From that perspective, steampunk never died at all. It just lost the “Jules Verne goth” aesthetic and went mainstream. Which means the future of tech design may very well owe a debt of gratitude to steampunk.

In a recent exercise to “explain Steampunk in a sentence” a group from across the world came up with: “Steampunk is a creative social movement that draws inspiration from Victorian and pre-war history in an anachronistic mix of science fiction, modern values and a sense of fun.”

Steampunk authors imagined a world in which Victorian-era fashion and technology existed in modern times. For example, a steampunk character might dress just like they're in Victorian England. But they would live in the modern world. They would use computers and cars powered by cogs, gears, and steam.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "steampunk" is "science fiction dealing with 19th-century [1800's] societies dominated by historical or imagined steam-powered technology." Thus, the "steam-" in "steampunk" refers to the steam-powered technology that heavily influenced the Victorian era, and the "-punk" ...