as

here's a kind of alt history
version of science fiction.

There was this
half-satirical windup

by the author in Locus magazine
saying,

"Hey, why don't we call this
steampunk?

Then we might get more attention
for it."

And, of course, it didn't really
work out for him that way.

The attention came
30 years later.

It was an exciting time
in science fiction.

In the '80s, there was a lot
of new stuff going on.

And I was a punk rocker
in the early '80s,

and so I tended to gravitate
actually more towards cyberpunk.

So I think the first
steampunk book

that I ever read was
The Difference Engine.

I was working in a bookstore when
The Difference Engine came out.

The cyberpunk novels
were very big.

William Gibson
and Bruce Sterling

were great towering giants
of the field,

and within the mainstream

of hardcore science fiction
readers,

all of a sudden everyone knew
what steampunk was.

One of the things
that most affected

writers of my generation
was the appearance

of the word processor
on the scene.

So, you know, I had
many discussions,

especially with William Gibson,

about what it was that this new
form of composition was doing

to the way words appeared
on the page.

In the world of
The Difference Engine,

scientists and engineers are
at the very peak of society.

So we wrote this book,
Difference Engine,

which was really a kind of study

of the effect of
computation on society,

taking the effects of the world

that we were seeing around
ourselves in the 1980s

and back-projecting them
to an imaginary 1850s.

It's a radical restructuring
of history.

We were trying to use the kind
of cultural density of the past

to make it clear
to contemporary people

what the stakes were
of an industrial revolution.

When I started thinking about
Boneshaker,

I grew up in the Southeast,
where, let's be honest,

alternate theories
of the Civil War

are kind of a regional pastime.

And I went to the
University of Tennessee

for my graduate school work
in Chattanooga,

and you can go through
the old patent archives

and find crazy, crazy
patent submissions

for machines that people
wanted to make,

and they were the most steampunk
things I had ever seen,

and I thought "I would
love to use these..."

... except they never happened,
because they ran out of war.

So it started there.

I'm like, well, what if
they didn't run out of war?

Steampunk didn't seem
to have a mythology

to account for all
of the minor tropes of it.

It was kind of a collection
of things that people wore.

And I tried to make technology

that was symptomatic
of the place

because I didn't want it
to be gears on hats.

I wanted these people
to have things

that were going to be
practical to them

in a very strange environment.

Certainly I didn't set out
to write steampunk,

but then I think probably
most people don't.

The fact that Perdido Street
Station came out in 2000

and was based around a world

that had a very roughly
Victorian-era technology

is probably one of the things
that means

that it is put in that box, and
I have no problem about that.

You know, your fiction does
stuff that you intend it to do,

that you don't intend it to do
behind your back.

It does stuff differently
for every single reader.

If somebody decides
this book pushed me

into this field of steampunk
that I absolutely love,

then how can that be anything
other than very flattering?

I started writing this book,
and I thought,

oh, I kind of want to write
an urban fantasy,

but I really want something
set historically.

I'm more comfortable writing
in the past.

And as I started to imagine

how Victorians and Victorian
scientists would react

to real supernatural creatures
in their time period,

I started coming up with
this alternative science,

and it was while I was
world building

that I realized the books
I was writing

were going to be
steampunk books.

And in my world, the steampunk
element is the result

of the incorporation
of a supernatural element.

So all of the laws
of my universe

have to be explained using
Victorian science.

Boilerplate is a robot

who was invented in 1893.

"For the purpose of preventing
the deaths of men

"in the conflict of nations."

Because Archie Campion
has this idea

that he can prevent humans
from dying in battle.

And then unveils them

at the Chicago
World's Fair in 1893.

Archie takes Boilerplate
all over the world

to demonstrate him.

He goes to the Klondike
in the gold rush in Alaska.

He's a beat cop in Chicago.

He builds railroads
across the Sudan in Africa.

He's involved in the
Philippine War.

He fights in the Boxer Rebellion
in China.

He's in Australia

at the birth of the Australian
Commonwealth.

Yes, the robot gets around.

But it's all logistically
possible.

Boilerplate has been my gateway
drug for steampunk for people.

Like, if they're like,
"I don't like it.

"It's just goggles and it's
just, you know, gears."

And I just pull it
off the shelf and I go,

"Just browse through this
for, like, 10 minutes."

And they're immediately
sucked in

because it's so based
and grounded in something

that they can understand.

And that's how I conceived
Boilerplate,

as really an excuse to share
historical stories

that I thought were
really important

that people should know about

and that were relevant
to what's going on today.

History builds humanity.

Part of what makes us human

is the stories that we tell
ourselves.

The future and the past
were more interesting places

for me to escape to

because I lived in the
contemporary world.

That was boring.
I wanted to be transported.

I realized that the Victorian
era is the birth of modernity.

From the large things like
airplanes and telephones

to the everyday things
we take for granted.

You go back to the late 1800s,
we have mass media...

Food safety legislation...

Various people demanding
their rights

that hadn't been demanding
their rights previously.

Women having the right
to vote.

Concerns about what technology
was going to do to us.

The eight-hour day.

And I felt that was very
important to share with people.

History has some of the richest
and most exciting

and most absorbing stories,

and you can mine them
as a storyteller

and swing them and sway them
and take battles

and rewrite them and put them
into space.

I mean, there's so many things
you can do if you know history.

And there's so many
things back then

around the world
that are way cooler

than anything we come
up with in steampunk,

and so it's really neat to just
look at the technology back then

and build upon it, look at the
costuming around the world

back then and build upon it.

We're able to pull music
and voices and images

and all sorts of things out of
an increasingly deep past,

and we take it for granted.

