Y2k had it's impact on the cyberpunk movement too. Only it became a the machines will fail us/enslave us type of mentality.
The Terminator movies probably influenced the Matrix movies more than cyberpunk did. But the style of the Matrix (clothing wise and the anti establishment message) did faithfully represent the origin of cyberpunk from the 80's.
It almost seems in all the OMG! RISE OF THE MACHINES! Y2K! OMG!OMG!OMG! of the millennium the whole cyberpunk message really did get lost. I think the first part of this millennium was really a low spot for cyberpunk and it's now starting to re-emerge.
The funny part of the first part of the millennium is that technology was starting to explode. Computers were really starting to become a true part of our culture and lives. They were more accessible. Pagers had reached it's high point and we're phasing out to the new technology of cell phones (did you know around 1999 and 2000 if you had told us that we'd be able to surf the web, get email, all from our phone and anywhere in the world, we'd have laughed at you and said not for a long, long time), let alone hook our lap tops (yes, we had those) to our phones wirelessly for an internet connection (that is most of the time faster than my DSL at home).
Technology was about to explode. But those first few years mainstream society was rebelling against machines. Machines... were evil.
So things like the Matrix was the only things we had to show cyberpunk. It was rather bleak and as a country, at least the United States was a little too caught up in it's misery to see what else was going on.
By the way, at Y2k, (New Years Eve 1999) hubby and I waited ALL day for the end of the world. The machines didn't fail us.
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