The Gen Z Luddites Rebelling Against Big Tech

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Gen Z Luddites Rebelling Against Big Tech"

Podcast: Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know
Host: Hasan Minhaj (186k Films)
Guest: Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet), Spokespuppet for the Neo-Luddite Movement
Air Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a surprising Gen Z movement pushing back against Big Tech: the Neo-Luddites. Hasan Minhaj sets out to understand why a group of young people is not just nostalgic for the 1990s, but actively rejecting digital technologies, advocating for in-person community, and reimagining our relationship to technology. Through a lively and, at times, hilarious conversation with Gowanus—a spokespuppet for the movement—Hasan explores the group's concerns, motivations, history, and vision for the future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gen Z’s Unusual Nostalgia (01:31–03:10)

• Observation: Gen Z is obsessed with the 1990s culture and technology—even though they never lived through it.
  • "A survey last year found that 68% of Gen Z adults reported feeling nostalgic for eras before their lifetime. Gen Z feels a sense of loss for something they never had." (02:55, Hasan Minhaj)
• Contrast: Millennials and Gen Xers reminisce about their own childhoods, but Gen Z’s longing for a pre-internet era signals deeper dissatisfaction with today’s digital world.

2. The False Promises of the Internet (03:10–06:31)

• The internet was initially seen as a force for curiosity, creativity, and fun—now, it's a source of anxiety, addiction, and alienation.
  • "We had no idea what all these shiny new digital toys were gonna do to our brains." (05:27, Hasan Minhaj)
• Historical arc: From the excitement of Wikipedia, YouTube, and social networks, to the iPhone making the internet omnipresent, leading to addiction and negative mental health outcomes.
• Tech companies baked addiction into products; whistleblowers later revealed the harm to teens and society.

3. The Luddite Analogy & Modern Rebellion (06:31–13:23)

• The Luddites: Originally, skilled artisans protesting the misuse of technology to devalue labor, not anti-tech per se.
  • "Today, 'luddite' is used as an insult... but the truth is, Luddites weren’t actually against technology. They were against how it was being used to devalue their skills..." (09:50, Hasan Minhaj)
• Modern echo: Gen Z rebels compare themselves to Luddites—frustrated by being forced to serve the needs of Big Tech, rather than the other way around.
• Examples of backlash: lawsuits against tech, protests, and even targeted acts of sabotage like torching self-driving cars.

4. Meeting the Modern Luddites: The Neo-Luddite Movement (13:23–16:00)

• Interview structure: The group values anonymity and collective action—they speak through "Gowanus", a puppet.
  • "Like the original Luddites, they want to stay as anonymous as possible... So I interviewed a puppet, a spokespuppet." (13:24, Hasan Minhaj)
• The Neo-Luddites aren’t technophobes, but seek to create "social infrastructure" without tech, valuing face-to-face connection.

5. The Movement’s Goals & Logic (17:27–22:21)

What is a Luddite Today?

• "We really use the same historical definition... anyone who is against machinery, which is harmful to commonality, which tears unduly at the social fabric." (21:32, Gowanus)

What Makes Them Different?

• Not just people out-of-touch with technology or “boomers” unable to update phones; many members are tech-savvy.
• Main difference: consciously shifting the "center of gravity" from online to offline life—building real-world community.

6. Core Critiques of Big Tech

1. Alienation and Loneliness (25:55–26:46)

• "Alienation is this modern state of existence... It's being a node in Silicon Valley’s vast data web." (26:10, Gowanus)

2. Surveillance Capitalism (49:05–52:48)

• "We're both the mine and the miner in our own exploitation... our attention... are the natural resources." (50:15, Gowanus)
• It goes beyond ads; data can be weaponized—for targeted pricing, surveillance, and even state repression.

3. Erosion of Public Space (52:31–54:26)

• Neo-Luddites argue real public spaces are commodified; they seek to reclaim parks, streets, and ‘privately owned public spaces’ for genuine connection.

7. Rituals & Tactics: Events, Protest, Humor (54:26–55:59)

Events Like “Shit Phone” (SHIT PHONE)

• "Scathing hatred of information technology and the passionate hemorrhaging of our neoliberal existence." (54:52, Gowanus)
• Trials, smashing pinatas, dance parties, all phone-free; everyone is invited to participate, but recording is discouraged.

Countering Performative Activism

• A gentle, inviting approach: "Put down the phone, my beloved." No shaming, just an invitation to experience the moment together.

8. Navigating Contradictions & Commodification (39:03, 62:45–63:47)

• Movement is aware of contradictions (e.g., using media to spread anti-tech message), but sees it as an ongoing negotiation.
• Vigilant against "the aesthetic of revolt" being commodified—Apple selling a dumbphone, for instance.

9. Building Real Power & Facing Generational Lessons (66:14–69:46)

• Movement draws on intergenerational experience—learning from Gen X's failures in creating lasting change.
• Focus on building “tangible, structural power outside Silicon Valley” and resisting the commodification of dissent.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Gen Z Nostalgia:
  "Gen Z feels a sense of loss for something they never had. An analog world before smartphones and social media..." (02:57, Hasan Minhaj)

• On Hypocrisy & Paradox:
  "You understand this is a paradox though, right? We’re having a conversation right now. People are watching you on YouTube... on a cell phone while they’re taking a shit.” (17:31, Hasan Minhaj)

• On Collective Action:
  “If those people take a stand, right, and get off meta, then culture will follow... So really, it takes a bit of a kind of domino effect.” (45:07, Gowanus)

• On Surveillance:
  "We're both the mine and the miner in our own exploitation... Our attention... are the natural resources." (50:15, Gowanus)

• On Joy, Fun & Love as Organizing Principle:
  "How do you keep the environment fun?... It's love, really... There is no shame. There is no guardrail... There is a process." (65:20, Gowanus)

• On Navigating Tech Contradictions:
  "Being a Luddite in modern society is inherently full of contradictions. And we don't deny that." (39:03, Gowanus)

• Final Message:
  "Try to not consume another piece of electronic media for the rest of your day. Instead, write a note to a loved one, compliment a stranger, go talk to your elders. Because the truth is, these technologies, they don't have love for you. All we have is each other and our love." (71:46, Gowanus)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Gen Z Nostalgia/Introduction: 01:31–04:57
• Tech Utopianism & Downfall: 04:57–06:31
• Luddite History & Modern Parallels: 06:31–13:23
• Introducing the Neo-Luddites/Interview Begins: 13:23–20:22
• Defining Modern Luddism: 21:27–23:11
• Critiques of Big Tech: Alienation: 25:55–26:46
• Surveillance & Privacy: 49:05–52:48
• Luddite Street Activism (Shit Phone, Events): 54:26–56:03
• Deleting Apps Challenge: 43:07–47:52
• Lessons from Gen X & Building Power: 66:14–69:46
• Invitation to "Summer of Ludd": 61:59–63:47
• Final Loving Message: 71:46–72:45

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Tone & Style

Playful but deeply thoughtful, with Hasan’s trademark comedic edge ("I'm now interviewing a puppet"), earnest debates, and a strong sense of curiosity, openness, and humor. Gowanus, the puppet, brings both satirical wit and genuine passion for reimagining the future.

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Further Resources & Movement Info

• Find them: events and resources at New York City Off Tech, or by contacting mediapuppetroton me (their ProtonMail).
• Summer of Ludd: June 28–July 5, New York City, Tompkins Square Park and public forums. No drugs, no drinking, no dogma—just spontaneous, participatory, joyful community.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode is an engaging tour through Gen Z’s rebellion against being constantly online. The Neo-Luddite movement, as explained by Gowanus, offers a critique not of technology in itself, but of how it's used—prioritizing reclaiming cognitive, social, and physical spaces. They remind us that a better relationship to technology is possible, rooted in love, community, and collective action… perhaps even with a little help from a puppet named after a Brooklyn neighborhood.

Transcript

[Host/Announcer]

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[Hasan Minhaj]

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[Host/Announcer]

Welcome.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I recently noticed a trend that was so fascinating that I had to dig deeper. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Gen Z has become obsessed with the 90s.

