Faced with the increasingly apocalyptic and catastrophic vision of the future, a movement around a more inclusive and optimistic concept was built.

Blade Corredor, Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars or recently Divided fiction… The futuristic visions that we find in the cinema, in video games or on television do not tend to optimism. We are more accustomed to an apocalyptic vision, predicting the end of civilization, as conceived today, or a complete blackout that forces humans who are still alive to survive in a universe made of disasters and natural gangs.

Given this vision, a movement was created in the early 2000s: Solarpunk. His concept is simple: it is in opposition to Cyberpunk and wants to highlight ecology and solidarity.

An imaginary that takes place in a manifesto, shared in different languages, and that consists in waiting for a much more durable future than that is often found in science fiction works.

“The essence of Solarpunk is a vision of the future that embodies the best of what humanity can achieve”, it can “be read”, a post-no world, post-hing, postpitalism where humanity considers a part of nature and where clean energies replace fossils. “

The anchor point between Solarpunk and Cyberpunk is found in “punk”, which designates a rebellion, even a counterculture, which would impose itself against today’s uses and those who will come. The similarities stop there, since it is the way in which the current culture that will then differentiate them is deconstruct.

In the heart of this way of seeing things, “low technology”, in other words, a vision of technology that goes to the essential without abusing resources and highlighting solidarity, exchange and mutual help so that tomorrow’s tools work. Reasoned agriculture, solar panels on all floors, obviously there is an impossible part, but as Elio Posso, author of Empty (Ediciones de la Volte, 12 euros), if the utopias tend to narrate a future fact of the islands, it is necessary to say “companies full of holes, compose, play with the neighbor.”

In his “travel diary” that seeks to reverse the idea that the climatic crisis will only lead to chaos, we bicycle to explore a world where nature has resumed their rights, and where humans seek to understand it respecting it.

“It is above all an artistic genre,” says Augustin tomorrow in his YouTube video on the subject, “Wind and renewable energies are in the heart of the Solarpunk model.”

Another essential element of Solarpunk, its propensity to highlight soft mobility: public transport, cycling. Low technology is built here around the handicrafts with computers always, but the concept is developed around the opening, of the open source. Then, the “free” software will be collaborative, as is the case today, but more widespread to not allow corporations to take energy such as Amazon, Microsoft or Apple.

Visually, therefore, it is not surprising to see that Solarpunk is built around nature. In a way, Japanese animation studio films Ghibli participate in this movement with a simple vision but consisting of the way we will use everyday technologies and tools. Lofi Girl, this young woman who works in peace with the music made to concentrate is a good ambassador on YouTube.

If Cyberpunk is more prominent because it breaks the prohibitions, the taboos, Solarpunk begins to be a serious place in the cultural world. Books and comics are edited and regularly advised by “cozy” works of works, where you feel good when you consume them. On the video game, it is the fashion of the “survival and creation games” offered by most points of sale.

A game baptized on Solarpunk It will be launched in 2025. Even if it is built around the floating islands, the project is quieter than you think. You have to travel a single world or in cooperation to make devices, build buildings, garden or explore thanks to flying machines that use the wind.

There are several derivatives of this concept in consoles and on PC. If you don’t agree on all codes, Animal Cross: New Horizons In fact, thanks to his way of training the player in a small daily routine where mutual help with other residents on an island where everything remains to be done is essential. It is not surprising to observe the appetizer, especially in the young generation more and more “eco-anxium”, for this issue.

The hashtag #cozygames totals more than two billion visits on Tiktok, while the one dedicated to Solarpunk experiences significant growth and totals 122 million visits.

When you look at videos of users, we see that beyond a reasoned consumption of new technologies, it is “slow life” (“simple life”) what is most prominent. An element that points to irony when you know that Tiktok is a Chinese social network, where the frantic career for development makes it one of the world’s greatest pollutants.

Eastern policy, the Solarpunk movement also answers the questions excited by the arrival to power of authoritarian leaders. Before Donald Trump in the United States or Javier Milei in Argentina, the world should rethink to fight better against inequalities.

To continue its mute and be just a utopia, Solarpunk can trust events focused on the general public. From March 29 to 30, 2025, in Paris, in the twelfth, the Aurore system festival wants to highlight a reasoned imagination: “We will talk about artificial intelligence, plurality, mediation and diplomacy, city policy, individual and collective, or even science and technology in a moving society,” he writes in the press release.

On this occasion, authors, authors, publishers who advocate a much more enviable futuristic model than that many others seek to impose.