This clip from a recent episode of The Conversation represents a watershed moment. It is high time that someone in Merlin Mann’s distinguished position speaks up and offers recognition to the JawaPunk movement.
I’m tired of the CyberPunks and the SteamPunks and the ElfPunks and everyone else taking all of the attention and getting all of the publicity, with their web sites and their novels and their spots on local TV news.
JawaPunks have a unique perspective, and they are shaping their world around an important pseudosemihistorical point of view. Their lives have meaning. Meaning that comes from being very short with bright eyes and dressing in brown robes while doing unspeakable things to robots.
Sadly, as the JawaPunk “scene” becomes more “popular,” it becomes increasingly overrun by dilettantes. The so-called “sand pile” JawaPunks. Bored suburban kids whose commitment extends no farther than putting on the brown polyester hoods they buy at Hot Topic and banging around a local junkyard for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon before going home to eat hummus pizza and watch reruns of Stargate. Last month they were all into vampires, and next month they’ll join a William F. Buckley reenactment club.
Don’t be misled by these fly-by-night newbies. If you know where to look you’ll find that there are still some “deep desert” JawaPunks out there. These are the ones with total commitment. The ones who take real risks to obtain their salvaged mechanical parts. The ones who live and die with the technological monstrosities they create, who subsist on the meager amounts they earn from selling dangerous refurbished robots to unwary farmers. The ones who wear those brown hoods seven days a week. Not to mention those who insist upon conducting all of their business dealings in the beautiful and expressive Jawa Trade Language, and who in some cases opt for height reassignment surgery to harmonize their outward selves and their inner identities.
So thank you, Merlin, for this subtle but welcome hat-tip to a vibrant subculture. Eyeta, taa baa. May you find metal. We’ll see you on the dunes.
Image: “Jawas on the loose in Philly” from wsh1266’s photo stream on Flickr. Used under Create Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsh1266/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