If you do nothing else,

go and sit with your
grandparents and say, you know,

"Hey, tell me about
World War 2."

I sat down on the couch
with my dad,

who was in the Korean War,
and I was like,

"Tell me a little bit about
what you were doing there."

And he told me
this story of testing

these huge sort of
skyrail trains,

and his job was
to crash them.

There's a scene in Blameless

where these huge skyrail
steam-powered trains show up,

and they're stolen directly
from his stories.

And so we're kind of combing
the Victorians

to see the things that we like
and the things that still work.

And use this as kind of

our artist's palette
from which we draw.

It forces you to look back
in order to look forward.

When you are capable of seeing
that connection,

then you kind of like see the
threads and how to unravel them

in order to kind of
rethread them

so that we can create something
better for the future.

It creates the past that tells
the story of who we want to be.

When I started off
designing clothes,

I'd never heard of steampunk.

I actually got into doing
clothing

because I'm fascinated
by storytelling and narrative

as a way of understanding
human psychology.

I'll just costume
myself at home

because it improves my enjoyment
of whatever I'm doing.

I change clothes to sew stuff,
I change clothes to cook eggs.

And I think it's what I really
enjoy about the steampunk scene

is that it's, everyone's so
interested in telling stories.

If you had known steampunk
30-odd years ago,

you would've seen that
it would be in my future

because I was always fascinated
by BBC costume dramas.

Even if I didn't understand
what was going on,

I could just
watch those dresses.

I remember one of my first
Halloween costumes

was turning a hula hoop
into a hoop skirt.

It didn't exactly work,

but, uh, that was one of
the first things I did.

At the start of it, I don't
think people really thought

it was much of a movement.

It seemed just like period
cosplay.

Cosplay is short for
costume play.

It's an important part of the
culture of comics conventions

and it's become an activity
quite fantastically unto itself.

As an artist, you start out
imitating somebody.

So cosplayers, I'm sure,
began making costumes

based on their favorite movie,
literary character, TV show.

But at some point you want to go
beyond the out of the box,

and I think that's
much more satisfying:

"Oh, I'm tired of Star Wars.
I'm gonna try this instead."

Which is not to say
that we don't want people

to dress up as Boilerplate
in the future,

because we totally do.

It actually surprises me

how many people who I would
consider introverts

or really shy
actually feel comfortable

coming out and wearing costumes.

I think in a way you're not
presenting yourself,

and so I'll find people who are
normally so quiet and so shy

just become exuberant when they
put themselves behind a mask

and can kinda wear
that new identity.

I was really just
t-shirt and jeans

unless I had to wear something,
like going to work

and I had to dress up
and, God forbid, wear a tie.

When steampunk came along,
it was like, I get to dress up

and I get to wear really fancy
clothes all the time.

So this coat I had made
specifically

as my Airship Ambassador coat
and my uniform.

So I'll wear that when
I'm kind of in that role.

My first big steampunk costume
that I made

was the khaki gown that I have.

Originally, it was
a volcanologist

just because I really liked
volcanoes,

but I also absolutely love
ancient Egypt

and Victorian Egyptomania.

That's when it became sort of
a mummy hunting costume.

And so it was very much
that same idea

of taking something I love

and finding a way to twist it
into a character

and a more badass version
of myself.

The two things I wanted to be
when I was growing up

were an astronaut
and an inventor.

And I have, like, Trapper Keepers

filled with, like, illustrated
inventions that I made,

and I had, I mean,

just delightfully ridiculous
kid inventions.

And, in particular, I designed
a flying costume.

It was a suit made out of
ripstop parachute nylon

that was flameproof.

It had copper tubes
that ran through it

that you could attach
propane torches to

which would inflate the hot air
inside the suit

that would make you
neutrally buoyant

so you would lift up
with the suit and the wings

and then you could glide
back down.

And I hadn't made the connection
until my parents came in

and said, "Oh, you finally made
your flying suit."

Being able to say

you're the hero of your own
life, of your own story,

and so I will take this one
thing I've always aspired to do

and make a costume around it,
is pretty great.

And then it's just fun to
filter that through Victoriana.

When I discovered that
I could do steampunk costuming,

people would come up to me
and say, "What's that from?"

And I could say,
"That's from my imagination."

And they'd go,
"You can do that?"

And it was infectious,
it was lovely.

Every chance I could
wear a costume,

I wore a costume as a kid

because I'm a clown
all the time.

The idea of being able to dress
in the style and be a goon,

play a character, I'm free,
free to do as I see fit.

I was a Civil War reenactor
when I was 16-17.

It's part of how
I got into history.

So some of my steampunk clothes

are actually my Civil War
reenactment uniform.

I've worn waistcoats and a
pocket watch for years, right?

I've just all of a sudden found

a whole bunch of
other people who do that.

Believe this or not,
this is essentially

most of my everyday clothes.

I looked at that
time period and thought,

"That is nice, good and proper."

In a way, for me it was
kind of my rebellion

against the, like, "You must
show more and more skin,"

and I was like,
"No, I don't want to."

And I thought,
"Well, I'll just go back

to that period of modesty."

When I stepped really into the
steampunk style as a costumer,

I left my edges unfinished

and I started trying to play
with torn fabric.

The function turns inside out,
so that you see the function

and the form side by side.

Here is a previous corset
that I have made.

The idea is that it has this
busk that buckles up the front

and then you lace it closed
in the back.

You could probably take a bullet
in a well-made corset.

It'd just have to be a very
specifically-aimed bullet.

Goggles are sort of --
have become sort of the symbol

of steampunk for
a lot of people.

Do you know the steampunk
salute, sir?

