Fashion, costuming, and clothing in science fiction.
The Futurestupid of Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt RED was a disaster. Its buggy and broken state upon launch has been catalogued so thoroughly that I don’t feel the need to do that here. If you need a refresher, there’s endless compilations on Youtube.
I bought the game for about $20 during a low-point in its public relations. I played it during the Winter of 2022, about a year after release, and still encountered T-posing and minor immersion-breaking glitches. Worse, the game would become corrupted between play sessions. I had to back-up my save data and re-install the 60+GB of files a handful of times throughout my 166 hours of play time.
The game’s brokenness does not end at technical bugs. It’s deeply confused about what it’s trying to say. For me, the biggest hurdle was playing a canonical anti-corporate terrorist character who, for reasons of being stuck in the RPG format, was picking up side gigs for the police. These gigs would have you take out gang members which would somehow earn you “street cred”. Street cred from who, McGruff the Crime Dog? As a late 2020 release, it felt painfully unexamined to have a major side gig be to gun down* groups of racially themed gangs. Sure, you can “stun” enemies if you chose the no-kill route, but that’s functionally the same. It’s not even a matter of a paragon vs renegade meter- you either do it and the get points you need or you don’t. Wouldn’t the main character be anti-cop and pro-gang? The politics feel so limp for all its posturing and it can’t seem to find the moral line it wants to draw.
B R O K E N (with a look into how I dressed V during my playthrough)
I’ve been kicking around a phrase in my head ever since grad school. Futurestupid. Or future stupid, for readability. It has no exact definition, it’s more of an emergent feeling. It marks the moment in my life when I stopped believing that tech and tech oligarchs would continue to make our lives better. It became something to laugh at in between low-grade panic. Man-made horrors beyond my comprehension and all that.
Future stupid could be a poorly implemented UI or a cascading automated system failure which reveals how fragile our networked technology is. It could be the shiny veneer of tech utopianism peeling back to reveal just how much of it relies on invisible, often exploited labor. Or it could be technology feeling like a parody of itself- an attempt to feel futuristic that it lands somewhere cheesy. The uncanny valley for mediocre tech.
Future stupid, where automated processes get goofy
Future stupid veering into the uncanny and the eerie, sometimes leaving vulnerabilities to be exploited.
A videogame about rampant corporate greed sucking the soul out of a city feels a little too on-the-nose to have been made by a game studio that exploited and overworked its workers thru crunch [link:Polygon]. Cyberpunk 2077 is a grimdark story where everything is janky and society is systemically broken. The game was made under the version of exploitative capitalism that seems hellbent on getting us closer to that grimdark future. It feels less like satire and more like a warning shot.
Futurestupid was never meant to be a solemn condemnation of fascism. There was a time where Silicon Valley could re-invent juice packets [link:CNET] and it was funny instead of sad example of how tech is the emperor with no clothes. But somehow the future got stupider. AI (formerly known as machine-learning and known to insiders as large language models- basically a prediction machine for the next word in a sentence) became the definitive jank of the ’20s. With significant buy-in from tech leaders and near ubiquitous platform implementation, GenAI has become, as Twitter user @hierobadge puts it [link:x.com]
AI is *the* aesthetic of fascism in the 21st century a la Italian Futurism. “Art” without artists subordinated to political ends but (literally) untethered from reality.
Generative AI Twitter/X ad featuring El*n M*sk and Tr*mp,
“AI is a cruel technology,” writes Gareth Watkins in his excellent essay AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism [link:newsocialist.org.uk]. It is a technology that attacks creative fields, spews carbon into an ecosystem already on the verge of collapse, abuses likenesses, and misinforms. Slop that needs to be cleaned up.
Cyberpunk 2077 could not precisely predict “AI” as we know it, but lives in a world where AI still means a type of robot- a sovereign, synthetic consciousness. I still believe our real world tech oligarchs’ use of the term AI is a misnomer- a retrofitting of a concept the public can understand onto a tool of slop and slack. It is not a consciousness and it is not an intelligent life form, nor do I want it to be. Without a clear moral and ethical framework for birthing new life into the world, we run the risk of becoming Victor Frankenstein, haunted by our own hubris. I hopefully look forward to a near future where the general public wakes up to how tech leaders hot-swapped our concept of AI with theirs and demand better, more responsible tech.
Cyberpunk 2077’s technical jank and ethical dubiousness make it an ideal case study for futurestupid. On a non-meta story level, the game agrees, arguing that tech itself is not salvation. Tech in the game is always a double edged sword, sometimes literally.
