Yeah it's probably / hopefully tongue in cheek lol, of like self referentially corny on purpose lol. I don't know. I really should reread it.
Discussion
I kind of read it as some sort of attempt at making geek culture cool and bad aaaassss. And that probably read differently at the time of writing. But now all culture is 'geek culture' ... Comics and marvel and whatnot. I'm probably totally misreading snow crash lol
It's absolutely a parody in the vain of Verhoeven's Robocop and Starship troopers.
It's got cyberpunk and ultra capitolism, and kids riding skateboards hanging off the back of cars and cyborg dogs and a guy riding around on a motorcycle with a fucking atomic bomb in the passenger seat. All super 80's cliche.
I mean, how can your name your MC Hiro Protagonist without it being a parody?
Yeah I kind of suspected this, felt like reading a comic book, maybe... Judge Dreadish (the comic not so much the films). There's just no way all that bad assery was serious, even if it was for Young Adults. Not sure I'll ever reread it tho when there's more of his stuff I still haven't read and would probably enjoy more.
Soon we'll see some creative legends from the art or music world joining nostr? Would be cool to see some of the ways they decide to interact on this protocol.