The Summer of Ludd Festival: A Luddite Renaissance in New York
On a recent episode of WIRED’s The Big Interview podcast, senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan spoke with Gowanus, a puppet made of literal garbage who was born in a dumpster in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood. Gowanus serves as the media representative for the Summer of Ludd, a Luddite festival that took place in New York earlier this month in July 2026. The festival aimed to reclaim public space and critique Big Tech. Its rules were simple: Be present. No phones, recordings, or photographs allowed.
Why a Puppet? The Anonymity of the Original Luddites
Gowanus explains that the puppet form pays homage to the original Luddites—early 19th-century British textile workers who anonymously organized against being replaced by technology during the Industrial Revolution. They sought anonymity because they faced oppression from the Crown and local militias. Today’s modern Luddite movement, surprisingly embraced heavily by Gen Z, also values anonymity to avoid creating movement figureheads. Gowanus offers anonymity to the people behind the growing trend.
Core Tenets of the Modern Luddite Movement
The movement’s ethos comes directly from the original Luddites: “We are against machines harmful to commonality that tears unduly at the social fabric.” This means opposing technologies that accelerate wealth inequality, tear apart communities, and atomize people. Gowanus emphasizes that being a modern Luddite is not about being anti-tech but about having a deeper critique of technology that’s been lost. The festival included workshops such as “How to flirt IRL” and “What Are You Doing Tonight? How to Create Your Own Events Calendar,” teaching people to build community offline.
Workshops and the Evidence Box
Two workshops focused on flirting—dubbed “Luddite Rizz”—which actually taught people how to handle rejection in the age of dating apps. The thesis was less about how to flirt and more about how to get rejected gracefully, retraining social muscles away from the transactionalized experience of swiping on apps like Hinge. The festival also featured an evidence collection box for a protest called SHITPHONE (Scathing Hatred of Information Technology and the Passionate Hemorrhaging of Our Neoliberal Experiences) on the Fourth of July. Attendees submitted testimonies on how Big Tech has negatively impacted their lives. Notable pieces included: a young person whose mom used ChatGPT to ask if bunnies can eat mushrooms—ChatGPT said yes, and the bunny almost died from shiitake mushrooms; another about a parent working at Amazon in brutal 120-degree heat without breaks; and a woman concerned about Meta Ray-Bans (sunglasses with a sneaky camera) being used on subways to record without consent.
The Political and Practical Implications
Gowanus stresses that the modern Luddite movement is deeply political, facing mass unemployment, surveillance, and manipulation through AI-generated content. When asked about addiction, Gowanus stated that social media is designed to be addictive because the incentive is to sell data to advertisers, governments, and corporations. However, the movement acknowledges good uses: the internet can help queer youth in conservative areas discover their identity. But the key is to actualize information in real life—hence the mantra “The event is the medium.”
For those curious about unplugging, Gowanus suggests starting by deleting a single app (Instagram, Facebook, Hinge, etc.) and replacing that time with going to local bookstores, community spaces, and talking to people. The Summer of Ludd was advertised entirely offline via posters with a hotline that directed people to nearby bookstores with guidebooks. The movement already has a network spanning across the US and internationally, with attendees from Canada, Australia, Iowa, Santa Cruz, and North Carolina.
Gowanus also played WIRED’s game “Control, Alt, Delete”: He would control the servers for the internet (to prevent military use), alter social media platforms to be federated rather than centralized, and delete AI data centers entirely, citing their enormous drain on natural resources like water and energy, outweighing any potential benefits from a chatbot.