There’s a lot to love
Male V riding the Arch Nazaré, matching the bike in a greenish yellow and black leather pants, jacket, and helmet.
I also want to acknowledge that Cyberpunk 2077 was clearly a massive labor of love. The design of Night City is gritty and gorgeous and among the best in the medium. Each location is photogenic and every neighborhood is individual- you will know roughly where you are on the map just by your surroundings. It is also incredibly dense, layered, and well considered. Night City will make you feel like a lowly rat trapped in a beautifully destroyed cage. Zooming through Night City is unlike anything I’ve experienced. I barely fast-travelled in this game because it was more enjoyable to traverse on foot or hop in a (stolen) vehicle and be there in a few minutes. I often hop back into the game just to walk or drive around, listening to in-game music. Remember when I said I had 166 in-game hours? This is why.
Top: Mizutani Shion “Coyote”. Middle: Archer Quartz “Sidewinder”. Bottom: Thorton Galena “Gecko”. All of which are customized nomad vehicles. Images sourced from www.cyberpunk.fandom.com.
I am not a car person at all, but this game made me care about the vehicles on offer. I particularly loved the nomad vehicles for being lightweight and zippy. They are flashy, recycled, and ultra-customized battle machines- all things that, to me, fulfill the promise of a grungy cyberfucked future. Notably, these cars all use digital screens instead of windshields.
Whipped it too hard.
I even have a special place in my heart for the Makigai MaiMai, the ultimate city car and a sitting duck for cyberkilldozers just trying to get to Jig-Jig street.
Elizabeth and Jefferson Peralez sitting in their penthouse apartment overlooking Night City.
The selling point of Cyberpunk 2077’s next-gen status was immersive storytelling accomplished through fully animated, first-person point-of-view main story quests. There are also a number of stand-out side gigs, including the Peralez storyline found in “I Fought the Law” and “Dream On”. It is an unnerving story about covert corporate control in politics and ultimately reveals a central mystery in the Cyberpunk 2020 universe. It is a sophisticated update of The Manchurian Candidate, as Peralez is an anti-corporate candidate whose fate is in the hands of a shadow entity who is increasingly manipulating his thoughts. The story makes it clear that this is a struggle you cannot win, just different paths of compliance.
The role of style
The four styles of Night City/Cyberpunk 2077 reveal the status and ambitions of a character beyond, and sometimes in tandem with, affiliation to gangs or corporations. There are clearly articulated lore backgrounds for each style. These backgrounds mirror the depth of real world trends and how they can be historicized through social/political events.
Entropism
“Necessity over Style”
The style of the outskirts and left behinds. A fitting style for the Nomad path, but the Aldecados are usually more put together. Look for separates that don’t match, cut up material, and dirt. The easiest style to accomplish by picking up clothes from street garbage.
Male V wearing the hot yellow Bitch crop tee, a yellow chest harness that offers more defense stats than you’d expect, green camo pants with quilted yellow leather and embossed black leather details, yellow climbing boots, and a tactical yellow bandana. This was my outfit for the middle 45% of the game.
Male V wears a “BURN CORPO SHIT” black shredded crop top, white quilted tactical pants with teal and yellow detail, a white monster mask (these are EVERYWHERE in the game), and generic black boots.
Male V does the slav squat wearing a dirty yellow and black biker jacket, yellow balaclava and eye-piece, worn out burnt orange pleather pants, and yellow and black streetwear doodle sneakers.
A more put-together look at entropism’s quality of mixed styles. Male V wears a cowboy getup- a brown snakeskin cowboy hat, steampunk goggles, a yellow button-down with large 70s collar, a lightwash denim and brown leather yoke vest, dark brown streetwear pants, and snakeskin boots matching the hat.
Female V wears a dark ensemble, a sleeveless denim jacket, burgundy goggles on her neck, ready for chemical agents, a gnarly graphic crop tee, black tactical denim, and high-top sneakers.
The same outfit as described in the last photo, but in a dynamic pose, fighting a Militech robot.
Female V wears the same dirty yellow and black leather jacket with angled, scalloped placket Male V wore previously, a black crop tee, brown animal print short shorts, and orange sneakers.
The same outfit, in a dynamic pose in front of an exploding car.
