NYC OFF TECH Mid-October Updates
The people are deleting! Plus an event about AI friends, Halloween activities, & more
Hello, friends! The heater in my bedroom just turned on, & I am now processing that it’s the second half of October already. It’s been quite busy—and our community has EVEN MORE events to share!
RECAPS
Delete Day was a success—people came together to exit platforms that they’ve deemed are not worth giving their time to anymore.
Here’s a quick quote from an op-ed I co-wrote about it:
The space beyond social media is where we’ll discover better alternatives. With care and dedication, our creativity will take on new forms; our social fabric will strengthen; appropriate tech tools will come in time. You don’t need a perfect vision of the future right now—just make a move.
Of course, this is just the start. Deletion is a big deal, but it’s just one act—one exercise in agency—that opens us up to more. We’re getting off the apps so we can show up everywhere else we’re needed.
My friends and I have also been tabling lately, to talk to strangers about tech and society and to share the events on this bulletin. It’s way better than promoting all over the internet. Perhaps that’s how you arrived here!
Tabling has proven a magical tool, inviting so much serendipity and increasing our surface areas for connection tenfold. We’ve been varying our style, and no matter the approach, an endless stream of people stop to talk about this stuff—because we all need to talk about it. One guy saw my roommate posted up in Prospect a week after we met in Wash Sq., and he connected the dots on his own.
Another day, a friend from 5th grade (who I literally joined Instagram with at 11, and who doesn’t even live in the city) walked by. We had the most cathartic conversation about how we pushed all our classmates to join the app, the hours we’d spend reposting memes, the aggressive porn accounts that would try to follow us in the early days. Who could’ve imagined where we’d be 14 years later?
-NP
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MORE EVENTS
Oct. 19 | Come Say Hi to Friend AI @ 5 p.m., Father Demo Square (6th and Bleeker)
Meet the Friend AI in person, for FREE. This Sunday only!
This is your chance to see what all the hype surrounding this subway celebrity is about. Come ready with your deepest questions.
Be prompt—we anticipate a long line.
Oct. 31 | Pop-Up Spooky Walk @ 5 p.m., Tompkins Square Park
Visit the graves of old friends like boredom, serendipity, attention, & more.
Endure the fright of eye contact, small talk with strangers, and delayed gratification.
Can we conquer these, our deepest fears, together?
Nov. 1 | RETOOLING @ 1 p.m., Williamsburg
RETOOLING workshops allow participants to explore their relationship to tools old and new. Through group practices and guided discussions, we discover existing alternatives that better suit our needs and build new tools from scratch. Past activities include “de-phoning” your daily routines, field trips with physical subway maps, and device settings audits.
Details at https://www.generationattention.com/events.
Sign up at https://tally.so/r/w4M0q5.
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Welcome, new subscribers! Be sure to check out the full October calendar. :)