The Luddite renaissance is here
Two weeks ago I stood outside the Apple Store on West 14th Street in Manhattan and watched someone dressed as Death destroy an iPhone with a rock.
People were cheering, a band was playing, customers inside the Apple Store were staring, and I was recording. This was the climax of an anti-smartphone protest called “Scathing Hatred of Information Technology and the Passionate Hemorrhaging of Our Neo-Liberal Experience” – one of many events and meetings, in New York and beyond, showing that the Luddite renaissance has arrived.
The tech media is largely failing to tell this story, so I’ll mark the moment: fall 2025 is when the new Luddite movement really began to accelerate.
For the first time in a long time, there is palpable energy – positive energy – in tech. It’s directed away from the Big Tech companies, and toward alternative platforms and mindsets. Many people are trying to opt out of Big Tech altogether.
I have devoted the last two Techtonic episodes to this movement, and I’d recommend listening to both, as there is not a lot of coverage elsewhere (yet) about what’s happening.
The Oct 13, 2025 Techtonic included audio from the anti-smartphone protest, as well as an interview with Luddite Club cofounder Logan Lane. (Here’s the podcast version.)
The Oct 20, 2025 Techtonic featured Amanda Hanna-McLeer, a filmmaker making a documentary about the Luddite Club and the larger movement. (Here’s the podcast, and here’s more info on the doc.)
As Amanda Hanna-Mcleer pointed out, the tech resistance is a “big tent” movement. It’s not just protests against smartphones – though the rally outside the Apple Store was really well done. There are local Luddite Club chapters popping up around the world; groups promoting “appstinence” from social media; advocates for labor rights; activist mothers against media addiction; events just to hang out offline; policy advocates lobbying against Big Tech; activists challenging Big Tech over their negligence in protecting children; parents who have lost children due to unregulated AI platforms; and more phone-free events and workshops. This movement will only keep growing, because Big Tech shows no signs of changing its exploitative practices.
I’m also happy to see a shift in the understanding of the word “Luddite.” Some people have used it as a slur – as in, “you Luddite, you must want to live in a cave somewhere.” But now, thanks to the tech-resistance movement, the Luddite eponym is being properly applied to people who are against the abuse, not the use, of technology. (This also comes up in the Hanna-McLeer interview.)
There’s a crucial distinction between tech that is designed to deceive and exploit users, and tech that is built with the users’ best interests in mind. Big Tech is irredeemably corrupt on this point: because of a “growth at any cost” ethos, exploitative products are an inevitability. (For more on this, read Why everything suddenly got worse: a conversation with Cory Doctorow.)
Even AI, Big Tech’s obsession of the moment, could be used for good – if different leaders, with different incentives, were in charge. I made this point earlier this month in Generative AI is the new plastic:
AI, if applied sparingly and judiciously, can act as a benign general-purpose filler of boilerplate text and such. The problem is that we’re not pursuing anything “sparingly” right now. The multi-hundred-billion-dollar valuation of OpenAI, and the hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown around to support generative AI, are signs that Big Tech intends to slop out a contamination zone that is much bigger, and much more toxic, than anything ever created by plastic.
This new Luddite movement, this broad-based tech resistance, will no doubt be ridiculed by tech boosters: “Look at these anti-tech losers, I guess they want to move back to the 1800s.” But the truth will out: we’re not against technology. Instead, we’re against the tech bros and their predatory agenda.
Once enough people learn how to free themselves from Big Tech, we’re really going to party.
Our own Creative Good community is part of the movement, too, as we discuss all of this – and more – on our members-only Forum. I hope you’ll join us.
For more reading:
A gleam of hope: meet the Luddite Club (Nov 15, 2024), featuring three members of the Luddite Club
A heartfelt plea to ditch the smartphone (Feb 14, 2025), featuring August Lamm
The Luddites warned us about Google (Oct 25, 2023), featuring Brian Merchant
Until next time,
-mark
Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good ← please join as a member
Email: mark@creativegood.com
Podcast/radio show: techtonic.fm
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