Cyberpunk began in the early 1980s . Bruce Bethke used this word as the title for a short story in 1980 by putting together two words : `` cybernetics '' and `` punk '' . The Cyberpunk genre emerged in the early 1980s ; combining `` cybernetics '' and `` punk '' , the term was coined by author Bruce Bethke for his 1980 short story `` Cyberpunk '' .