Nice goggles.

When somebody is ready to spend

what I charge for these,
they're in.

It's kind of a badge
of belonging in a way,

and I enjoy watching people
make that transition, too.

When you put something on

that makes you feel really good
about yourself,

you are good,
you are better.

I wanna make people feel so good
about themselves

because of what they're wearing,
because it was made for them,

it fits them, they can have
that confidence

to step out into the world
and be better people.

What I'm hoping costuming
will go towards

is being able to make
our own clothes again,

make clothes that fit us

rather than we have to fit
the clothes,

and having it last,

which will totally put
textile workers

out of jobs, but...

In this day-to-day world

where everything is ready-made,
we frequently feel inferior

because,
"Oh, our clothes don't fit,"

and, "Oh, it's not quite right,"
and "It must be my fault."

But I really feel strongly
that it's my fault

as a designer
if the clothes don't fit.

So my purpose here on Earth

is to make people feel better
about themselves

through the clothes
that I make for them.

I've been into, you know,
frilly costumes

since I was a tiny child.

And when I was a teenager,
I got into goth fashion

and I wore corsets

and did a lot of different
styles within goth,

but the new Victoriana
was definitely a thing.

The dress-up aesthetic
definitely appeals to me

and also science fiction
has always appealed to me

since I was really little.

This song is called
"The Heroine."

My name is Erica Griffin Mulkey.

I perform as Unwoman.

* The city is war-torn

* And nearly impassable

* I act the lovelorn

With steampunk, I can be
in a corset and tons of makeup

and have ridiculous
huge hats on.

It's extremely empowering,
and I just rock it.

It just makes me bigger
than life.

* Now it's closing night *

* And you can't be found *

* Go through the motions
again and again *

* But you are not here
to see them *

I didn't think of myself
as a steampunk performer

until 2009, which is when Jordan
from Sepiachord

had me come up and play
the first Steamcon.

* ...actually feel them

With Sepiachord talking
about music, my idea was

I didn't want culture
handed down to me anymore.

I wanted to give it back
and give it out.

And it went so well
and I fit in so well,

it became a thing that I pursued
and I started writing

to other conventions and saying,
"Hey, I want to play for you.

"I think people will like me."

And I've turned that into,
you know, my job.

* That was my best poker face

* Trying not to care

* I watch and I wait

* While you never appear

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
to the Abney Park show.

Steampunk I discovered in 2008,

when I saw Abney Park
in concert for the first time.

If anybody's heard of
steampunk at all,

they will have heard
of Abney Park.

* I made my own machine

* Yes, we're building steam *

* I hate the same routine

I love playing with Abney Park.

They put on a fantastic live
show. They're full of energy.

We've got a new album that's
coming out in about a month,

and that's our 11th album.

We've been doing it
for 22 years.

* 'Cause I'm a Victorian
vigilante *

* Bring some justice
on your head *

* From the palace
to the riverside *

* For your troubles
you'll get bled *

I don't want to write the same
song over and over again.

I don't want to write the
same album over and over again.

* Here we come, on the run

* Our coal fires are burning

* Here we come, fife and drum

* Propellers in the dawn

* Here we come, on the run

* Our coal fires are burning

* Here we come, fife and drum

* Under the radar, we crept on

Abney Park takes place
within its own world

outside of the context
of history.

To continue to look back
into history

and then pull that stuff
into what we're doing,

I think that's the fun
exploration.

I do have some parameters about
what makes music steampunk,

but it's pretty wide open.

I feel like almost every genre
of music can be steampunk

if there are elements
of the old and the new.

I don't necessarily want to say

that an indie rock band that
throws a cello in is steampunk,

although I'll probably play
in your band if you ask me to.

When I first started thinking
about what is steampunk music,

I thought, "probably music
that's of the era

"that's also innovative,

"and in that regard,
not of the era."

Like neo-cabaret,
one might say.

I would love to see more bands

working with historical sounds
and music and styles.

And I think that's where...
I find that more charming

when the punking is less
in the style of music

and more in the lyrics.

* The city is war-torn

* And nearly impassable

* I act the lovelorn

* I used to be laughable *

When you're dealing with
the Victorians

and their optimism
for the future

and their excitement
for the future,

they didn't mean for everybody,
they meant for us,

for us right now,

and we're not really
paying attention

to all those little people over
there doing those little things.

I am not a Victorian
re-creationalist.

I am... I'm a steampunk.

I think that the
19th century was bollocks.

Victorian London, as, you know,
full of beautiful, clanking machines,

was built on systems of massive

and brutal exploitation
around the world.

There was not a lot of beauty
in Victorian England.

I mean, we see
the beautiful things

because they're some of
the things that survived,

but there was also
a lot of poverty

and horrible living conditions
and unpleasant parts.

People were intolerant of gays.

People were sexist.

People were racist.

There was rampant colonialism.

There was abuse of the workforce.

It was awful. There is something
frankly quite troublesome

about the fact that
what is being eulogized here,

in a sometimes very winning
and very wonderful way,

is an era of bestial oppression.

I would say that steampunk needs to look
at itself in the mirror a little bit.

My first hints that
steampunk as it existed

might not be for me
was when I put out a call

for contributions
to Steampunk Magazine

looking for pro-feminist
anti-colonial work.

One of the best comments,
"best comments" I found

was someone saying, "How can you
call yourself steampunk

"and be anti-colonial?"

And this, of course, to me, it was,
uh, it caught me by surprise.

You know, as I say it,
I looked around

and was like, "Aw man,
am I in the right room?"

I was put on a steampunk panel,

which made me wonder
why I didn't like steampunk,

what's wrong with steampunk,
because I should.

