Gears represent all things mechanical, they are, in a way, the last great technological achievement that everyone could understand. Once we started moving away from gears to electronics, consumer products became opaque. With a moderate level of technical skill you can fix something with gears most of the time, it needs oil, or a screw is loose, maybe needs a new part, but if your car's CPU is on the fritz, forget it! You need a professional. No more getting your hands dirty figuring out what makes it tick, you're more likely to just break it.
That is one of the reasons why they are emblematic of the steampunk movement. In a very real way, gears represent a simpler age, when people worked with their hands, and we were the boss of machines, not the other way 'round (if you doubt that machines own people you haven't seen this video, where a woman texting on her phone falls into a fountain).
So, steampunkers put gears everywhere, jewelry (pic from Creative Habits)
computer cases (pic from Datamancer)
even fingernails
Gears are everywhere in steampunk. It's impossible to get away from them. In fact they would feel rather oppressive if they weren't so cool.
What do you think? Got any cool gears to show us?
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