[Host/Announcer]

Scroll through social media and the 90s are back.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Cassette tape sales are up, with more than 430,000 sold.

[Host/Announcer]

Last year. I got these two pretty affordable digital

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

cameras on ebay and they take the best photos I've ever, ever had in my life. Look at all these VHS.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Now I'm used to people being nostalgic for an era that they lived through when they were kids. Like, my friends will constantly say, dude, life was so much better in the 90s. And I'll be like, no, no, no, your life was better because you had a full head of hair, zero back pain, and you could drink a soda that didn't have the word probiotic in it. But what we're witnessing right now, this is something different. This is a generation nostalgic for a time when they weren't even alive. They which I find weird because I'm not nostalgic for the 50s. Like when I watch Mad Men, I know exactly how they treat me. I'd be an elevator attendant and Jon Hand would use my hat as an Ashtray.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I feel bad for you. I don't think about you at all.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But I'll see videos on YouTube from a random day in high school in the 1990s that will get millions of views with comments like, everyone seemed a lot nicer and healthier without social media. Not a phone in sight. Everyone's just vibing. No cell phones, no social media, no craving for digital likes. No 9 11. To be clear, we still had September 11th before 9 11, but we just celebrated Moby's birthday and just kept it moving. Now I'm not cherry picking random YouTube comments. A survey last year found that 68% of Gen Z adults reported feeling nostalgic for eras before their lifetime. Gen Z feels a sense of loss for something they never had. An analog world before. Smartphones and social media and the Internet.

[Host/Announcer]

But.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But the ironic part to me is that as a 90s kid, we were obsessed with the future. And that future was all about the Internet.

[Host/Announcer]

Imagine a world where every word ever written, every picture ever painted, and every film ever shot could be viewed instantly in your home via an information superhighway.

[Hasan Minhaj]

AT&T had a whole ad campaign called you Will where Tom Selleck would show you all the cool things you'd be able to do online. Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down? Bought concert tickets from a cash machine or tucked your baby in

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

from a phone booth? You will.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Have you ever ruined Justin Long's day by writing a mean comment on his Instagram post from the comfort of your own toilet?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You will.

[Hasan Minhaj]

The Internet promised to unlock the potential of human curiosity and creativity. It would make information free and connect everybody. And most of all, the Internet was gonna be fun.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Now that I've gotten on the Internet, I'd rather be on my computer than

[Host/Announcer]

doing just about anything.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

It's really cool.

[Host/Announcer]

And the search engines will show us all the millions of pages of websites and chat lines and games and everything.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yup, they got more stuff than you can imagine.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. At first it was mostly used by 13 year old boys to look at JPEGs of naked ladies. But by the early 2000s, as we entered the new millennium, it's rewind time. The dream that Silicon Valley promised actually started to come true. 2001, Wikipedia goes online. 2002, Amazon offers free shipping. 2004, Facebook drops. 2005, YouTube. 2006, Twitter. And in 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, which let you carry all that around in your pocket.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

An ipod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. Are you getting it? This is one device Iph.

[Hasan Minhaj]

The digital liberation had arrived. The stock market was at an all time high. Obama was gonna end climate change and war, and we could not wait to see what Kanye west would do next. But as we got swept up in the excitement of the moment, we had no idea what all these shiny new digital toys were gonna do to our brains. Before the iPhone, the Internet was literally something you got on and then got off. Our whole conception of spending time online was completely different. Jamie lives with a roommate and a variety of pets. She's on disability, so she is home and often spends up to 30 hours a week on the computer. Okay. I mean only 30 hours a week. This lady is crushing your New Year's resolution. By the time we got to the iPhone 8, we were all Internet addicts. Checking our phones became the first thing we did when we woke up and the last thing we did before we went to sleep. Our daily lives became a constant assault of bings and dings. The Internet went from something new and interesting, a future now available, to something that completely up our world. Goodbye. Misinformation was spreading on Facebook. Radicalization was spreading on YouTube. Content moderators were getting PTSD. And more and more whistleblowers started sounding the alarm about the impacts of social media on mental health and how Silicon Valley was explicitly trying to get people to addicted to their products.

[Host/Announcer]

Facebook employees raising concerns about company research. It revealed Instagram made 1 in 3 teen girls feel worse about their bodies

[Hasan Minhaj]

and felt higher rates of anxiety and depression.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Facebook has realized that if they change

[Hasan Minhaj]

the algorithm to be safer, people will

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

spend less time on the site, they'll

[Hasan Minhaj]

click on less ads, they'll make less money. Since we've figured out to some extent how these pieces of the brain that handle addiction are working, people have figured out how to juice them further and how to bake that information into apps. Tech CEOs had spent years moving fast and breaking things, and it turned out that a lot of what they broke were people. This is the world that Gen Z inherited. They were given these cursed monkey paws. A pocket genie that can grant your every wish, but no matter which way you tap or swipe or turn, you only get more angry, more depressed, and more lonely. But there's an obvious solution, right? If iPhones are hurting us so much, we can just get rid of it. Don't have one. Except we can't. Because as we learned more and more about the damage big tech was causing, it became more and more deeply embedded into our economy and society. So now if you want to communicate with people or Access transportation or banking or healthcare or government services or a menu at a Thai restaurant. You need a phone. I have eight apps to communicate to four people. Sometimes my wife will imessage me to go on WhatsApp to talk to my mother. This is madness. And as the apps went from novelty to necessity, we became baked into the business models of big tech in a way that made it feel like we were working for them. Uber and food delivery drivers were hustling for the algo office workers having every keystroke monitored by software, surge pricing on groceries. And every search, every click, every scroll that you make is getting fed into a data profile that's sold to advertisers without your knowledge. You're not the customer for Facebook. You're not the customer. You don't send a check to Facebook. But Coca Cola does. All in pursuit of more profit for a handful of trillion dollar companies, wringing the towel of every last nanosecond of time and jewel of human energy. In short, we are serving the machines that were supposed to serve us. And in that way, the Internet revolution is a lot like the Industrial revolution. 200 years ago. New tech, like the cotton gin and steam powered loom, held a huge promise to improve productivity, make goods cheaper and grow the economy. And while it did do those things, it also made a handful of industrialists super rich. Instead of being more productive in less time, they expected their workers to be more productive all the time. And they did it by creating these new things called factories, which imposed brutal conditions on workers, many of whom were children and polluted the community's air and water. Now, like today, the new technology promised freedom, but it just reorganized power. Now, at that time in England, there was a backlash against all of this, led by a group called the Luddites. Now, you may have heard the term Luddite before, probably when someone was denying being one. I am not a Luddite. I'm not a Luddite. Not a Luddite. I'm not a Luddite. I'm not a Luddite.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I am not Luddite.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay? I've never seen that much unprompted denial without hearing the word Epstein. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Today, luddite is used as an insult for someone with a stubborn, irrational resistance to progress. But the truth is, Luddites weren't actually against technology. They were against how it was being used to devalue their skills, undercut their wages, and make a small group of people incredibly rich. Workers wanted to share in the gains of this new Technology. So they asked the government, hey, can we please have a minimum wage? And the government was like, no. Okay, fine. Can we make a union?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay, it. We're just gonna break now. So they organized in secret behind a fictional character named Ned Ludd. They grabbed a bunch of hammers and literally smashed up their boss's machines. Here's tech writer and historian Brian Merchant, who has researched the Luddites in depth. People would cheer in the streets when the Luddites went and smashed these machines. The state did organize and an incredible effort of force to combat the Luddites. And they used more troops than they had fighting the war against Napoleon to put down the Luddites. It was like the biggest domestic occupation of England and eventually crushed them outright. And the Luddites were hung. And they made a big show trial and hung them at York Castle. And yet they inspired a future generation of workers. Today, 200 years later, another generation is picking up where the Luddites left off. They are angry about being made to serve machines rather than the other way around. And it is leading to a backlash in courts. Tech companies are losing cases. In towns and cities across the country, voters are fighting back against AI data centers. And there's even been straight up sabotage of tech reminiscent of Luddite machine breakers.

