cyberpunk

What it means

1. uncountableliteratureA subgenre of science fiction which focuses on computer or information technology and virtual reality juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

   But by 1987, cyberpunk had become a cliche. Other writers had turned the form into formula: implant wetware (biological computer chips), government by multinational corporations, street-wise, leather-jacketed, amphetamine-loving protagonists and decayed orbital colonies.

   1991 January 7, Lewis Shiner, “Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   1 more example

   Cyberpunk stories are set in a futuristic, dystopic environment—the opposite of utopian—in which computer technology plays an important role. […] The protagonists of cyberpunk stories are technologically proficient, lonely adventurers struggling with issues of identity and forced to use computer skills to fight menacing forces of domination.

   2015, Abby H. P. Werlock, Encyclopedia of the American Short Story, Infobase Learning, →ISBN

2. countableA cyberpunk character, a hacker punk, a high-tech low life.

   The film The Matrix redefined what a cyberpunk looked like.

3. countableA writer of cyberpunk fiction.

   […] cyberpunks like William Gibson, Lucious Sheperd^([sic]), Bruce Sterling […]

   1989 January, SPIN, volume 4, number 10, page 50

In a sentence

But by 1987, cyberpunk had become a cliche. Other writers had turned the form into formula: implant wetware (biological computer chips), government by multinational corporations, street-wise, leather-jacketed, amphetamine-loving protagonists and decayed orbital colonies.

1991 January 7, Lewis Shiner, “Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Where it comes from

From cyber- + -punk, coined by American writer and software developer Bruce Bethke as the title of a 1983 short story, and later popularized by Gardner Dozois.