Most of what I saw
currently as steampunk

seemed really colonialist.

Yeah, it's a form of escapism,

but we still carry with us
kind of like ideas

and prejudices and stereotypes
from a larger culture.

Now, if you depict
a fantasticated version

of a society, and you write out
the relations of oppression

and what... you know,
something is going on there

in just the same way
as it would

if you wrote a utopia
about white South Africa

in which there were no black
people during the '80s.

You're doing something
whether or not you intend to.

Immediately when
you think adventure,

I'm just thinking of those
people in the pith helmets.

Pith helmets are
obviously imagery

from British occupation
and the Zulu wars.

There was oppression,
there was bigotry,

but that's a story
for another time.

We're reinventing history
and making it fun and positive.

That's not what I think of
when I think of positive.

I'm sorry.

I have a totally different
perspective on that one.

There's so many options
out there

that don't draw from
that painful imagery.

I feel like these things
can be reclaimed,

but I don't necessarily think
it's my place

as a privileged white woman
to reclaim them.

So I actually haven't worn
my pith helmet in a while.

I've switched over to... I have
a National Park Ranger hat.

It's really kind of difficult
sometimes to get people

out of that comfort zone
and say, "Okay, let's talk

about the social ramifications
of what you're doing,

or the political ramifications,
or what you're saying

about gender when you do
what you do."

A lot of people would look at me
and go,

"You're crazy. This is fantasy.
This is fun."

And I think that unfortunate
disconnect from reality

is what kills a lot
of really interesting

and exciting artistic movements.

A lot of people think
that it's total killjoy

for people to go around
pointing people out

and saying that things
are offensive,

but if it means more people
join this subculture

and feel more comfortable
and welcome,

because it's still

very middle-class white
Western subculture.

What I want to urge people to do
is look at the globe

and look at all the
opportunities for stories

there are outside
of this tiny island.

As a reader who loves cool stuff

and who is, frankly, kind of
tired of steam engines

but very open to being
reenchanted by them,

I love the idea of seeing
queer steampunk,

steampunk of color,
anti-imperialist steampunk,

altermondialiste steampunk,
feminist steampunk,

you know, surrealist steampunk,

avant-garde steampunk, you know,
punk punk steampunk.

Bring it the fuck on.

Going to steampunk
is kind of like

pressing a reset button
on that era.

It's like,
"Can we reset this era

"so that we don't
have these problems?"

What if things had
gone differently?

They're looking back
at the past and saying,

"Yeah, a lot of these really
horrible things happened,

"but here's some
really cool things,

"and that if they had gone
in this direction,

"if they had moved over
here and gone that way,

"then wow, what could it
have been?"

Well, it could've been this.

That's about genres
and subgenres growing up.

That's good stuff.

As you map the cultural
activity,

so you map the amount of stuff
that's being produced,

the amount of steampunk stuff,

so TV, and games, and comics,

and fashion, and music
and all of this stuff,

there has been an incredible
spike in cultural activity

around steampunk.

So what is it about steampunk

that has ignited all of this
cultural activity?

What does steampunk
tell us about today?

If you have more people
who are interested in it, why?

In the second half
of the 20th century,

there were national movements:
in the '50s, beatniks;

in the '60s, hippies;
in the '70s, punks;

in the '80s, hip-hop; and then
with the rise of the Internet

and corporatization of media,

that dissipated
like a fractal pattern.

After a generation or so

of not having a cohesive
movement like that,

I think people are really hungry

for some kind of tribe
to come together:

aesthetic, music, fashion.

What we're seeing right now
with steampunk

is something similar
to what we saw

in the late '50s
with the Beat Generation

or that we saw in the late '60s
with the hippie movement

is all of a sudden we've got
the Summer of Love.

All of a sudden,
it's becoming cool.

And what that does is it creates
a shitload of people

walking around with goggles
on their top hats

and calling themselves
steampunk.

And the people who were
at the core of this,

who are at the core of this,

who have a strong
ideological commitment

to this idea of changing
the narrative,

of changing the world,
are going, "Wait a minute!"

But what happens
as a part of that process

is you actually do get
cultural change.

And this is why I really like it
is it's not a literary movement

or a film movement,
and it actually is

a broader cultural movement,
and you don't have to read

The Difference Engine
to know what steampunk is.

Do we try to keep this
a small, little, private thing

just for us to savor,
or do we get annoyed

when big mainstream things
try to take over steampunk?

For myself, I don't really mind.

I don't like steampunk
because it's elusive.

I like steampunk
because I like steampunk.

And if big mainstream people
want to attempt it,

go for it; that's great.

They'll either
do a good job of it

or they'll do a crappy job
of it.

If they do a crappy job of it,
we'll ignore it,

like when Justin Bieber
did his music video.

The only way that
that music video

affected my life was having
to discuss that music video.

People who just want to do it
for a fad, they're going to

patronize all these lovely
people in there.

These people are going
to make money off that.

That's great, you know?

They're good artists.

They're good artists;
they make good things.

If their stuff sells more
because a bunch

of douchey people want
to come in and buy it,

by god, knock yourself out.

Look at the album art
inside of T-Pain's new album,

and you'll see a picture of
T-Pain dressed exactly like me,

with a microphone
just like my microphone,

and literally,
it's his steampunk album.

On the one hand,
I'm thinking, like,

"Oh! All these uninvited people
have come to my party!"

What the hell are you doing
here? Go away!"

But on the other hand,
if someone co-opting

the fashion style
brings them to this place

of looking into the cultural
and sociological parts of it,

that's not necessarily
a bad thing.

I remember people saying to me,
"Well, as soon as you see

the steampunk styles
in Hot Topic,

then you know it's over."