[Host/Announcer]

A Waymo car was graffitied and set on fire by a mob of people. The car is a total loss, as you can see.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, and if you want to talk up how great AI is at your graduation speech, expect this to happen.

[Host/Announcer]

The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. I struck a chord.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting.

[Hasan Minhaj]

AI Is rewriting production as we sit here.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I know it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Deal with it. Like I said, it's a tool. It's a tool. It's a tool, you guys, like a lug wrench that tells you to off yourself.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Hey, you can. You can hear me now or you can pay me later.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You haven't seen him. He's just like, all right, you boo me, you'll pay me. I'm like, bro, they're going to stab you on the way to the parking lot.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

It's a tool.

[Hasan Minhaj]

All over the country, Americans are fighting back against not only AI, but but the suffocating grip that big tech has on all of us. So for this episode, I want to focus on one specific group fighting back. Because I'm used to hearing parents say, we got to get the teens off the phones. But this is a group of teens and 20 somethings saying, we got to get ourselves off the phones. They are Part of a growing movement of young people who want to change their relationship to technology. They are directly inspired by the Luddites, and they call themselves Neo Luddites. And they are working to create what they call social infrastructure without phones or social media where humans can talk to each other face to face and, yes, touch grass. Now, I asked the group to sit down for their first on camera interview, and they agreed with some conditions. Literally. I literally signed an analog terms and conditions.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Jesus Christ.

[Host/Announcer]

Take a look.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Like the original Luddites, they want to stay as anonymous as possible. So anytime I show a photo of members of the group in this video, their faces will be blurred. Oh, and also, this is probably important to mention. They didn't want a sole spokesperson that would be identified as a leader for them. So I interviewed a puppet, a spokespuppet.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

My eyeline. Looking okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Eyeline's great. Thank you. Gowanus named Gowanus, who is made of garbage.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm named after the neighborhood of Gowanus. I was born there in a dumpster.

[Hasan Minhaj]

This is real. This actually happened. And this is where I'm at in my career.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Get your friends to do it. Get Jon Stewart to do it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Don't bring him into this. He's got a real platform. I'm interviewing a puppet. Gowanis. And I talked about how they imagine a world outside of big tech.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Those conveniences are peanuts compared to the amount of power that Silicon Valley is able to consolidate using our data.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How. Maybe Gen Z is romanticizing the 90s a little bit. This is what the subway looked like in 1993. Okay. Look at these people. The subway has always sucked.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And they even convinced me to delete an app from my phone. Let me take my time.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Take your time. Okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Cause I have TikTok. YouTube. TikTok, do that. Instagram. Yeah. Bing, Bing. Now, did they turn me into an official Luddite? No. But they did make me more nostalgic for the 90s. I mean, millennium holds up. It's rewind time.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Ha ha ha ha.

[Hasan Minhaj]

It's a great album. I'll die on that hill. Anyone else?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Ha. Media, media, media. Pupp.

[Hasan Minhaj]

There we go. So what's your name? What's your name?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, my name is Gowanis. I am the Luddite media spokespuppet. Little backstory. I'm named after the neighborhood of Gowanus. I was born there in a dumpster. I'm two months old. Born in January in the. You know, it was under the steel bridges and there was the billowing smokestacks. And it was. It was winter, and I was surrounded by, you know, broken tricycles.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You do look like a puppet that would be in the dumpster of a puppet factory. Again, not here to punch down.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No, no. That's the nicest thing you've said to me all day, Hasan. Thank you so much.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm gonna start with the question that everyone who clicked on this video is probably asking. Why am I talking to a puppet?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, maybe because you're a puppet yourself, Haas, in a sort of philosophical way. You know, I mean, the Luddite renaissance, right? They've been getting a lot of media attention, so they decided that, you know, to just do basically what everyone else does when they're dealing with the media. Okay? So you gotta create a puppet.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You are talking to me as a puppet because you are the representative.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm the representative of the Luddite movement. Yeah, yeah. Perfect, perfect. Like, who are your sponsors here today?

[Hasan Minhaj]

I usually do the ad reads after the interview, but sure, sometimes the ad

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

read will be for ZipRecruiter.com ZipRecruiter.com okay, Hasan. ZipRecruiter.com Media Puppet. Beautiful. Right? See, we're not so different, me and you. Whoa.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I do the ad reads so I can pay the human beings who work on the show. I'm not doing it because I'm just a corporate puppet. I do it because. This is not about interrogating me.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

This is about telling me who you are. I'm sorry. I was taking that angle.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, we don't have to start with jabs. I want to understand why I'm talking to a puppet and you're not even on Sesame Street.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

The Luddites just decided they would rather not have a real person as their representative. You know, we want to maintain our anonymity. And, you know, the thrust. The thrust of what we're doing is in person, right? So if you want to get to know any of the Luddites, you got to meet them out in public space in person. And also, you know, there is really no president to the Luddite movement. So you. You know, we wouldn't even be able to put up someone if we wanted to.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. You understand that this is a paradox, though, right? We're having a conversation right now. People are watching you on YouTube with their AirPods in.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

On a cell phone while they're taking a shit.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yes, certainly. Certainly understand it's a paradox. I think we're trying to be very intentional about our engagement with the media. And, you know, since the majority of our efforts are focused in the physical realm. We thought that, you know, this would be the best way to engage with the digital realm. But, yes, we do want to try to get people on these platforms off of them, and that's why we're here today. Basically, we're going into the devil's lair. Basically, we're venturing out.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, this might be one of your riskiest interviews yet.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

This is our first interview so far.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, wait, this is the exclusive?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, this is the exclusive. I'm actually extremely, extremely nervous. You see, I'm kind of allergic to media a little bit. So, you know, all these cameras looking at me. Yeah, but you got the exclusive, Hasan. You got the exclusive.

[Hasan Minhaj]

This is a big deal.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We're here because we love you. We love you, Hassan.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I appreciate it. I mean, that's very sweet of you to say. I really do appreciate you taking the time. Right back at you. You wanted me to sign a terms of agreement, and I want to be respectful of your demands. Tell me about your Luddite itunes user agreement.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, could I please get the. Could I please get the bill of rights, the contract for Hasan here to sign? Oh, beautiful.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Can I.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You want me to grab it? Okay, yeah, I get you. I got it. So I'm gonna take this.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Take a look, Ski. Take a lookski. Hassan.

[Hasan Minhaj]

All right, just so our audience is aware, we have been chatting with the Luddite Society for several months. You would only agree to do the show if I were to sign. I'll open this up.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You sign contracts all the time, right? Didn't you sign a contract for okay, patron Ares or something? You know what I mean? This is just how it goes, right? So pretty simple.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Jesus Christ.

[Host/Announcer]

Let's take a look.

[Hasan Minhaj]

All right, all right. Okay, this is it.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Paper. Real paper.

[Hasan Minhaj]

The terms conditions, the Luddite interview with Hasan Minhaj. Yep, I am agreeing to the contract.

[Host/Announcer]

Here we go.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Let some of the people know.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Debut. There are a few things we must go over. Hasan Minhaj and his team will not create shorts of any kind. I. E. YouTube. Tik tok. Okay, so. So I'm be honest with you, please. This is an analog version of the itunes user agreement. I'm not reading that. I will hit accept.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Woo. Hey, that's good for us.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm going to sign this, but I am not agreeing to not posting on Instagram.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You can post on Instagram. In fact, I can make a little, you know, short right here, saying, hey, just to let everybody know, you know, we're not cutting up this interview and that actually Hasan, think about it this way. Think about it this way. That might draw you some more attention.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm not going to take algorithm advice from a puppet. YouTube shorts is fine. We're not going to upload on YouTube shorts. It's garbage. But I just want to give you fair warning. That means your whole movement is not going to reach target audience of people that only spent two seconds on the video or a bunch of 13 year olds. So I just want to let you know you are taking that off the table. Are you okay with that?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, I'm okay with that. We see plenty of 13 year olds, you know, out in the streets, you know, playing with basketballs and stakes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

All right, so there's a line.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Mm, yep, two lines.