Kitsch
“Style over Substance”
The style of cheap flash. Canonical to the Street Kid path. Look for hot colors, plastic materials, and protective gear that will look splashy in the newsfeed when the Tiger Claws tear you up. The most ubiquitous style in Night City. It perhaps is the style of Night City, and the The Official Digital Artbook of Cyberpunk 2077 [link:cyberpunk.net] agrees. It is the burst of rebellion and flashy, futurist vision brought by braindance technology. I liken this to the invention if the internet and the subsequent Y2K look as well as the flashy Myspace-accelerated youth cultures of the early aughts. Think FRUiTS magazine trapped in a harsh future. Elements of Kitsch can be seen in many NPC wardrobes that would otherwise be more Neomilitaristic or Entropism-leaning. More on this in the NPC street style section.
For more on braindance tech, watch Strange Days (1996, dr. Kathryn Bigelow) and Star Trek: Voyager S4E10, “Random Thoughts”.
Male V wears a black t-shirt under a tactical body-armor top with black, red, and white details. Pants come with a white belt, blue, angular quilted appliques at the pelvis, red harem thighs with cargo pockets, a tapered black knee portion, and red bottoms that resemble the top of cowboy boots. Paired with red ankle-high canvas sneakers with yellow spike graphic back and black laces. Also, black cybernetic sunglasses.
Male V wears a white backwards baseball cap, a black bulletproof vest over a red, waxed canvas jacket with blue quilted cyber arm-work and black leather cuffs. Flashy sky blue (when it’s not too polluted) plastic pants with yellow seat and crotch colorblock panel reinforcement, and medium blue quilted bottoms that go into a medium blue boot with angular orange trim and soles.
Male V wears an acid yellow, hot purple-pink, and white jacket with a high collar. Comes with graffiti panels and metal studs on the outer arms. Paired with a purple beanie with a yellow graphic, purple-pink pleather pants with teal tribal pattern flaming up from the bottom. Matching pink and teal ski boots. Underneath, a matching tank top with tribal eagle motif in purple and pink.
Male V in the same outfit, posing on purple stairs.
Female V wearing a quilted pink jacket with yellow lining, lapel, and inner-hood with cartoon-graffiti on the bodice portion of the jacket in all colors. Underneath, a yellow palm tree motif tank top. On bottom, pink waxed cotton pants with black diagonal slashes coming down from the waist. Deeper pink and black sneakers and glitchy wrap-around sunglasses similar to Geordi La Forge’s VISOR from Star Trek TNG.
Female V wearing a reflective silver and pink plastic gradient trench coat with black detailing, a purple diamond-shaped, pyramidal bikini top with black trim, matching pink pants with a silver chain, black applique panels on the upper thigh, and black thigh-high panels on the leg, with teal honeycomb black sneaker-boots.
Neomilitarism
“Substance over Style.”
The look of corporate, the feel of violence. Canonical for the Corpo path. Look for angular cuts, luxe utility fabrics, and anything resembling office-wear. Found in the City Center, especially Corpo Plaza and Arasaka Tower, but also associated with Militech.
Male V wears a long-sleeve top made from burgundy leather and black suede. The burgundy leather create a W on the chest and shoulders, covering the collar, shoulders, and arm. The pants are black with diamond-stud pattern hip pocket panels and burgundy inner lower-leg peaks. Shoes are black office loafers. Worn with burgundy cybernetic sunglasses.
Female V wears an angular, dark grey brutalist structural dress with burgundy shoulders, wrist-length sleeves, and side panels.The skirt of the dress is asymmetrically cut with burgundy design lines down the front. Worn with burgundy wedges with dark grey trim and a dark grey quilted garrison cap.
Female V wears a white blazer jacket with angular, scalloped button plackets and a burgundy leather lapel. Black leather skirt with red circuit board lines, the same burgundy shoes described previously, and burgundy cybernetic HUD monocle.
Female V wears a white, quilted, sleeveless top with orange cybernetic trim, and a curved bottom hem for motion. Underneath is a black shirt with orange trim. On bottom are black short-shorts and thigh-high quilted armor wedged heel boots. On the head is a white and orange cyber balaclava with ear protection.
The same outfit described previously, fighting alongside Militech officers.
NeoKitsch
“Style and Substance.”
The style of rock stars and the frivolously wealthy. Look for gaudy luxury fabrics, animal prints and materials, coordinated outfits, and styling that could buy you, sell you, and dump you in the river after. Quite easily the rarest, most under-utilized style in all of Night City. That’s for a reason. According to The Official Digital Artbook of Cyberpunk 2077 [link:cyberpunk.net], it is a style of the new aristocracy embracing a level of hedonism, excess, and luxury only they can achieve through their war riches. As the Unification War happened the decade before the events of Cyberpunk 2077, it is the freshest style of Night City.
