The closest I can get to the meaning is a formula: Mad scientist behaviour x Victorian setting + reactionary politics x adventure plot = Steampunk. In effect, it is a style, nay, ‘movement’ frequented by eccentrics who wear 19th century dress fuelled with aviator goggles, velvet frills and metal lined hats, all with a view to taking something from yesteryear and making it sustainable, i.e.
covering it in metal and ultimately creating theatre through elaboration, be it by breathing new life into dandified dress or items that are soon to become relics of the past, if they can’t be punked. My personal obsession with Steampunk ends just there: much like comics, I like them, and the look, and the style, but I know little if nothing about either and I certainly won’t be partaking as I watch admiringly from afar. You would never catch me in a top hat frequented with feathers, fingerless gloves (although to my shame I did own a pair around the time of Rocky III (the one with Mr ‘I aint getting on no plane’ T)).
Thankfully, my mother did not submit to my wishes to buy a bullmastiff and name him Butkus, but I digress...
Steampunks also enjoy carrying weapons or tools, which is exactly what some of them look like, as well as spats and pocket watches as they dandy about town as one of the four distinct styles of street urchin, the tinker, the explorer, or the aesthete. And with products, the emphasis is on ‘steam’ where steam doesn’t necessary mean steam, but more so la.