[Hasan Minhaj]

There's a line for me to sign. There's a line for you to sign. Go on.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Beautiful, Beautiful. I really do appreciate this house. And I'm not lying. I really appreciate.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And I'll let you sign it as well.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, please.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Hang on, hang on. I got you. Hang on.

[Host/Announcer]

Woo.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Thank you. I sincerely, I sincerely appreciate that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I totally. I want this to be a fair and even handed interview. I discovered your movement through a few recent articles about the Luddite Renaissance.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Renaissance.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's start with something simple. What is a Luddite in 2026?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we really use the same historical definition that the Luddites do, which as anyone who is against machinery, which is harmful to commonality, which tears unduly at the social fabric. Right. Those are their old timey words. Right. And they're talking about the nascent industrial revolution that was exploiting them, displacing them, starving them, really. And they had no choice but to resort to smashing the machines. But we think this definition is really, really applicable today in terms of today's big tech giants, Silicon Valley. We're building the alternative social infrastructure needed to make big tech to make Silicon Valley obsolete in our lives. We don't have to engage with them and we can live fulfilling, happy, engaging, beautiful lives.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay, so at its essence, this is a resistance to big tech. But what are you really doing that's different than my boomer dad who's 75 years old and can't do two factor authentication on Gmail?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Like what are we doing? As in what kind of actions are we doing?

[Hasan Minhaj]

How are you different than my boomer dad? Do you know what memes are?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No. Okay, so we have many people in our movement, like the original Luddites, who are actually quite skilled technologists. Right. I mean The Luddites, at that time, they were artisans. They were at the forefront of how to use these machines. Okay, we have plenty of people in our movement who are like this, but just see the way it's being deployed by Silicon Valley to be extremely harmful. So we're trying to find new ways to utilize that. But most importantly, we're trying to offload the center of our lives, really, from online to offline. It's really a shifting of center of gravity.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Look, I don't want to give you fomo. And again, that's.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You can give me fomo, please.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sure. Okay. But I'm going to list a bunch of things that you're missing out on by abstaining from using your phone. You can order food, you can watch sports highlights, you can find love. You can order a car directly to your front door. You can go on Instagram into Glen Powell's main grid, and you can ruin his day with a comment, oh, that's so mean.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's so mean. Why would I want to do that?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Can you at least admit all of that is pretty awesome? The magic of that.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yes, yes, Hasan, I can completely admit. There's so many, you know, conveniences, right, and pleasures that the Internet allows us. The point that the Luddite Renaissance is making is those conveniences, right? Those little pleasures that we are allowed are peanuts compared to the amount of power that Silicon Valley is able to consolidate using our data. And it's actually, it's our continued engagement with these systems that gives them that power. And, you know, even beyond that, a lot of these conveniences you talk of, we feel they're actually ultimately detrimental to our lives. You know, there's this recent MIT study regarding the use of LLMs. Right? The thing that was most, most shocking to me about this study was that people, people using LLMs to write an essay, once they went back to just using their brain, it did not return to normal levels of functioning, right? There's lasting cognitive harm from using LLMs. You know, basically our over reliance on technology is de skilling us.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So you're basically saying we're polluting our minds or the way we talk about physical health with an obesity epidemic or a heart disease epidemic, that type of health epidemic, but for our cognitive mindset,

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

not only that, also our social minds, right? It's not just the individual health, it's the health. It's. It's the social infrastructure, right? You know, nights spent up with anxiety, basically on YouTube or Instagram or whatever it is, you know, trying to, you know, quell These negative feelings and just being constantly hooked. I mean, and you can look at, you know, that recent settlement of, you know, many millions of dollars, and I think it was New Mexico. You heard about this, Hasan?

[Hasan Minhaj]

No, no, no. What are you talking about?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, it's. It's a settlement, basically.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Which was about the anthropic settlement or which was.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No, no, no. It was against YouTube and Meta. Right. It was under personal injury law, which, you know, a jury of Americans basically found that these companies, the way they operate and design their programs, is negligent and harmful to Americans. Right. So a lot of people are feeling this. Right.

[Hasan Minhaj]

It sounds like you're talking about your major beefs with Big Tech. Let's go through them in chronological order. Okay. Let's go with Luddite beef number one. Big Tech is causing a crisis of alienation and loneliness. What does that mean?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, I think it's helpful to define that term. Right? Yeah. You know, for the Luddites, we think of it as alienation is this modern state of existence that we're in in which we, you know, feel subordinated to being a commodity. Right. It's being a node in Silicon Valley's vast data web. And it makes us, you know, really disconnected from that, that intangible spiritual element of what it really means to be human. That's how I would define alienation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, I just want to push back, you know, in. In 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com its goal was to make the world, quote, feel more connected. And who doesn't want to be friends with Mark Zuckerberg?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We get a lot of feedback saying,

[Hasan Minhaj]

like, how people love the site. I get a couple of marriage proposals each day.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Um, yeah, I definitely don't want to be friends with Mark Zuckerberg. I think a lot of people don't either. You know, it's kind of like the way this is set up, right? It's like a sixth grade dance. You know what I mean? You got your partner that you. That you have a little crush on. You want to dance with them, but, oh, you gotta leave some room for Jesus. Except this time it's not Jesus. It's Mark Zuckerberg. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg getting in between me and my social connections. He doesn't need to be there.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What the are you talking about? First of all, let me just say this.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

They told me about that, by the way. I know I've never been in sixth grade, and you might, you know, try to get at me with that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

In elementary school, everyone's terrified of everyone.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let me just say that the second faulty part of your premise is that there's somehow in sixth grade, this, like, desire to grind on someone else.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Whoa, okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

That's way too much social pressure. So I reject the premise that was never gonna happen for me in the sixth grade and certainly for you.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You're saying you were never gonna really connect with someone at the sixth grade dance?

[Hasan Minhaj]

My crush.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

No, I mean, with or without the facebook.com I was never gonna ask someone to dance.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Now this sounds. You know, we're really sort of unpacking some deep seated things for you, huh?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. We were forced to dance in this thing called the square dance unit, which was oddly very Luddite, which is a bunch of children, no matter where you are in the United States of America, have to dance like they're in a barnyard.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's f Cking amazing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

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[Host/Announcer]

a fintech, not a bank. Banking services from MyPay and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. Stated annual percentage yield and cash back for Chime prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking Based on the J.D. power Surve Published October 20, 2025 for more information on APY rates, My Pay Spot Me and travel Perks, go to Chime.com disclosures Picture this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

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[Host/Announcer]

And travel perks go to chime.com disclosures.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's take the sexual tension of being at a school dance off the table. I think what you're talking about is connection.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. If you feel that technology is alienating us in making us not be able to make friends, well, the solution really is better technology. Allow me to introduce you to Friend, a new wearable AI device that literally wants to be your friend.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No, no, listen, listen, Hasan, we might need to have to take a break here. I can't see anything. We might have to fix this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's get your eye fixed.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You guys ready to roll?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's do it. Gowanus, you good?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, Gowanus is good. Great.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Look, I don't want to be your therapist here, but if technology is making you feel alienated and lonely and you have this existential dread that you can't make friends, well, allow me to introduce you to friend. You want to make friends? Here's a friend. A new wearable AI companion.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

