Cyberdecks are having a moment, rejecting big tech surveillance with style and substance

When I reach out to the self-proclaimed “open source baddie” CC for an interview, I’m pretty sure she’s emailing me back from a pink mermaid purse. “I’m just having so much fun,” she tells me about her seashell cyberdeck. “It’s a Tamagotchi. It’s also an e-reader. It’s networked to my vault and my servers, so it has access to all of my server data, which has all my PDFs, and books, and notes, and everything… It’s also connected to my local AI setup at home.” CC has no background in software engineering or computer science, but she’s gotten good enough at building unconventional cyberdecks — small DIY computers — that she documents the process on her blog Bimbo Tech so that other women can follow her lead, even if they don’t yet know what RAM is. The idea of the cyberdeck originated in William Gibson’s 1984 sci-fi novel “Neuromancer,” and when credit card-sized computers like the Raspberry Pi came on the market in the 2010s, hardware enthusiasts began building and sharing their own cyberdecks in niche online communities. But over the last few months, these communities have exploded in popularity thanks to women on social media who are teaching each other to build artistic, hyper-feminine computers by documenting their building processes. “I have a running joke that there’s this underlying misogyny in tech — because whenever they release a pro model, or an elite model… I’m always like, let me guess, it’s black or silver,” CC said. “It’s never going to come in pink.” The process of customizing and designing a cyberdeck has become an art form in itself. On Instagram and TikTok, you can find a cyberdeck made of wood and moss that runs Game Boy Color games; a desert-inspired MP3 player built inside a 3D-printed fossil; a Barbie dollhouse that opens up to reveal a functional mini-computer; or a duck figurine that can be used to record voice notes. CC’s cyberdeck during the building processImage Credits:CC / Bimbo Tech “I don’t want Meta AI glasses. I want to pirate books in a tiny embellished shell,” said the creator Sarahbelle Kim on TikTok. “No one can surveil you there. You can get some basic parts at the thrift store or eBay and just customize it.” There’s obviously an aesthetic motivation to the rise of girly cyberdecks — why not use a Hello Kitty purse to check your email? It’s fun for the sake of fun. But the women building these over-the-top, bedazzled cyberdecks aren’t in it for the glitter alone. This trend is reaching its peak at a time when people feel powerless against the omnipresent homogeneity of big tech. “I think that’s such a refreshing thing for people who were sold these devices that are like Apple’s… If you try to jailbreak it, if you try to do anything to this phone that you paid $1,000 for, that you own, it’s out of warranty,” CC said. “So I just love seeing people taking the power back into their hands, taking the control back into their hands, which obviously always means creativity when people are given the means to go outside of the black box.” Maro Vardanyan doesn’t work with hardware as a blockchain developer, but she’s always enjoyed collecting and tinkering with old computer parts. “A few months ago, I just started as a hobby making art and jewelry pieces and purses with recycled or upcycled old computers I had,” she said. “When I saw everyone doing cyberdecks, I was like, wait, why am I just doing recycled and upcycled ones when I can actually preserve the pieces on something that’s wearable, that’s movable?” Image Credits:Maro Vardanyan Vardanyan has taken a different approach to building cyberdecks, opting instead to emphasize the historic relationship between fiber art and technology. Vardanyan refers to her work as “crocheting with computers” or “macrame motherboards,” deliberately nodding to the role of weaving — a practice often viewed as domestic, women’s labor — in the history of early computing. Before silicon processors, some early computers ran on magnetic-core memory, made up