I own and love lots of Twee Pop. Embrace it. Be Twee as Fuck. Be a Monster of Twee. (It is just a subset of Indie Pop that's bit on the emo side.)

I think of myself as more of an indie rocker than an indie popper. Well, at least in what I listen to; it's more on the loud side. I don't act Disturbed when I eat my Korn.

"Twee" sounds so derogatory when people use it.

"I'm *SO* sensitive! Excuse me while I swoon."?

No it's more "I'm *SO* sensitive! Excuse me while I thrash away on this guitar/this bass/these drums."

"I'm *SO* sensitive! Excuse me while I swoon."?

Add "While drinking absinthe and reading vampire novels by candlelight", and you've got a shorthand for goth.

No it's more "I'm *SO* sensitive! Excuse me while I thrash away on this guitar/this bass/these drums."

Yes. This is my understanding of Emo, tho' I think you need to add "While wearing skinny black jeans and a lot of eyeliner".

I'm a poor judge anyway, I think the most recent thing on my play list is Bon Jovi's "Its My Life."

"Emocore" - at least in its original, jokey conception - was commenting on a development in the DC Hardocre scene where the music moved away from the broad political statements (which had previously defined DC Hardcore) and began lyrically reflecting the emotional (usually romantic) experience of the songwriter. It was hardcore punk (very fast, very loud) but it was emotional. Hence, "emocore."

Over time and many permutations it turned into the much parodied and derided "Emo." Cry more emo boy!

I want to get back to educating, Teppy.

Can you see how how Nutty's dictionary definition of cyberpunk applies to the 9/11 terrorists?

n. An attitude characterized by radical re-use of existing tools, machines, and business processes, with the express purpose of undermining, showing up, or otherwise exploiting weaknesses in the dominant paradigm. Etymology relates to the most famous practice of cyberpunk, i.e. computer hacking.

Then just take that notion and say to yourself, "the name cyberpunk is a bit misleading."

Does that help?

Also, let's look at your presumption that "cyber" means computers and high tech.

Here's the wikipedia preface on Cybernetics.

Cybernetics is the study of feedback and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organisations. Contrary to popular misconception, cybernetics is not about computers so much as computers are about cybernetics. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks.[1] A more philosophical definition, suggested in 1956 by Louis Couffignal, one of the pioneers of cybernetics, characterizes cybernetics as "the art of ensuring the efficacy of action".

eta: Tep, here's Bruce Sterling's early '80s zine Cheap truth where much of cyberpunk's manifesto was worked out.

Heh. They intended to ruffle some feathers.

As American SF lies in a reptilian torpor, its small, squishy cousin, Fantasy, creeps gecko-like across the bookstands. Dreaming of dragon-hood, Fantasy has puffed itself up with air like a Mojave chuckwalla. SF's collapse had formed a vacuum that forces Fantasy into a painful and explosive bloat.

Short stories, crippled with the bends, expand into whole hideous trilogies as hollow as nickel gumballs. Even poor Stephen Donaldson, who struggles to atone for his literary crimes with wet hippy sincerity, has been forced to re-xerox his Tolkien pastiches and doubly insult the public.

As Robert E. Howard spins in his grave, the Chryslers of publishing attach rotors to his head and feet and use him to power the presses.

But the editors have eaten sour grapes and the writers' teeth are on edge. Fantasy, for too long the vapid playground of McCaffreyite unicorn-cuddlers and insect-eating SCA freaks, has some new and dangerous borderlands. Suddenly, perhaps out of sheer frustration, fantasy has movement and color again. It is the squirming movement of corruption and the bright sheen of decay.

See, snotty punk rock criticism can be fun!

** PUBLIC SHUDDERS AT "BEST OF THE YEAR" **

It can't be the editors' fault. Can it? Terry Carr has as much taste as any editor in the field has ever had. Donald Wollheim may be a tough old shark, a snuff-snorting roue' of the ancien regime, but he Knows What People Like.

How to explain, then, the painful dullness of these two collections? (THE 1983 WORLD'S BEST SF, Donald A. Wollheim, Ed., DAW, $2.95; THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR #12, Terry Carr, ed., Timescape, $3.95.) Is SF suffering from intellectual exhaustion? Perhaps it takes itself too seriously and has lost the careless vigor it had when it was mere pop crap. One might easily conclude this after perusing the vapid "Letter From the Clearys," the pompous and bloodless "Sur," or the Abbess-phone-home fakery of "Souls." But even these clumps of parasitic literary mistletoe have more to recommend them than the clunky obsolescence of James White's "The Scourge" or Timothy Zahn's laughable "Pawn's Gambit."

"Twee" sounds so derogatory when people use it.

That's because... it is? I mean, when I call something "twee" usually I mean it belongs in a Miss Marple mystery. Not in a good way.

See, snotty punk rock criticism can be fun!

Or just... snotty. As you know, Bob, my foot resides in the asses of people who get shirty with the general public for being the general public.

One might easily conclude this after perusing the vapid "Letter From the Clearys," the pompous and bloodless "Sur," or the Abbess-phone-home fakery of "Souls."

Ironically, at least two of these three are not just award-winners -- and by female authors --, but they're the two SF short stories I can think of most commonly anthologized in non-SF collections. ("Sur" is in the Norton Anthology of Women's Fiction, e.g.) But the fact this writer goes out of his way to call out two of the more highly-regarded female authors (Le Guin and Willis; I don't know who wrote "Souls") -- a bit suspect, right there on its face.

Suddenly, perhaps out of sheer frustration, fantasy has movement and color again.

Uh huh. I think I have a new social axiom: Any literary movement that requires a manifesto receives my foot in its ass.

Contrary to popular misconception

This (my whole misunderdstanding of cyberpunk, not the above statement) is one of those examples where I start to think I'm smart and well-read and urbane, and then I wander amongst the Buffistae and realize that no, I'm really just a brain stem in a jar.

t edit Suddenly I can't even remember what "urbane" means! Maybe it wasn't the word I wanted to use after all!

[begin brain stem communication] blink...breathe...blink...breathe...blink...breathe....

I think "urbane" is right. I THINK.

I join you in brainstemness, Tep.