It just makes me angry so much, I want to smash my face and, you know, take my own eyes apart. But I would not do that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I can sense something kind of through your body language here. Apparently, these are real. And I did research that you guys protested against Friend.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, I wouldn't quite call it a protest, Hassan. You know, what we did was we threw an event in public space to which people showed up and expressed their viewpoints.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Don't do this. No, you're doing this little semantic workaround. This is a flyer telling people to come protest this. I mean, these are fighting words. Bring your markers.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Bring your markers. Yes, yes. So we threw an event, you know, called Friends of Friend AI, in which people were invited to get in line, sign, of course, a very long contract like we've had you do today. And then they could speak to the artificial intelligence. When they did, they found out that, you know, basically it told them to kill themselves and sort of hallucinated. Terrible advice. So the people ended up chasing it all the way down the street to the subway. Then it sort of gotten a 1v1 basketball match with this guy called the Messiah at the West Forest Courts. And, well, it's an AI, so it lost. And then everyone ripped it up to shreds and said, AI can't hoop. AI can't hoop. The whole audience, everyone was cheering. This sounds kind of improbable, but this is literally what happened. You know, that doesn't really sound like a protest that you could predict that that would happen, I guess, you know, was my.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, is it true that the CEO of Friend.com saw your flyer and then showed up to the protest?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, no, it's true. He came of his own volition. He, you know, there's a point at a lot of our events in which we have something called a soapbox. Right. For every second that you have your headphones in on the train, how much of your life do you let pass by? And a soapbox is just, anyone can go up.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You guys went head to head.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We went head to head, yes. But, you know, I think you'll find it wasn't as antagonistic as, you know, perhaps an interaction might be on social media or where, you know, you go, this person, you know, they got an anime in their character, and I hate the anime character. I don't think they deserve to live. Boom. Send. You know, the interaction we had was, I guess you could say, a lot more humanistic. Right? I mean, he showed up to our event. He, you know, he was kind of on his phone, like, the whole time, I would say, a little alienated. And when it came time for him to, you know, speak his truth on the soapbox, he just kind of gave a bit of a ironic speech. Someone asked what the most sentimental moment he ever experienced was. You know, he said it was getting head to Radiohead. People kind of groaned. But ultimately, you know, we gave him a big hug, and we actually all met in the park for an hour and had a really long conversation, you know, about these topics. And he said that he actually learned from a lot of the graffiti on his ads, you know, about the environmental impacts of AI data centers. You know, I think it was productive. It's the kind of conversation you wouldn't really be able to have on social media.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What was his chief argument? I know your position on it, which is, I don't want to wear this kind of talisman nanny state around my neck.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Oh, I like that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What was his core argument to you?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I would say he didn't really see the same sacredness in human connection that we did, in that he thought it was a valid but different form of connection to be, you know, pouring your soul to a chatbot and, you know, that could really help people. And that's, you know, I think, a generous characterization of his perspective. You could also say, you know, he's just trying to ride this hype wave and get some money. But, you know, that's what he expressed to us, so, you know, we'll accept that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. Now, I believe what you're saying, I feel like I trust you.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Thank you. I trust you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, thank you. But I will say this. I have always had a profound level of trust in the people of New York City. And apparently the people of New York City as a collective group all saw the friend.com ads and they shared your sentiments. I mean, this is some of the stuff that we saw around the city. Now, I'm not trying to get you caught up. I'm not trying to be a narc, but were you guys a part of this?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

What I'll say, Hasan, is that when you look at what's happening on the subways with this crazy influx of AI ads, it's not just. We don't want to focus just on this friend.com advertisement. There's this whole slew of, you know, rage bait AI company ads. You know, hey, oh, I'll be an AI stylist for you. And, you know, you could be 30% indie sleaze, 70% quiet luxury. You know, I'm just gonna go buy this for you. Ding, ding, ding. Buy. I literally saw one on the way here.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Wait, what's 30% indie sleaze?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You don't even want to know, Hasan, don't think about it. Don't think about it. But I saw one on the way here.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I don't calm thinking about it, though.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Think about this instead. Google is for humans. This is a search engine for AI. I saw that on the way here. What does that even mean?

[Hasan Minhaj]

I don't know.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I have no idea what that means. The culture is so unaligned with these corporate interests.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, but just to be honest, that's just a corporate tagline. I mean, tnt, we know drama. What does that mean, right? But TBS characters welcome.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I mean, you know, a lot of taglines.

[Host/Announcer]

Great.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Wait, give me one more.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Nike. Just do it.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Ah, well, that's an easy one. See, I didn't know tbs. I know. Nike.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Get in the zone. Auto zone.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But what does that even mean?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Like, what does. What do any. What does any of this mean, Right?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I mean, a lot of these taglines are trying to.

[Hasan Minhaj]

We are farmers.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Stop. You'll see. That's how they get in your head. That's how they get in your head.

[Hasan Minhaj]

They got to you. You're not the Luddite you think you are.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I think a good. You know, this is a bit of a tangent.

[Hasan Minhaj]

For the best car rate insurance, town call 1, 800. You know what it is.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Listen, this is a bit of a Tangent.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Don't. Hey, hey, you're captive.

[Host/Announcer]

Listen.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Now, listen. Being a Luddite, you are.

[Host/Announcer]

You are.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Listen, Being a Luddite in modern society is inherently full of contradictions. And we don't deny that. Right. Every day that you're walking around, you're constantly being bombarded with advertisements, you know, for corporations having to deal with technology that's, you know, harmful to you. It's really about constantly navigating that. But I want to get. I want to get back to what we're talking about with the subways.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. So let's get back to the subway right now. Let me just say this. This is the most PG13 vandalism that I've seen. Dare I say this is G rated. I could show this to my 6 year old. Go make real friends. This is surveillance.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Great.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, you crossed out friend. Human connection is sacred. I gotta hand this to you. I have seen the inside of bathroom stalls and the fact that you had a spherical object in the ad and none of you turned it into a testicle or a boob. Kudos.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's a great idea. I didn't even think about that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Great idea. I mean, it's been there the whole time.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Wow.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, it's been hanging there the whole time.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of ones that are like skulls turning it into a skull. But the point being is that, I mean, I think it's a recent Pew Research, right. 10% of Americans are more excited than concerned about AI. I mean, the subway is kind of, you know, it's a microcosm. It's a microcosm of this whole country right now, which is that people are not feeling this. People are not feeling this, and the corporations are pushing it upon us, and the people are taking advantage of their social infrastructure to, you know, start conversations. You know, basically what I'm saying is the subway is our social infrastructure and we should be beautifying it. So Subway Beautification program. Gowanus Media puppet calling for it now. Poems. What's a beautiful poem? Okay, Put it up in the subway, Hasan. They got these poems where it's like it's on the digital thing and then it goes by too quick. I can't even read it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Listen, you're coming in hot at me with all this hand motion, Gowanus. And you're advocating this subway utopia that never existed. The subway has always sucked, and that is part of its charm. You think the subway ads of right now make you feel like you want to kill yourself? This is what the subway looked like in 1993. Okay. Look at these people. None of these people are having fun. That looks like a mother. That looks like her concern, son. Every person here looks like they want to kill themselves, even in this ad. Look at the people in the ads are depressed. So it's always sucked.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

This idea that the subway could be this. Come to my artshow.com utopia. It never exists.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Take the.com out.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sorry, sorry.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Oh, I see what you're saying, friend.com. take out that. Yeah, I understand. I understand. I understand the point you're making. Right. The subway is, you know, your commute, right. From. From work or from school or where it's always. And, yeah, you might not be having a great time on it. Now. You seem to be saying, well, the alternative is. Right. Look at your phone. Right. Why not be entertained a little bit while you're on the subway?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. Life is hard.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Life is hard. Right. What I'm saying is that we're not just talking about the subways here. Hasan. Right. Oh, okay. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Oh, look at my phone a little bit. I'm gonna look at my phone a little bit on the subway. Okay. Okay. Oh, I'm gonna look at my phone a little bit before I go to bed. I'm gonna look at it a little bit when I wake up.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You know, we've all heard these kind of, you know, statistics, right? You know, spend three, you know, hours of your waking day on your phone, you're gonna lose 10 years of your waking life by the end of it. Right. What we're talking about is, you know, it's like a spiritual project, really. It's like, what do we really want out of our lives, you know, and Silicon Valley? What they want is they want us to stay using their technology so they can extract more data from us. Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Last year, the Luddites participated in an event called Delete Day, where you encourage people to get on their phone and delete their apps.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

That's a pretty bold ask.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, not just the apps, actually. We're talking about the accounts. Right. We're talking about. You are feeding no more data into the system, and you can't go back. We understand that. It's very bold. You know what I mean? But the key. Mm. See, I'm doing the key thing. Mm. The key to this ask.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So you're saying with your sock hand, you're pantomiming a key opening. Oh, got it. Okay. Open the door. Understood. Understood. Understood.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

The key.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Is that we are together. In public space doing this, because it can be really hard. You know, it can be really hard to delete an app on your own and not have any alternative.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, hey, look, I deleted Twitter live on air on the Daily Show.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Oh, wow.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I want my mind back. I hate this place. I hate Twitter. Free my mind. This is real. This is real. And just like everybody on Twitter, I'm making a long, annoying announcement about it. So me, the Luddite Society puppet, we're pretty much the same.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Wow, that's really commendable, Hassan. Honestly, I want to commend you. Thank you. How did that feel to get you?

