Meet Gowanus: The Garbage-Made Puppet Leading a Modern Luddite Revival Against Big Tech

In a Manhattan podcast studio at Condé Nast headquarters, an unusual media representative sat down for an interview. His name is Gowanus, he is made of literal garbage, and his origin story begins in a dumpster in the Brooklyn neighborhood that shares his name. He serves as the media puppet for the Summer of Ludd, a Luddite festival held in New York earlier this month that banned phones, recordings, and photographs, requiring attendees to simply be present.

Despite his philosophical opposition to digital media, Gowanus agreed to the interview on one condition: a handwritten contract stipulating that no short-form video clips be produced from the conversation. The goal, he explained, was to encourage people to engage with the full interview rather than scrolling past bite-sized content. After negotiation, a compromise was reached allowing only a clip of Gowanus explaining the contract itself.

Why a Puppet? Anonymity Rooted in History

The choice of a puppet as the movement's public face is a deliberate nod to the original Luddites, British textile workers in the early 19th century who anonymously organized against technology that threatened their livelihoods. They faced oppression from the Crown and local militias, making anonymity essential. Gowanus explained that the modern movement similarly avoids creating individual figureheads, using the puppet to preserve that tradition of anonymity.

While the term "Luddite" has evolved into a pejorative label for someone who is simply bad with technology or opposed to it, the Summer of Ludd sought to redefine it. Gowanus described a modern Luddite as someone who offers a deeper critique of technology, questioning the widely accepted assumption that technology equals progress by default. He pointed to Silicon Valley's founding mantra of "move fast and break things" as a mindset people are increasingly questioning.

The movement has been notably embraced by Gen Z, the first generation to grow up entirely online. Gowanus noted that many young people feel they missed out on genuine human experiences because they served as what he called "guinea pigs for Mark Zuckerberg." However, he emphasized that the movement attracts people across all age groups, noting that the hyper-acceleration of technology over the past two decades has flattened generational distinctions, leaving both teenagers on TikTok and boomers on Facebook experiencing similar feelings of alienation and chronic online consumption.

Big Tech, Not All Tech: A Critical Distinction

Gowanus was careful to clarify that the movement targets Big Tech specifically, not technology in general. He pointed out that the movement actively creates its own technology, including newsletters, RSS feeds, and alternative information systems designed to serve communities rather than extract value from them. During the festival, an event called "What Are You Doing Tonight? How to Create Your Own Events Calendar" brought together people who run newsletters and alternative tech platforms to teach others how to build independent information flows away from major social media companies.

The core ethos of the movement traces back to the original Luddites, who declared themselves "against machines harmful to commonality that tears unduly at the social fabric." Gowanus translated this as opposition to machines that accelerate wealth inequality, tear apart communities, and atomize people. He cited AI and automation threatening both working-class and white-collar jobs, including entry-level coding positions where workers essentially train the AI tools that could replace them.

The festival featured an event called Delete Day, where participants sat in a circle and deleted apps from each other's phones collectively. The exercise acknowledged that leaving platforms like Instagram or Hinge is difficult due to genuine reliance, and doing it as a group made it more manageable. Discussions explored why platforms like Spotify fail to pay artists a living wage and how dating apps have made romance more transactional.

From Flirting Workshops to Putting Technology on Trial

The festival included two workshops on flirting in real life, framed under the concept of "Luddite Rizz." Rather than focusing solely on how to flirt, the sessions primarily taught participants how to handle rejection. Gowanus explained that dating apps have transactionalized the experience of falling in love, reducing it to a swipe-based binary that erases the nuance of human interaction, including reading body language and dealing with intense emotions.

A particularly striking festival feature was an evidence collection box, used for a July Fourth protest called SHITPHONE, which stood for Scathing Hatred of Information Technology and the Passionate Hemorrhaging of Our Neoliberal Experiences. Participants wore gnome hats and put various technologies on trial. One young person shared a story about their mother using ChatGPT to ask whether bunnies can eat mushrooms. The AI responded affirmatively and affectionately, leading the family to feed shiitake mushrooms to a pet bunny, which became severely ill. Other testimonies included accounts of brutal working conditions at Amazon warehouses and concerns about Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses being used to record people without consent on subways.

A Political Movement With Unorthodox Tactics

Gowanus explicitly identified the movement as political, drawing parallels to the original Luddites who faced starvation and the enclosure of commons. He cited contemporary threats including mass unemployment, surveillance in public and private spaces, and potential mass manipulation through AI-generated content. The movement experiments with new organizing tactics, relying heavily on in-person communication rather than digital channels.

The festival's organization itself reflected this philosophy. Rather than maintaining a website or social media presence, organizers plastered posters across New York City featuring a hotline number. Calling the hotline directed people to nearby bookstores, community spaces, and cafés where physical guidebooks containing event information could be found. Gowanus acknowledged this approach requires more effort but argued it builds trust and community interdependence, as participants had to rely on one another rather than their phones.

When asked about social media's addictive nature, Gowanus was unequivocal, stating it is designed to be addictive because its economic model depends on selling user data to advertisers, corporations, and governments. However, he acknowledged that the internet has genuine value, particularly for marginalized communities such as LGBTQ individuals in conservative areas who use it to learn about their identities. He emphasized that the internet is powerful for accumulating information but falls short in helping people actualize it, which is why the movement's philosophy states that "the event is the medium" — knowledge should be tested and shared in physical public spaces.

Looking forward, Gowanus confirmed that the movement has ambitions beyond New York. The Summer of Ludd drew attendees from across the United States, Canada, and Australia. A newsletter called the NYC Off Tech calendar lists approximately 60 events per month. When asked to play a game choosing technologies to control, alter, and delete, Gowanus chose to control internet servers, alter social media platforms from centralized to federated systems, and delete AI data centers entirely, citing their enormous consumption of natural resources and energy.

As the modern Luddite movement continues to grow, it raises questions that resonate far beyond Brooklyn. Whether you find yourself doomscrolling late at night or simply curious about life beyond the algorithm, Gowanus and his fellow travelers invite you to step outside, find a local bookstore, and start a conversation. If this piece sparked a thought, share it with someone who might need to hear it — ideally, in person.

Source: Wired