Did you read the article about the “Luddite” teens in the Times? They first wrote about them sometime during the pandemic, when they were still in high school, I think, and then this second story is a follow-up, learning if they’ve kept up with it now that they are in college. Naturally some did and some didn’t. A friend said, “It’s crazy that now the equivalent of going back to the land is just not using phone.”
The Luddite lore in a nutshell: In the 1800s Ned Ludd was a weaver who destroyed a mechanical weaving machine—or stocking frame as it was called—in a fit of rage after being told his work needed to improve. A few decades later, when other weavers were protesting for better working conditions, they took on the Ned Ludd name as a symbol. They smashed stocking machines not because they were against “technology” but because it was a sure fire way to get heard by their bosses. Apparently sometimes they protested in women’s clothes and declared themselves to be “the wives of Ned Ludd” which I’m very charmed by.
I can’t remember if I was listening to OK Computer and then read about the Luddites or if I was reading about the Luddites and then needed to listen to OK Computer, but that’s what happened. I read some old articles and learn it’s not about pre-millennium-induced techno-fear but touring-induced claustrophobia. But maybe the spark doesn’t always need to match the flame—the record says what it says. I watch the “No Surprises” video a few times. It turns out Thom Yorke’s head really is being submerged in water. I watch the Meeting People Is Easy documentary, and they show a few scenes of the making of the video where Thom is getting increasingly frustrated because he isn’t able to hold his breath as long as he should. In the comments below the “No Surprises” video, someone writes about how he smirks at the end because he was finally able to get it right. Now I see the smirk too.
I bought a Brick so I can be on my phone less. I blocked Instagram and the secondhand shopping apps. It’s working. (Though now I also do all three levels of Sudoku on the Times app. I think it’s a fair trade.)
I think everyone wants off their phones. It’s a natural progression of things. We’ve spent almost two decades feeding the beast and we’ve had enough. The novelty has long worn off.
Later, I’m walking around SoHo and I see this flyer:
“It’s funny because everyone is like AUTHENTICITY IS IN 2025.” We’re discussing a pop star. When pressed, I find I can’t explain what I mean by that any further. “That’s just where we are in the world right now. Everyone wants authenticity,” I say. I don’t know who “everyone” is, or “who” “decided” “their needs,” but I know this is an “accurate” “statement.” In the think-tanks of the world voices are yelling AUTHENTICITY GIVE ME MORE AUTHENTICITY!
In my head, meanwhile, I’ve begun hearing a voice—possibly John Mulaney’s—yelling “Phonies! You’re all a bunch of phonies!”
A fashion designer “inspired by America” cites taxi drivers, bombshells, and “American beauties in checked shirts.”
But it’s 2025, I think.
A bit from a 2019 Virgil Abloh New Yorker profile that I think about all the time:
Abloh makes quick decisions. Walking through the runway set, he took a few paces and stopped at a white monobloc lawn chair. The LV employees looked on. He frowned. “That’s not New York,” he said, and turned the chair onto its back, so that it appeared to have been knocked over: “That’s New York.”
At the Super Bowl commercials, a war between mayonnaises, hardcore MEN Harrison Ford and Glen Powell sell cars, and an ad for Jesus Christ is soundtracked by Johnny Cash’s cover of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”
Immediately following the Super Bowl, a game show came on called The Floor, “an exciting trivia game” where 100 experts face-off on their chosen categories. In the first episode these categories include pantry items, pets, and ancient history. Pictures of these subjects appear on a big screen and people take turns identifying them. In the ancient history battle there are images of: the Ten Commandments, an abacus, an arrowhead, clay pots, Jesus, papyrus, mosaics, Sumo wrestling, the zodiac, Chichén Itzá, Hannibal (“one of the greatest generals of ancient times”), Moses, Confucius, hunting, cave paintings, whirling dervish, Terracotta Warriors, Dead Sea Scrolls, Persepolis.
(That’s not America, that’s America.)