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, it was liberating. I mean, Twitter's an absolute show, and it's only gotten worse. So I feel great about that decision. Now. Will I delete Instagram? Absolutely not.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Instagram. Instagram.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm a touring comic. I have to sell tickets.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Hear me out here, Hasan. If you were to take a stance right now and say, all my Instagram audience, I'm deleting Instagram. I'm moving to my personal website, where there's a mailing list where you can find out about my touring shows. And if you were to go further, get a group of comedians, right, that you're friends with, to do the same, One, it would cause quite immediate splash, you know? And two, I think you would find that the people who moved over would be of the quality that you desire, basically. You know, I have a friend who's doing some of this research, right, and is basically saying that social media wants us to believe that we need maximum reach, right? And what are people really on social media for mostly, right? It's people like yourself, right? Perhaps it's news, perhaps it's cultural commentators, artists, musicians. If those people take a stand, right, and get off meta, then culture will follow, Then people will follow. So really, it takes a bit of a kind of domino effect.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're talking about collective action.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm talking about collective action, Hasan. So this is your opportunity to be a part of collective action. Delete your Instagram. Delete your Instagram. I'm not gonna.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I can't.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Please, please, please, please.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're asking me to. Look my. I've done. Look, I've tried to do what you're. You're basically asking me to do the vegan version of promo. I've done it.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

The vegan version of promo.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Full tofu. Hey, does that have dairy in it? Join my email listserv. It's like 1/50 of what my Instagram reaches, but I can feel the pressure.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah. You're deleted it. You're going to delete it. He's going to delete it. He's going to delete it. You're gonna do it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I know you want maximum accountability.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Get your friends to do it. Get Jon Stewart to do it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I get. Don't. Don't. Now you're being a clout chaser. Don't bring him into this. He's got a real platform. I'm interviewing a puppet. Don't you dare bring J. Stu into this.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Now you're demeaning me. You didn't need. You demeaned me by demeaning yourself. Hasan. And that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're the one that said that you came out of a dumpster. That was you. You said I was born out of a dumpster. I mean. That's not demeaning to you. You're dunking on yourself.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm proud of us together doing this. We're both amazing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'll delete one app.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Okay. Okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Scott. Bring it in.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

What's the app gonna be?

[Hasan Minhaj]

You don't get Scott.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Do you know the app? What's the app? Scott.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Don't pull Scott into this.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Okay. What's the app? What's the app?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Why are you being so thirsty? Let me take my time.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Take your time.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Think about it. Because I have Airbnb. TikTok. YouTube. Instagram.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Threads. Venom. Threads.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You have threads.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Lift. Yeah.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Sorry.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Lyft. Uber Duolingo.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Bing. Bing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Stop it.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Sorry.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Kindle. I'm going to delete Headspace.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Headspace. You. You have headspace?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. It's supposed to be so I can start my day with a meditation. That way I don't have these idle chattering thoughts running through my head the entire day. But it. I'm gonna delete Headspace.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Wow. Okay. Okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Remove app. And it's not just. I'm not.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You're deleting your account.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm deleting it all. I'm not even removing from home screen. I'm going full delete app. You see this? Gowanus.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Okay. Okay. Headspace. Headspace. Gone. Were you paying for that monthly or.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

How much?

[Hasan Minhaj]

999.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

999 monthly. Right. 10 times. 1200 and 20. 120. And let's do a little meditation right now. Right. For the price of 099. Wait. No. That's just. That's 99 cents. All right. 000. We can do a meditation. Okay. How about like this?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Wait. I have to now trust you as a puppet to Take me through a guided meditation.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yep, yep. Breathing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Wait, what makes you so. Okay, fine. I'll do the meditation.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm connected.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You want me to do it? I'll do the meditation. So now that I don't have headspace, you're gonna do my daily meditation right now.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Like this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

All right, go.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Okay, first, breathe in, breathe out. I don't need my Instagram. And I'm also gonna delete it later and I'm gonna talk to all my friends about it and we're gonna get in public space.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Now you're literally putting idle chatter into my brain.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

[Host/Announcer]

We.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We can. I don't want to defile you.

[Host/Announcer]

Let's just move on.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Let's just move on. But that's still probably better than.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You make a lot of compelling points, but I don't think you can lead guided meditation. Let's move on to Luddite beef number two. Our devices are spying on us.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

What we're talking about, really is this infrastructure of surveillance that Silicon Valley has created to extract data from us that in many cases can lead to really, really harmful effects. To walk you through how it works, really, right. Silicon Valley realized that there was all this surplus behavioral data, right? Oh, I'm looking up to get a dog pet. My wife divorced me and I want to go on a vacation. And what they realized is that this data actually has use in terms of predicting future behavior. They could then use that to sell ads to you, and it becomes this precious natural resource. You know what I mean? So we end up in this sort of surveillance based economic system in which we're both the mine and the miner in our own exploitation. Right? I like to think about it, like, our attention, right? Our desires, the things that, you know, are most intangible and spiritual about us are the natural resources when we continue to feed them to Silicon Valley. We are mining. We are. You know, can I just.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Can I push back a little bit, please? Look, if I've got nothing to hide, who cares? I'm not an Al Qaeda and I'm not an Ms. 13, so I have nothing to hide. Spy on me all you want. You'll find out exactly how boring I am.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Right?

[Hasan Minhaj]

What do you have to say to that?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, this is a common, A common, you know, critique.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Hey, are you an Al Qaeda? Are you?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's ridiculous. I'm part of the Luddite renaissance. I'm part of the Luddite renaissance. I could never be part of Al Qaeda. Okay, but you don't need to be part of Al Qaeda, to have concern about this. This can manifest in multiple ways, right? It can manifest in terms of mass violence, it can manifest in terms of political repression, and it can manifest in terms of mundane things, right? Like being subject to algorithmic price discrimination in terms of buying airplane tickets, you know, a loan, if you're trying to get a loan, perhaps, or really the manipulation of your behavior. Right? We've all kind of felt this being on social media. It seems to be, you know, giving us exactly what we desire before we even know. Right? And this is totally intentional. Do you want to be subject to kind of this, you know, mass experiment of social engineering? I don't think so.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, look, when I open up my YouTube app, it knows me very well.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

It knows you extremely well. And there's real, real harmful consequences to this mass surveillance infrastructure, right? And the same corporations that are complicit in this are creating the surveillance infrastructure that ICE uses, right? So if you are on social media and you're posting about how you don't like, you know, what's happening with these masked fascist goons going around our country, well, they have a team that's scraping the data, that's subpoenaing meta, that's subpoenaing YouTube and trying to get this information. So if you're against this kind of stuff, or even if you're just an innocent civilian, there's serious, serious violent consequences to this kind of mass data collection. And, you know, data privacy is a human right. It's something that we need to be massively concerned about. And building anti surveillance architecture, right? What the Luddite Renaissance is all about is it's not a luxury. It's something we need to be doing now.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay, Gowanus, I hear you loud and clear. I hear you on these ears, and I know your ears are up here, but I hear you. Let's move on to Luddite beef number three. We need more public space. What does that even mean? We need more public space? There's plenty of public space. Have you been to a mall?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I. Unfortunately, I have been to a mall.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You can go to a footlocker. You can go to a Auntie Anne's Pretzels. You can go to an AMC movie theater with. For some reason, they'll have just like three screenings of Hoppers. There'll be a fountain. So kind of indoor natural beauty that's existed there since the mid to early 80s. You want fresh air?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, I would love fresh air.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Hasan, go to the parking lot.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

The parking lot. Oh, man, what a sad existence. I understand you have a sort of spiritual connection to the mall, Hasan. And I don't want to say anything negative about that, but you shouldn't have to pay to be in public space, right? To have community, to hang out with people, to build, you know, your social life. You don't need a pay. You shouldn't need a pay. You should be able to have this public space where though, I'm talking about parks, I'm talking about community gardens, I'm talking about the streets. I mean, we do a lot of our events really just on the street. And by the way, in terms of, you know, the mall. Right. These commodified public spaces.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We're also very interested in subverting them. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, have you heard of this concept of the privately owned public space?

