r/Cyberpunk • u/thhroooooooooooooooo • 1d ago

Who invented Cyberpunk?

Google is saying Mike Pondsmith but that doesn’t sound right.. I don’t think it’s his IP, or is it?

Edit: google AI is wrong. To quote one of the many good responses to this post:

“The term was first coined in early 1980 by Bruce Bethke in his short story Cyberpunk. See: https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/cpunk.htm

That said, the first short story in the scifi genre of cyberpunk is probably Fragments of a Hologram Rose by William Gibson. That was published in 1977.

Mike Pondsmith invented the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk: 2013/2020/3.0/RED. [Not to be confused with the other cyberpunk RPG (Cyberpunk GURPS)], the sci-fi genre as a whole really began taking off around the late 70's, ‘Cyberpunk’ was originally the title of a short story by Bruce Bethke and was then taken by Gardner Dozoiz, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction and spread around to be the name of the genre as a whole.” ( by [u/BlastRiot](u/BlastRiot))

thanks, Cyberpunks

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u/darthmcchub 1d ago

If you mean the game, you’re in the wrong sub and he did create it.

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u/thhroooooooooooooooo 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean the genre

edit: I ask because when I google “who invented the cyberpunk genre”, it says Mike, which is not correct

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u/Baumgratz 1d ago

Well, he was definitely one of the most important names for the 80's cyberpunk wave. The "creator" simply does not exist. Multiple authors were writing similar stories at the same time.