WIRED interviews a puppet spokesperson for New York’s Luddite festival

In short: A New York festival that asks people to step away from Big Tech used a puppet spokesperson in a WIRED podcast interview to keep organizers anonymous.

What’s going on

On WIRED’s The Big Interview podcast this week, senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan spoke with “Gowanus,” a puppet that acts as the public face of Summer of Ludd. Summer of Ludd is a Luddite-themed festival that took place in New York earlier this month.

The puppet is meant to protect anonymity for the real people organizing the events. It is a nod to the original Luddites, 1800s British textile workers who organized against being replaced by machines.

Summer of Ludd set strict rules for its events, including no phones, recordings, or photos. The festival included workshops like “how to flirt in real life,” group activities like “Delete Day” where people delete apps together, and an “evidence box” where attendees shared stories about how large tech companies affected their lives.

Gowanus also brought a handwritten contract to the interview. The main request was that WIRED not publish short clips of the conversation, in order to push people to spend time with the full interview instead of quick social posts.

What to watch

The conversation reflects a broader push, especially among younger people, to spend less time on social media and to build more in-person community. Summer of Ludd also points to a growing focus on the real world costs of popular tech, including concerns about surveillance, work conditions, and the energy and water used by AI data centers (large buildings full of computers that power AI services, like a factory for processing information).

Source: Wired