1. It’s Geekery The Genders Can Share

On the most basic, most appealing social level, steampunk is a way to masculinize romance.

2. An Aesthetic Response To The Science Fiction In The Culture

clean, happy technology with rounded edges. Which is great in that it’s completely user-friendly — but terrible in that “user-friendly” means “predictable”

3. Like Being Goth Without Scaring Your Parents

People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can’t help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are — what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?

4. Bridging The Subgenre Gap

Steampunk is helping to bring us back to the days when the subgenre categories didn’t matter so much

5. The Future: UR Doin It Wrong

Steampunk basically lets us go back, at least in our imagination, and try again