I wouldn't underestimate how much of it is politics. My (admittedly subjective) perception is that Geek Culture in general started falling into depression right around 2000, and got more and more so through 2006, as the US domestic political situation began to look grimmer and grimmer. It would be surprising if the fiction coming out of that culture didn't reflect that grim outlook.
This is actually one thing I'm really curious about WRT the upcoming election. I've got a theory that the relatively bleak and navel-gazing state of SF today is partly due to political pessimism. If that's true, then I would *expect* an Obama win to make a non-trivial difference there: regardless of what he accomplishes, his message is deliberately optimistic, and I would expect that to cause some bounceback in the tone of SF. It'll be interesting to see if that happens...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-24 05:08 pm (UTC)This is actually one thing I'm really curious about WRT the upcoming election. I've got a theory that the relatively bleak and navel-gazing state of SF today is partly due to political pessimism. If that's true, then I would *expect* an Obama win to make a non-trivial difference there: regardless of what he accomplishes, his message is deliberately optimistic, and I would expect that to cause some bounceback in the tone of SF. It'll be interesting to see if that happens...