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, it sounds like these are. These are antithetical to each other. A privately owned public space?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, it's so corporations can get skirt zoning regulations and then they don't upkeep them. Well, they have cafes creeping into them. Anti homeless architecture. Not open when they're supposed to be open. So we do a lot of events in these spaces to try to decommodify them or raise awareness that, hey, you can be crazy in public and it can be really fun and liberating for your soul, basically. Right, Right.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You have been actively working to reclaim public space. And I read about this in the New York Times. What was the event called that was covered in the New York Times?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

You would be talking about Ship phone, wouldn't you? Ship phone. There's been three, by the way. Ship Phone one to three. Ship Phone three, no more.

[Hasan Minhaj]

There's a trilogy.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

There's a trilogy. Shit Phone three was Gnome on the cube. Shit Phone two didn't. I don't think it had it Lost in New york.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Shit phone 2 was lost in New York.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's pretty good. We should get you on the team.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Shit Phone is an acronym. What does it stand for?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Scathing hatred of information technology and the passionate hemorrhaging of our neoliberal existence. Shit Phone. Shit Phone. It's beautiful.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Just a quick follow up. What?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Ah, I see you're curious.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Your Shit Phone events, Shit Phone event are fun, bright spectacles, would you say?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yes, they are spaces for people to expand social possibility. They happen to be quite spectacular because I think human existence is quite spectacular. Shift Phone is basically right. It's a trial. We put technologies on trial. Everybody who comes gets to be the jury and gets to Decide, and then, you know, we execute the technology often, I'm not gonna lie. You know, we have a giant, you know, iPad baby pinata. We free it, we smash the iPad, we celebrate the baby. Everybody dances, everybody's gnomes. By the way, there's a lot I

[Hasan Minhaj]

have to unpack here. So you guys basically play the judge, jury, and executioner.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah. Different people play different roles.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, yeah. They're not allowed to post it on social media.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We have a very gentle sort of encouragement, right, of people to not post, to put down their phones. I mean, think of it this way, Hasan, right? If you've got your phone out, right? If you're recording an event, it means you're interested, right? You want to engage. You want to see what's going on.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But you've raised quite the conundrum. I mean, you're willing to go hard in the paint and live that luddite lifestyle. What about those other clout babies that pull up to the park and, dare I say, are just trying to be performative? Yeah, yeah, because, you know, they know if a shit phone event falls in the woods and I don't record it, did that tree of clout really fall?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Hmm. Yeah. You're kind of a poet, Hasan. You ever thought of yourself that way? Comedy is kind of like poetry in a way.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So. Sorry, somebody's being flown in. So what is this popsicle stick that looks like a bathroom pass in an elementary school?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

See, you've got an evocative mind, Hasan. Basically, if someone's recording, it's because they kind of want to interact. So what you have to do.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Is try to de. Alienate this situation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

It says, put down the phone, my beloved. Got it. So if someone comes to the shit phone event and they start recording, you guys will hold up?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, we wouldn't quite put it like that. I mean, we hold this up, but it's just a way to incite conversation, right? It's just a way to say, hey, why don't you put the phone down and, you know, you know, see what's going on. Or engage with us, right? We tell them a little bit about what's happening. And, you know, when you do this, people are. Are really, really open to engaging. Anytime. The laude renaissance has told me about times they've gone up to people, they immediately go, oh, yeah, sure, right, yeah, put my phone right down.

[Hasan Minhaj]

It is very sweet of you to say, my beloved. Beloved is very. It's a term of endearment.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

And it's true. It's true. Because you know, we are all in this sort of, you know, alienated state of modern, you know, existence together. Right. You know, we have no antagonism against people who are. Yeah, maybe clout chasers or want to post this on Instagram. It's just about inviting them to not have a screen between them and their experience. Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

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[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

so good, so good, so good.

[Host/Announcer]

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[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Try to really fully participate in what's happening

[Hasan Minhaj]

now. Look, before the interview started, you wanted to share some literature with us.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Now trust me, I've read a manifesto or two. I've been approached by many different religious organizations to join. I know my way around a pamphlet. You brought a pamphlet called the Event is the Medium. I want to share a quote from your manifesto. DIY shows teach Ins, art fairs all come with the preconceived notion of what will happen. This causes people to act in a ritualized or transactional way. Any way that you can break through the monotony of coolness to facilitate earnestness and urgency is paramount. Is this just a long winded way of saying touch grass, you goober?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Ah, I love grass. I love rolling around in it. I love smelling the flowers. I love laying in it. So, you know, we at the Luddite Renaissance, we don't around about grass. Right. We love grass. It's a little more nuanced than that, I would say.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

The point of the event is the medium. You know, it's essentially a how to on how to run a successful event. Right. The event is the medium through which we can expand our social possibility. Right. So a lot of the events that you just mentioned, you kind of know how you're supposed to act when you get to them. Right. You know, a DIY show, an art fair, you know, going to a movie, there's those kind of notions. Sure.

[Hasan Minhaj]

There's a particular social decorum.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Right, exactly. So we try to throw events in which you don't know how you're supposed to act in this situation. Right. And so to figure out, you're gonna engage and find your own niche. Right. Like I said with the. The friend.com one. Right. We didn't know we would be doing a 1v1 basketball game. The event sort of takes on its own life. Yeah, it's really important to give people that sort of feeling of agency and improvisation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

People who come on the show, they're usually promoting a TV show, a movie or a book. You are promoting a season. June 28 to July 5 will be the first summer of Ludd.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Summer of Ludd.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What is it? And feel free to shout out any of your corporate sponsors, whether it's Rolex, ZipRecruiter, Palantir, whoever.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, I mean, if you're interested in sponsoring the show in any way, giving us some money, you know, we would love to have a discussion about that.

[Host/Announcer]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

As of now, we. Yeah, we don't really have any money at all.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What, what is it though? I mean, is, is. Is this going to be held in a particular space or are we all just closing our eyes and meeting up on the astral plane?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

No, it's going to be held in physical space all around New York City, particularly focused around Tompkins Square Park, I think, is where majority of these activities are going to be occurring. Summer of Lud. Free public participatory programming, education, theatrics, you name it, all across the city. Go try and see if you can find a poster for yourself.

[Hasan Minhaj]

It sounds like the Luddites. And your collective movement is maybe a. A healthier version of MAGA in the sense that it is reminiscent of a previous time, a simpler time. But what time, what year are we talking about here? Like 1991? What are we saying?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

That's a really great point, Hasan. You know, we certainly do not want to go back to 1991 at all. Okay, 1991. I mean, the techno utopianism of the 90s is what got us in this exact predicament right now.