Okay, well, guess what?

They're in Hot Topic and they're
in the L.L. Bean catalog

and they're in all these
other places,

but it's not just the clothes.

You know, it never was
just the clothes.

Just like with punk rock,
it wasn't just the clothes.

It was the attitude.

It's still possible to write

alternate histories
which demonstrate

technologically-driven
social change.

Just because Justin Bieber
did a steampunk music video

does not mean that
we have jumped the shark.

It means we're
just getting started.

It's not a trend
that will have its day

and then fall out of favor.

It is a movement
which will grow

into an actual
physical community.

Maybe ten years from now
we won't recognize

that it's steampunk anymore,
but the ideas and the attitudes

will just pervade the world, and
that's what I'm hopeful about.

I don't think...
Are we gonna have

a steampunk candidate
for president?

Probably not.

Would the steampunk candidate
be Republican or Democrat?

No, it would be
the Steampunk Party.

Yeah, but what would they
be more aligned with?

What do you think?

I don't know.

I think within geek culture,

we are often our own
worst enemies,

because we love
the stuff we love

and we love the stuff so much
that we want to keep doing it.

And inevitably,
that degrades it.

Steampunk, as with any
subcultural trope

that becomes trendy,

it gets harder and harder to do
interesting things with it.

It's not impossible,
but the bar is high.

And just like I think the bar
these days should be very high

for zombies and vampires,

I think the bar should be
extremely fucking high

if you're doing
steam engines and gears.

A lot more people are coming
into things like steampunk

through the mainstream,
one could say appropriation

or one could say trickle down
or whatever of steampunk,

primarily as an aesthetic
and not as a philosophy

or a politics or a way of life.

But instead of turning up
our noses at people

who buy their coat at Hot Topic,
I think we can say,

"Oh, that's cool that
you're interested in this.

"Are you also interested
in the real element of this?"

Now, imagine the '80s TV movie
where, you know,

the kid is all of a sudden,
like, getting into

Dungeons & Dragons,
and then all of a sudden

the crazy Satanist anarchists
come out of the corner

and say, "Hey, kid,
why don't you try, you know,

"being queer and overthrowing
the government?"

Somebody else has said
that, you know,

"Making is the religion
of steampunk."

I kind of like the maker aspect
of contemporary steampunk.

We are not reenactors
or even re-creationists;

we are reimaginers.

They have a sort of lot
of social credibility

and they're very keen
into sort of do it yourself,

do it together styles
of ideology.

We grew up in a situation
of don't look inside the box,

don't know how your VCR works,
you know, and so all of a sudden

you run into a group of people
that the first thing they do

is grab a screwdriver
and a hammer and go to work.

My job is not just to consume,
but steampunk says,

engage with it,
make it your own,

break it, risk it,
reinterpret it,

turn it into something else.

Save the broken bits for later.

I love getting my hands dirty.

You know, I'm always wanting
to make something.

I certainly was always the kid
that took stuff apart.

This has been a way of learning
how to put it back together.

This is Captain Nemo's
underwater rifle.

It took me approximately
three months to make.

There are 93 parts to it.

These are the ray guns.

This is the ceramic one.

You know, when you look at it
close up, you can really see

that it's made like a film prop.

This one, this doesn't disguise
its origins at all.

I mean, these are coat hooks
and so on.

These are found bits
from other stuff.

It's not meant to pretend
that it's functional.

I think with steampunk,
upcycling's very important.

You take what you have now,

usually a bunch
of mundane stuff,

and you combine it
into something

which looks like it came
out of Jules Verne.

So this is the world
of Captain Chronomek.

Captain Chronomek
is a steampunk superhero.

He travels through history
solving historical puzzles,

solving historical mysteries,
righting historical wrongs,

and he's ultimately
very invested in the idea

of bringing the wonder
of technology

into the world again.

The thing that I'm most
emotionally attached to

is the Luminiferous Tessellator.

It embodies how we make
steampunk art

and how we make props.

It's held together with glue
and tape and paint,

and it's all about
taking these things

and imagining the story
you can tell with them.

There's something a little
revolutionary about it

because you're not just
going out and buying

a premade something or other,
you're creating your own reality

out of these bits and bobs,
out of our consumer culture.

These clocks, the feather
on the second hand goes

It's a bit of that humor,

and a bit of that
sentimentality.

That's a word
we haven't used yet,

but that's a very steampunk
word is "sentimental."

Not just romantic,
but sentimental.

The nice thing about living
in a slower era

was that you could
master a technology

before it was obsolete,

and you can't do that anymore.

To me, the heart
of punk is just

grab it, make it your own,
do it yourself.

Steampunk, they're grabbing
these technologies

and they're making them
their own.

They're making things
themselves.

They're taking pieces
of this and pieces of that

and putting them together
and making something brand new.

They will have a story
of where this thing came from,

and they are actually
creating narrative

that is basically storytelling
of a different type.

When I conceived this character,

I realized that I would have
to build a physical model

in order to Photoshop it
into these vintage images.

I really think that's
part of what sells it

in the photographs and all of
the digital imagery Paul does.

It is actually
a physical object.

I wanted to make one of my own
because, heck, that's what I do.

I thought, "Well, gosh,
wouldn't it be great

if there was a one-to-one scale,
full size Boilerplate?"

Every time you see Boilerplate
moving in the books

or sitting down,
that's all Photoshopped.

So basically, we've got to build
all of that into this guy.

I would like it
if his head could turn.

Oh, cool.

Oh, he lives!

That excitement of seeing people
actually creating something

and sometimes
on really large scale,

that creates that kind of
fevered imagination

and wanting to be part
of something

that I don't think you can get
through the other elements.