Male V wears a white trench jacket with high collars, gold shoulder scales that drip down the sides, and blue under-armor accents. Underneath, a standard white button-down. Pants are white, reflective scales, as if they were made from fish skin. Pants are belted with a black and brown oval belt buckle. Shoes are textured white, black, and gold sneaker-boots.
Male V wears a rocker glam cowboy look in copper. No shirt over a glimmering scale jacket with dark leather arms. Pants are a supple, foiled leather with black, angular panels. Boots are black with scale details and harnessed with copper straps. Brown cowboy hat.
Female V is wearing a supple leather, mid-thigh length kimono sleeve dress in silver, black, and bronze with an asymmetric skirt pointed at her right leg. White leather heeled boots with harness detail and curved ankle openings.
Female V is wearing an office-warrior look made from a black leather collared shirt under a corset top in black and grey crackle print with a gold hardware black leather belt. Pants are white with gold foil marble pattern, gold pocket panels, and black twill interior leg panels reinforcement. Shoes are paneled sandals on the upper toes and heel, leaving toes and middle foot exposed. Shoes have a levitating platform wedge heel.
Female V wears a silver, quilted jumpsuit with micro shorts cut to the hip, zippered and pocketed with a black belt. The jumpsuit’s asymmetrical top is half pink over-sized bomber jacket lapel and half off-the-shoulder cup bra with 3/4 sleeves. Sneakers are white, light blue, and girly pink. She also wears pink, dimensional all-over sunglasses with side studs.
Notable Character Outfits
Judy Alvarez (left) and Maiko Maeda (right). Maiko is a great example of in-game NeoKitsch. Her feather sleeve detail and pink and black animal print, low-cut blazer with pink skirt sell the look. Judy is a great example of how not everyone fits cleanly into the 4-style system. She wears a micro crop grey tee, and leather overalls with a studded o-ring strap belt.
Jackie Welles wears a dark take on Kitsch with shades of Entropism. He wears a black leather-like jacket with high collars and red lining. There are angular panels with arm studs that look like suction cups, but may be a protective element. Underneath, he wears a burgundy tank top with a graphic that may be religious, grommeted web belt, black cargo pants, and black boots.
Johnny Silverhand is a simply dressed character. Black body-armor tank, studded belt, brown-red leather tapered pants, and black boots. It is almost a rejection of dominant style.
River Ward is a recently disgraced cop and wears a musty-looking fur-trim jacket in brown with orange-brown tank top and black leather pants and boots. This is Entropism applied to Neokitsch.
Young Rogue Amendiares as known by Johnny Silverhand wearing an unmistakably Kitsch outfit with dark detailing. A black leather cropped jacket with pink elements, super cropped grey tee, flashy teal makeup and hair with and red zipper pants.
Rogue Amendiares as known by V. Simple, but striking outfit. A yellow long-sleeve, cropped “SURVIVE” sweatshirt with black leather pants and strappy boots. She notably has more cyberware installed.
Kerry Eurodyne, leaning against a penthouse railing with the Night City skyline as background. He is an aging rockstar and embodies the attitude of being between Kitsch and Neokitsch. He wears a sleeveless biker jacket with pyramid studs, leather biker pants, a mix of gold, silver, and leather accessories, and a white tank top.
Misty is Cyberpunk 2077’s most transparent reference to Blade Runner and takes after the style of Pris. A mix of Kitsch and Entropism (perhaps just intentionally distressed). She wears a chunky royal blue sweater with quilted cargo pocket shoulders, a spiritual necklace, and black leather skirt with spiked black leather choker.
NPC Street Style
Cyberpunk 2077 is marvelously photogenic. Add in a robust photo mode and I spent a solid chunk of time pretending to be Bill Cunningham.
A metallic bronze skin woman walking uphill wearing a statement piece of an iridescent light-up hooded jacket over an orange bikini top and orange gradient skirt with orange heels made from 2 thick straps.
A woman is walking in an industrial part of town at dawn during a foggy morning wearing a piecework grey, long-sleeve sweater dress and brown mid-calf brown stiletto boots.
A woman is bending over to look at the merchandise in a sex shop. She wears a silver sports bra, silver sunglasses and hoops, and a white see-through waist and butt harness over fluorescent orange, shimmery leopard print leggings. For shoes, silver studded chunky heeled boots.
A man on the street at night wears a black latex gimp mash and red ball gag alongside a black and burgundy leather suit with no shirt and matching tight pants and boots.