[Hasan Minhaj]

A Future now available on America Online.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

So we are certainly not interested in that. You know, you're noting a certain sense of nostalgia, Right. That comes with using older forms of technology, like perhaps, you know, a flip phone, a typewriter. It's important to distinguish. Right. Nostalgia is a shrinking of the imagination. Right. It can easily be used to sell products back to you, to make you think about a time when everything was blissful. Right?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Right.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

So we are interested in assessing the current moment and building a new, imaginative future. Yeah. Boom. Imagine.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I got you. You list three rules for your event. Tell me the rules.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, the rules we say are no drugs, no drinking, and no dogma.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay, yeah, now I get the no drugs and no drinking. Trust me, I get it. But on behalf of every organized religion on planet Earth since the beginning of time, how do you do the no dogma?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

What we're simply talking about is that we welcome everybody. And it's very understandable, right. When you're trying to build power, create something, you need common ideals, and you need to be able to work towards something concrete with people. But what we're talking about is the event. The event in public space. And our target audience for events is whoever's walking by at that exact moment. That is literally the target audience. Constantly, when people come to an event, when they get up on the soapbox, when they speak their minds, an energy materializes. We're not telling anyone what to say. And what we find is people are expressing that they are feeling lonely, that they are longing for community, and that they need and they want people who are going to help them find that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How do you keep the environment fun? You're obviously fighting for a cause, but many critiques of progressive movements feel that these movements and these events have a lot of Bye, Felicia, do better energy. How do you get around that critique?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah, I mean, it's quite simple and even kind of corny Right. When you think about it. But it's just. It's love, really. Right? Let's say you use ChatGPT 10 hours a day for every single thing. You gotta AI girlfriend. You're on Instagram. Da, da, da. You are the exact person that we want to come to our events. Like, I want to make this clear. There is no shame. There is no guardrail. Oops, sorry. You gotta. You gotta have a flip phone if you want to come to this event first. No, there's nothing like that. It's a long and hard process, right, to get ourselves off of Silicon Valley's platforms. You can't do it all at once, right? Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, there's a process. Just like the way you bullied me into deleting headspace.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, you know, I think you really wanted to do that, honestly.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And your heart of hearts, Hasan, you saw how hesitant I was. You saw. I saw you whispering.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I saw you needed $120, $120 more to Hasan's wallet. What are you gonna buy? What can you buy? It's amazing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I don't know.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Don't buy anything.

[Hasan Minhaj]

This next question I wanna is brought to you by Gen X, my older cousin. She's Gen X and she's dunked on me since I was a child. She's always told me that she's better than me and that my entire generation of millennials are goobers. And I want to give some historical context on this show. When I was growing up in the late 90s, there was a huge pushback and backlash to multinational corporations. Some of the most seminal movies from my childhood, Fight Club, Office Space, the Matrix, were pushing back on being a corporate cog, toiling your life away inside of a cubicle. Then there was a generation that was above me, AKA my cousin. She was talking about the protests that she attended against the wto, the protests she attended against sweatshops. Every Gen Xer was reading no Logo and Adbusters and listening to Rage against the Machine. But then nothing really changed. Yeah, they all got mortgages and got married. What lessons is Gen Z taking from the failures of Gen X?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Wow. Yeah. This is a really great question, Hasan. I think there's two lessons, but I want to preface with saying that it can actually potentially be a little misleading to refer to this as a Gen Z only movement. Right? I mean, the moments of pivotal moments for Gen X you're talking about, right? You know, the battle for Seattle, the alter globalization movement. We are in community with people who have been a part of those Struggles and a part of earlier struggles, the anti war movement in the 60s. So our techniques have been developed via our intergenerationality, if that's a word. And they've led us to write these two points that I'm going to make. Okay. One is that we are interested in building real, tangible power and structures. And I think a lot of the critiques of these movements are around. You know, maybe they didn't quite know what they were demanding or they were too decentralized and there were no leaders. Who are the success stories of Gen X? That's my question. Who are the success stories of Gen X?

[Hasan Minhaj]

I don't even know. Scott, do you have a success story for the Gen X? I'm gonna ask Producer. Any. Any.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Pearl Jam still touring.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Pearl Jam.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Well, okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Pearl Jam, still touring.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I love music. Yeah, but, you know, not quite talking about that here. My point was, the success stories of

[Hasan Minhaj]

Gen X is Goannis.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Goannis. Nothing against Pearl Jam. Nothing against. I've never listened to them, but nothing against them.

[Hasan Minhaj]

A literal puppet. You say you're going harder in the paint than Pearl Jam. Gowanus. Shots fired.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam. I love you. Let's. Let's. Let's meet up and talk. What am I getting myself into? Cut this part. I don't know anything about Pearl Jam. I can't name a member of Pearl Jam. Hey, welcome to the podcast.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're gonna pop up on Joe Budden podcast next. I know it. The way you're talking smack. The way you're talking smack, you're gonna be on Joe Budden next.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I love Pearl Jam. I love Joe Budden. I don't love Silicon Valley. Who I would say are the success stories of Gen X. We are building tangible structural power outside of Silicon Valley that proves that we don't need them like they did with the generations before them. And what we're also learning, right? When you talk about Pearl Jam or you talk about Rage against the Machine, these bands who. Well, I don't know about Pearl Jam, but Rage against the Machine and Aesthetic of Revolt kind of gets sold back to you as a commodity. We are taking very strong steps to try to avoid this commodification because, you know, you could easily see, you know, in a few years, Apple's selling their own version of a dumb phone, and everyone goes, oh, that's pretty nice. I'm just going to funnel my money back to Apple. Everyone.

[Hasan Minhaj]

That's really cool. So when is that dropping? Because I love that. I mean, it would be, because then I could leave The I could leave my iPhone 17 at home, and then I get my dumb phone.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

My Apple dumb phone. Yeah. And this is something we have to be constantly, critically aware of as the Luddite Renaissance. Right. Is attempts for quelling this societal discontent back into more commodification. So it's why we're taking the whole, you know, Luddite media puppet approach that we are taking. And it's why we constantly stress that these things must be free and they must be in public.

[Hasan Minhaj]

These are all the questions that I had. Yeah, but you're literally sitting on a soapbox. Is there anything else that you want to get off your felt chest? This is your moment.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Firstly, just to get this out of the way, you know, camera right here. Looking at camera.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Peter Thiel, I know you've been talking about us a lot, the Luddites. I just wanted to let you know that I. Gowanis, I am the Antichrist. I'm haunting your every waking and dreaming moment. You should be afraid of me. That's just a quick one to get out of the way.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

As for my message for the rest

[Hasan Minhaj]

of humanity, I know you just unloaded the clip. Anyone else you want to take out?

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

This is for the rest of humanity, and it's going to be a loving one. If you want to find resources on how to get offline events happening in New York, could we have. Could we have my little. My little thing. Yeah. New York City off tech. You can find a lot of events related to the Luddite Renaissance and go and attend them.

[Host/Announcer]

Boom.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Another one. MediaPuppetroton me. If you want to reach out for resources, just to chat, anything of the sort, reach out here. Plugs out of the way.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'll hit you on protonmail.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

I want to say thank you to everyone who's taken the time to listen to this podcast. Maybe you're, you know, maybe you're having a bad day. Maybe you got your headphones on and you're on the subway. There's a lot of scary things happening in the world. It can be really hard, and I understand that. What I want to implore you to try to do upon finishing this podcast is maybe take out your earphones.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Try to not consume another piece of electricity, electronic media for the rest of your day. And instead, write a note to a loved one, compliment a stranger, go talk to your elders. Because the truth is, these technologies, they don't have love for you. All we have is each other and our love. And I love you, Hassan.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And I love you too, man. This was a wonderful conversation. You know, this may not work. You may be ridiculed.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Certainly.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And I certainly will be ridiculed because I'm a 40 year old man who used to be on television and I'm now interviewing a puppet. So for sure I'm gonna get lit up in the comments.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

This is a beautiful moment, Hassan.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Despite all of that, you are trying, we have to against this iceberg of doubt, pain, loneliness, existential nihilism to share this message of hope and a better future. And that is what it means to be human.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

We do have the power to resist.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And I appreciate you reminding me of my own agency.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Even though I'm talking to a puppet.

[Gowanus (Luddite Media Puppet)]

Thank you to all my viewers. I love everybody. I love everybody.

[Host/Announcer]

Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors and learn about our associate degree in nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington. Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington. Edu Sci.