AIs are hacking each other, manipulating election campaigns, and data centers are consuming clean drinking water. While tech billionaires are still propagating the narrative that artificial intelligence is a natural human development, financial experts are already predicting the bursting of the AI bubble. That artificial intelligence is largely unpopular with the general public should come as no surprise.
Digital counter-movements have existed as long as the internet itself. Their diversity lay primarily in the solutions they proposed. While some strive for a radically different form of society and ecologically sound technology design, others are more concerned with efficient and future-proof digital policies . Much like the most powerful figures in Silicon Valley, these counter-movements have also frequently been male-dominated.
Unfortunately, technological developments disproportionately harm women; meta classes and deepfakes are bringing sexualization to the digital world. It's not just feminist activists who are fighting against this. The so-called "Tech Girlies" want to take ownership of the technological and digital sphere. They are offline, building and coding their own cyberdecks, sharing resources with the community, and disregarding minimalism. On the contrary, the cuter the better! They also dream of a world where technology was still optimistic and are inspired by the nostalgic look of the 00s. They build e-readers into handbags, cameras into hair clips, and MP3 players into children's toys. Technology thus becomes self-determined and tangible instead of intimidating and risky. The decks are also meant to slow things down. One device for one activity that works anywhere, even without cloud and Wi-Fi, instead of a device with a thousand functions and a thousand distractions that is constantly connected to the outside world and only works if it's allowed to steal your data.
The "tech girls" are not the first feminists to rebel and simultaneously shape culture by carving out space in the tech and digital sphere. But they employ an aesthetic that women and queer people of the new generation can connect with in order to explore alternatives, build networks, and create spaces of freedom.