The Neverwas Haul
is a three-story

Victorian house on wheels

that is built on the frame of
a fifth wheel travel trailer.

We built it in 2006
for the Burning Man festival.

It is a sculpture art car,

70% to 80% built from recycled,
repurposed material.

Obtainium:
that which we can obtain.

Shannon decided to build
a drivable house,

which is actually directly
out of the book Snow Crash.

We had the Haul up on the playa.

People came out of the woodworks
in their Victorian finery

that they've obviously
been carrying

out to Burning Man for years.

That's where we first heard
of steampunks.

I don't think any of us knew
anything about steampunk.

We had no knowledge of it.

We had no idea that
this was even going on.

We didn't realize that

the fun stuff that we were
getting into

was something that actually
had a label to it.

If "The Mouse" had to
build the Neverwas Haul,

it would cost him about
a half a million dollars

and they'd have hire somebody
to actually fabricate it.

We were building it
on beer and pizza.

Shannon O'Hare really
pulled us all together

and made it something cohesive.

The thing about working with
Shannon is, it's like, Shannon hacks

building construction
the way I hack machinery.

And I would never have tried
to take on a project that big.

I would love to foster

more people doing creative
things with their hands.

And so I've started dabbling
more and more

and now I'm cutting
metal and wood

and assembling things with tools

and doing stuff I never would've
done ever in my entire life.

You know, we love the fact
that the Neverwas

has become an art collective.

It's a lot more like
a family in a way.

Sam and Katherine,

they've been with us
for close to four years.

So they are having a amazing
steampunk ceremony

done here on the Neverwas.

Sam proposed to me as
part of a three-act play.

Dr. Professor Samuel Tweed,
that's my character,

rides off in his airship
and he crash lands on the moon.

And he's stranded
and he's totally, you know,

out of water, out of food,
out of supplies.

I send a message back to Earth,

and the Neverwas Haul and their
crew from the Hibernian Academy,

they come by and they rescue me.

With his beloved librarian.

Yes, there is a library
on the Haul.

And he's so overcome,

he just gets down on one knee
and proposes.

Oh my dearest Katherine,
I love thee so.

Even though my airship
is grounded,

my heart soars to the sky.

Katherine Becvar,
will you marry me?

Of course, my love!

Actually, most of the people
in the audience

who were just there
for the fundraiser

didn't realize that it was
a real proposal.

They just thought it was
part of the show.

But it was not.

I actually proposed to her
and gave her a real ring.

And so tomorrow
at Obtainium Works,

we're going to take this
to the next level

and we're actually going
to get married.

It's going to be monumental.

I mean, these guys
do not do anything small.

So this is the main
mechanism here.

And then, of course, you have
to crank it to start with.

You know, they just love
doing the same stuff

and the whole costuming thing
and the storytelling

and, you know, the characters
and so forth...

they are steampunk.

I think one reason that we keep
going back to the Victorians

is because there was
such enthusiasm

and such optimism
for technology.

It was a time where instead of
people looking at technology

and seeing it in such
a negative way,

that it was
incredibly optimistic.

Science will save us,
we'll have the cures

to all diseases,
we'll go to the planets.

They honestly believed
that the technology

was going to save them.

And, well, Mary Shelley thought
maybe it could raise the dead.

If you look at the history
of computing itself,

computing started off
as a crazy idea

that was too science fiction
for its time.

And in the same way,

fantasy and fiction
has found a way

to combine the magical
and the practical in steampunk.

When people look at that, they
can romanticize about an era

in which a lot of people
just got together and said,

"Damn it all, let's just go.

"There's nothing too far away
that we cannot reach."

There was this idea that we are
on the cusp of greatness.

We're on the cusp of, you know,
saving humanity

and conquering the universe
and doing exciting things,

whereas the science fiction
of the last 20 or 30 years

has been more to the tune of

"We're going to destroy ourselves
with our technology."

There's so little
science fiction

that talks about
exploration and invention.

It's all "Oh, God, don't build
giant robots, they'll kill you!"

And the Victorians were like,
"Let's build giant robots!

And, "Oh, shoot,
they killed us."

Real science has shown us
an amazing universe out there

that we aren't capable
of getting to.

So in a way, going back
to a time

when science fiction seemed like
it could do anything,

even though we know it can't,

that's not rational;
it's magic.

I'm very object driven.

Part of being into the aesthetic
of steampunk shows in my work

in like I describe all of these
dresses and stuff like that,

and part of is that I love

what objects can tell you
about culture.

And so what I love about
the Victorian era

is that they are in
an industrial revolution

where new technology is being
constantly invented

and so much of it is silly
and whimsical.

So I love crazy curling tongs
and dusters that are automated

and the first vacuum cleaners

and teacups that are made with
little moustache protectors.

I just encountered
a letter opener

that had a hidden pocketknife
in the handle.

Why do you need a pocketknife
in your letter opener,

which is already quite sharp
often?

I have no idea,
but there it is.

That's the kind of things that

the Victorians were doing
all the time.

It has so many elements,
but one of them has to be

nostalgia for the Industrial
Age, which is over,

and so as soon as
something real is gone,

you can have the fantasy of it.

One of the most common
misperceptions of steampunk

is that these people are just
trying to go back.

They're just trying to go back
to like a simpler time.

And they're just trying to get
rid of all of this stuff.

No, most of these
people, they love it,

but they're recognizing it
for the tool that it is.

As our technology has become
so terribly, terribly powerful

and we've become
so dependent on it,

there's simultaneously something
very fragile about it.