A man with a functional haircut and sunglasses wears a work uniform and large brown duffel bag. The uniform is blue with white and orange safety details. Cargo pockets adorn the jacket. There is a cutout on the uniform’s pants that look like angular chaps revealing dark grey pants. Brown boots.
A woman wearing a cropped quilted jacket with grey and fluorescent green accents and flame pattern bodice panels walks by a dejected street scene and a hologram fast travel location. Underneath the jacket, she wears an orange one-piece, high-hip cut bathing suit and green shorts with grey and green strap sneakers.
A man with red hair and a red monster teeth respirator mask runs across the street walkway with his phone up to his mouth. He wears black goggles around his neck and a white tank top under a blue and orange plaid shirt pieceworked with green sleeves and collar. He wears drab camo pants and regular brown boots.
A man with a fully cyberware yellow head wears a bright purple cardigan and deeper purple pants with disconnected strap sandals.
A robotic looking woman wears a bright yellow plastic see-through jacket with red bra underneath and a black skirt. Her black legs and white skin have the look of thigh-high boots.
A comfortable looking young woman crosses the street wearing a grey, black, white, and yellow panel cardigan over a mustard yellow v-neck sweater. Black leggings and black and grey boots that look like strappy clogs.
A man holding an assault rifle stands next to a clown van wearing a worn brown leather full-length trench coat. His pants are dusty black joggers with black canvas shoes. He wears a black respirator mask and a black bandana as a sweatguard.
A man in a homeless encampment wearing a Samurai graphic t-shirt, blue jeans, and black canvas shoes holds the arms of a despondent looking woman who bears a resemblance to Panam. She wears a rotting white tank with black jeans with red floral appliques and black, strappy wedge heels.
A woman and a man lay on a rusted piece of metal outside a shanty home. She wears brown cowboy boots over worn purple pants with yellow racing stripes and a light blue plastic tank top with grey contrast seams. He is smoking and wears black canvas shoes, red pants, a black and red jacket, and matching graphic tee.
A man enjoys a beer on an outside couch wearing a backwards blue cap and a hologram face shield of clown makeup. He wears a burgundy hoodie with black leather shoulder panels and white outside stripe. He wears blue construction pants.
A walking woman looks worse for wear with wrecked bleach blonde and black hair wearing a could shoulder sweater top in yellow, pink, and black mesh. Her black pants have golden scales from the thigh down. She wears pink and light pink ski boots.
A man walks down a red street carrying a brown duffel bag, wearing a dark brown leather coat and huge blue fur lapels. Underneath is a black double breasted suit jacket, metallic gold shirt open to the 2nd button from the top, and black leather pants with brown boots. He has gold cyberwear around the temples cutting through his close-cropped hair.
A woman with chic gold cyberwear lines wears a pink bob and a white dress structured at the top with two connecting straps on each side and self-belted with gold. Orange woven heels with half the foot exposed in an impossible-seeming design.
Two young girls wearing kitsch outfits, smoking by the vending machine and overflowing trash can. The girl on the left has fuchsia space buns and bangs and wears an orange off-the-shoulder top and purple and white booty shorts with matching ski boots. Her friend wears a light blue and violently bright purple off-the-shoulder sweater top over un-matching red leggings with grey platform sandals.
A man sits in front of glow-in-the-dark exploding graffiti, staring at the camera, wearing a brown biker cap, matching brown sleeveless jacket with gold riveted yoke, and black slacks.
Special thanks are in order to a small group of friends (you know who you are) who have helped me foster the idea of futurestupid for over a decade now and whose DMs served as an invaluable archive which directly benefited the introductory essay.
![(left column down, then right column down) 1. A Facebook privacy prompt showing the Spotify logo with "Spotify is requesting access to: your gender." 2. A screenshot of a CNN article about police playing Disney music during a police action to deter people from posting footage of their actions online because of how strict social platforms' DMCA policies are. 3. A photo of an electronic billboard commemorating Queen Elizabeth with a Windows prompt in the corner reading "Low disk space". 4. A glitch in D*sneyland showing an error screen on a character's LCD screen face. 5. A tumblr post being petty about the actor's strike and digital likeness reading "I see Hollywood is now very into the idea of buying something once and then owning it forever and being able to make infinite copies. Which. Isn't quite the message they imparted upon me in my childhood. In the spirit of their own long-held stance:" and then the "You wouldn't download a car" meme but it says "You wouldn't download an [ACTOR]".](http://thefuturewore.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FutureStupid-2.png)
