Cyberpunk 2020 - Superconsumer part one

Superconsumer.

This is an article series looking at the consumer side of the dark future. When everything is about buying, selling, brand promotion and the ever forward movement of the capitalist machine. How it affect the characters, on a personal and professional level, from making money to being the product being sold. Of course this is highly inspired by many of the themes from the great cyberpunk series 'Max Headroom: Twenty Minutes into the Future'.

Television.

The number one tool for selling anything and for keeping the masses pacified. Corporations learned just how powerful it was early on and took measures to insure that it will be a constant in every single persons life. It provides a constant stream of propaganda, brainwashing and subliminal messages straight into the brains of all citizens.

Several years back after a long process of buying politicians through either hefty donations to their campaigns, under the table exchanges of cash and even blackmail the Corps made their move. Moving forth new laws under the guise of promoting the Emergency Alert System so that everyone can always be warned at anytime some big changes came forth. The off switch is made illegal, if they have a television turned off then the EAS can't be of use to protect the people. No more full mute on volume control for much the same reason. A television is required in every home, if you don't have a set one will be provided for you, granted one of very low quality but it's free. Finally it set up laws requiring the presence of television screens in businesses, on street corners, in churches, at schools, anywhere people may be. They made it an inescapable part of life from then on.

Punishments for trying to go against these new laws are as follows.

Possession of an 'off switch' for any television. 30 days minimum and 90 days maximum in jail for every remote in a persons possession.

Possession of a 'mute switch' for any television. 10 eb fine minimum and 100 eb fine maximum for every remote in a persons possession.

Destroying or rendering unusable a television. 90 days minimum and 180 days maximum in jail for every set destroyed.

A side affect has been a glut of new broadcast channels as nearly every corporation tried to get in on the deal. Thousands of channels are now available to everyone all day long. This has led to a lapse in quality programming as well since there is only so much money to go around in filling up that airtime.

Reality shows are at an all time high. Anything goes and every variation of a theme has been explored and re-explored, then rebooted and brought back over and over again. But they are cheap to make and there is never a lack of people volunteering to be in them for cheap prices as they hope for that five minutes of fame.

Live new channels. Lots of them. Every media out there is in constant contact with various operators trying to stream their footage of what is going on around them right now.

Lots of airtime is being filled with reruns of older shows. During the lowest viewer ship hours you will never see anything new. But instead you are fed the hit show from two years ago that everyone forgot about or something from the eighties for the really penny poor stations. Anything that has the least bit of popularity will be rented out to other channels the next year.

Working this aspect into your game.

Always point out where the televisions are when describing the area surround the PCs. Maybe a quick word about what is on if they are around them for any amount of time.

If things go south and guns are drawn be sure to mention that if they hit a television they may be held accountable by the law. If it's self defense then they may not be charged, or if they have a high enough reputation the prosecutor may choose not to press charges. But it's something they need to think about before pulling that trigger.

They also get hired by a network to track down somebody who is destroying televisions in various parts of the city. Or to track down a black market spot that sells off and mute switches.

Come back next week for another installment of the Superconsumer article series for Cyberpunk 2020.



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