Sure, we love technology
and it's magical,

but, you know, not only do
none of us know

how to like open up an iPad
and repair it or make it,

but we kind of almost feel like
it's controlling our lives.

I have an iPhone that we call
the Jesus Phone.

I can see myself from space
with that phone,

but god help me if
I drop it in a bathtub.

I mean, it's all over.

And I think that goes back to
some of the issues of control,

like taking control of your own
identity and your own destiny.

I think that a lot of people
feel they don't want to be

that far removed from
how things work.

When the grid goes down,

what do we have
that still works?

Well, we have the old things.

We have the analog things.

The steampunk aesthetic
is kind of a rebellion

against pretty much the whole
industrial design aesthetic

of the last 50 years

where they've basically been
trying to boil everything down

into a magic box.

The technology's insane,
it's absolutely amazing,

but because it's everywhere,
you don't really notice it.

I think the mind begins
to kind of slide off

the seamlessness of Apple design
after a while.

If I really sit back
and think about it,

it's just like utterly bizarre
to me.

I mean, an iPad is like,
you know, it's fuckin' magic.

I can just touch it, and I can,
ooh, sending stuff.

It's just like
in these movies --

Blade Runner didn't even
have shit that nice.

Our current
industrial design movement

is beautiful and amazing
and streamlined.

Oh sure, and it's
designed to keep you

from killing yourself
in the gears.

Right, but just the fact that
you see it over and over again.

It's really amazing, but it
doesn't look like anything.

It doesn't look like a machine.

It looks like
an Etch A Sketch.

Somehow or another we're
supposed to accept the idea

that less is better.

The Victorians would not
have bought into that

for five seconds.

They thought if
you were going to make

a giant death ray
killing machine,

it should fill an entire room,
and it should be gorgeous,

and it should have a million
levers and buttons

that don't even do anything.
They just look cool.

But it should look like a giant
death ray killing machine,

and now we have a button.

Something like your slick, shiny
iPod or your laptop

or your slick modern surface

just doesn't have that same
degree of humanity in there.

To some extent we like
sleek functionality,

but we need some rough edges

for our brains to kind of
latch onto.

Sometimes we want that
kind of validation

that there is stuff in our lives
that we can touch

and that connects you
to the real world.

It's great to have a smartphone,
but that phone is boring.

I mean, look at this phone,

like look at how fucking tiny
the buttons are.

Like, this is aggravating!

There's a banality to like
a candy bar phone.

It's made to be as lightweight
as possible,

very cheap clattery sound
when you drop it on the floor,

really, really junky piece
of hardware,

but it's a miracle.

You give that device
to a French semaphorist

in the 19th century,
and he would weep.

And what I think steampunk does

is make you remember
just how miraculous it all is.

For me, it just
shows the maturity

of, sort of, our technology,

is we're having more of it,
and because there's more of it,

people want different
things from it,

because one size
doesn't fit all.

What kind of relationship

do we want to have with people,
and between people?

And how does your technology
mediate that?

How can we use technology
or change technology

or create technology
in a way that allows us

to express our own individuality

but also at the same time
not be confined to that

and not have everything that
we seek out through technology

only merely reinforce that?

We are really entered an era

in which part of the business
model of contemporary technology

is often making it illegal for
you to modify your technology,

and if your needs aren't
widespread enough

that someone can figure out
a reason

to market a product to you,

you're just out of luck when it
comes to shifting your device.

And that inhumanity
in the scale of technology

and in the way technology works

is, I think, one of the great
frustrations of the modern time -

This passive voice:
"Mistakes were made.

"There is no human
agency responsible

"for this thing that's
getting in your way."

Really frustrating.

People's interaction
with technology is kind of,

it's kind of strange.

I mean, we're both addicted
and frightened of it.

One of the big questions today
is whether or not

we will have enough tinkerable
stuff in our world

that when someone takes away
the tinkerable,

we go, "Wait a second!

"Inherently, technology should be
tinkerable!"

I think the way that
humanity interacts

with technology right now
is incredibly alienating

and incredibly destructive,

and I understand why people
want to reject that

and just throw out everything.

But I consider that to be
a horrid mistake.

I'm not interested in throwing
away technology,

I'm not interested in
throwing away human knowledge.

I am interested in
redeveloping technology

from a more human perspective

and with basically
different motivations.

I would say that right now

technology is essentially
profit-motivated,

and I would argue that
that is actually,

it does a disservice
to science.

Steampunk ships broken.

The idea is that you are
supposed to open it,

the idea is that you are
supposed to modify it,

you are supposed
to personalize it,

you are supposed to humanize it.

An object from the notional
steampunk past,

parallel dimension
arrives with the intention

that it's not to be used when
it comes out of the package.

You're meant to do stuff
with it to make it yours.

Stuff has to happen to it.
It's meant to be bodged,

and it has obvious snags
hanging off of it

where you're meant to add stuff,
or fix stuff,

or attach stuff,
or move stuff around.

It has a lot of
user-serviceable parts.

And so that appeals to me

partly because, you know,
there is no device

that is exactly perfect for you,
and even if there was,

it wouldn't be perfect for you
tomorrow

because your needs would change.

And so the idea of having
configurability

built into the hardware
around you is very seductive.

Technology is a manifestation

of our relationship with nature,
with people.

Is there a way that we can
restructure how we see people

that would change the kind
of technology we produce?

I think that a lot of people are
really interested in steampunk

as a reinterpretation

of humanity's interaction
with machinery.

Once you understand machinery,

you realize there's really only
so many ways to do things,

and you can start hacking
machinery

the way people do with software.

And there's new plastic crap
coming out all the time

that somebody has to go through
and see how it can be bent

to be used for something else.

