Is Steampunk Dying?

We strip-mine your underground culture
Take the bite out and rinse it clean
Give ourselves credit for creating it
Then sell it back to you
At twice the price

- Fleshdunce, by The Dead Kennedys

Will Steampunk survive being the next big thing? There were a couple of things this morning which some might interpret at signs of the coming Steam-pocalypse.
First is the mere existence of this story in the New York Times Fashion section on Steampunk. Major media attention is frequently to the coup de grace to an emerging subculture.
Second is to be found within the the article, the mention of Giovanni James of the James Gang magical performance troupe opening his own bricks and mortar Steampunk shop in NYC:
He plans to offer brass Rubik’s cubes, riding boots, early-20th-century-style motorbikes, handmade leather mailbags and brass or wooden iPhone cases, all under the label TJG Engineering.

There will, of course, be a clothing line with vintage and new looks modeled on Mr. James’s own neo-Edwardian sartorial signature. “I’m so sick of baggy pants hanging off your bottom,” he said. “This is more refined. It goes back to a time when people had some dignity.

“It’s a new day.”

Off-the-rack Steampunk? Why I say, how gauche! Any real steampunk casts their own goggles and gears from... Wait... did that say early-20th-century-style motorbikes, and handmade leather mailbags?

I am so there!

I mean really, Steampunk was dead to begin with. It is all about reanimating the mouldering corpses of bygone fashion, technology, and manners. So what if someone purchases their tails at a haberdashery rather than a thrift store?