And maybe the grid
won't go down,

maybe we will end up
in some, you know,

vast space-exploring
science fictiony future,

and that would be fantastic,

but the hammer and nail
is never going to go away.

In real terms, anything that
anchors you more in a reality

that isn't based in the Internet
and the electronic world

may actually be a lifesaving
point of view down the road.

I believe that we will be forced
to reconsider

all the motivations
behind our technology

by ecological concerns,
and I think as we do that

we're going to start coming
to the same answers

that steampunks are on
the forefront of.

Probably not the ray guns.

There are very few places left

where adults can go
and learn new skills.

It's the great leveler,

is making and sharing
and teaching,

and teaching doesn't have
to happen in a school.

I've learned more about
history and music

and artwork and people
because of steampunk

than I ever did in grade school,
high school, college.

I like learning, and I feel like
by teaching,

you get to share with people,
and that's just so exciting.

People actually absorb
information much better

when they're being engaged
and entertained.

When people look at Boilerplate,
they smile, they laugh,

and that's exactly
what I was looking for.

When you go to
these sorts of events,

you get to talk to a really
wide range of people

about how they interact
with technology,

how they interact
with the world.

The fact that there is
a community

that is doing different aspects
of the same thing, it's fuel.

And it's interesting
to hear kids who are 11

talk about wanting to build
robots that are steam-powered.

You'll walk around
in the hallway

at a steampunk convention
and you'll see

a 16-year-old boy
and a 70-year-old woman

having an in-depth discussion

on how to crochet an octopus
or something like that.

And that kind of exchange
of knowledge

is how we all better ourselves.

People often say, "How did you
get into science fiction?"

And my pat answer is always,

"Well, how did you get
out of it?"

Because if you look at a class
of 8-year-olds,

most of them are reading
that kind of stuff,

which suggests that those of us
within the field,

we're not so much converts;
we're the ones with rigor.

I'm going to be running
a workshop at Maker Faire

where I'm going to bring a
collection of essentially junk

to get kids to make their own
steampunk props

within the universe
of Captain Chronomek.

Maker Faire and the
do-it-yourself world

is a revolt against
the corporate

"This is what you're going to
buy today" consumer world.

My whole thing has been children
playing with live steam.

Showing kids the ways in which

they can have fun and be engaged
in technology creates the people

that are going to be designing
the technology in the future.

I do believe that

if more people grow up reading steampunk,

they're going to have
a better idea

about how technology
can actually be ours

and not a cold,
alienated thing.

If every child goes home

and builds something great
and wants to create more,

then our job is done.

I think steampunk will be
a gateway

into a future phile, a tribe,

of aspirational, elite,
intellectual,

and artistic creative people.

I would love to live
in that world,

and I think I'm in it
right now.

A few times a year.

Why not make it 24/7?

Welcome to Obtainium Works!

The steampunk wedding
of the century!

I am just having
the most fun day of my life.

You throw a party, and all
your friends show up.

Weddings are awesome!

I think there are too many
people in the world right now

who just, you know,
they won't sing,

they won't tell stories

because "Oh, well,
I'm not a professional,"

and I want to see more and more
people going,

"So what? I'm not a professional.
This gives me joy."

Even if it's only pretty.

You know, pretty is
its own reward.

At the end of the day,

steampunk is really a story

about artisanship
on a human scale.

If we can open the door

for other people to experience,
for other people to create,

for other people to express,

maybe that does change
how the human equation happens.

Thank you, everyone,
for coming.

I hope you enjoy the show.

There's nothing magical

about Victorian top hats
and brass.

This is not what's important.

Make your own dream.

I keep meeting
really amazing people,

and if steampunk
has brought me anything,

it's brought me a lot of really,
really excellent friends.

I have family all over
the world now.

Perhaps in some ways
it's almost been good therapy.

There were different events in
my life that made me pull back,

and there were many days
when I would be really happy

to never walk out
the front door again.

Being in the ambassador role,

I had to go out and meet people
in person and be present,

and that's been
a very good thing.

I have two young daughters,
and the 8-year-old

is trying to understand
what steampunk is.

We took her with us
to the Abney Park show,

and she had a blast.

It was her first
rock concert ever,

and she now wants to become

an artist rock band fiddler
airship pirate.

Creativity is the
most important part.

Here in our heart.

That's how we hack that.

Because they don't own this.

By the power vested in me

by the Church of the Subgenius
and the Universal Life Church,

I hereby pronounce you
husband and wife.

Professor Tweed,
you may kiss your bride.

There's a spark of inspiration
and creativity and imagination

in all of these people
that we've spoken to.

Fundamentally steampunk is about

the power of the human
imagination.

Words cannot express the delight

that I am feeling
at this moment.

Thank you.

I want to say thank you all,
very much.

I really feel honored to have
this dinner with you all.

Cheers.

I'm very happy with
what we've learned.

You can take this interplay

and take the questioning
and envisioning

and thinking about the future

and actually have it be fun
and cool and hip.

It's taking the absurd

and the weird and the cool

and putting those things
together and making it fun.

And it steampunk makes
somebody smile,

that's to me the success.

I have no problem being
a jester for the world.

I have no problem
with people going,

"You look like
a complete buffoon."

And I'm like, "I feel good.

"I like the way I look,
and I made you smile."

When I get up in the mornin',
I'm gonna put on my leather.

When I go to bed at night,
I'll take it off

and put it back on
the next day.

I'm not stoppin',

and I don't think anybody else
is, not for a while.

We all do our little bit

to, you know, make steampunk
really, really complex,

just the way that,
you know, society is.

It's good times.

We must dance!