In the age of enshittification, using tech made by evil billionaires can feel morally compromised. There’s a guilt that comes with knowing the device or software you rely on may be actively causing environmental damage or contributing to human rights violations. Not to mention the subtle, uneasy awareness that all your information is being harvested by a small group of very wealthy, white, bulbous men – then sold to yet more wealthy, white, bulbous men. It’s little wonder so many of us want to log off and yet, in reality, most of us feel locked into using our laptops and phones because of the community and connection they facilitate. With this in mind, finding a healthier, more ethical way of using tech can feel both necessary and almost impossible.

Enter: cyberdecks. Coder Tru Narla describes cyberdecks as “custom-built, portable computers usually designed around the builder's taste, workflow, and imagination.” They’re relatively simple to construct, often using single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi, alongside small screens, keyboards and cases, and they’re easily customisable too. Narla mentions someone who uses a joystick as a mouse, while other creators have repurposed hard-shell purses as cases. Among the new generation of cyberdeck-makers, there’s an emphasis on reusing parts you already have to hand, or buying them secondhand. “The design philosophy comes from a place of scrap-tech; reusing, being more sustainable, and being mindful about what we're consuming physically,” says Annike Tan, a designer and self-described “tech noob”.

Tan was at the helm of the cyberdeck explosion on TikTok. She first learned about cyberdecks on Pinterest earlier this year; at the time, they were mainly seen as “internet doomsday” devices because of their offline capabilities, which intrigued her. “If it all went down one day, you wouldn’t have access to any of your favourite media anymore,” she says. “I’ve always had an MP3 player that stores my music for that exact reason.” She had never attempted a tech project before, but with a long list of creative hobbies behind her, she felt making a cyberdeck would be a worthy and rewarding side quest. “It was a mix of wanting to learn a new hobby and express myself in a different artistic way, as well as having freedom over my media consumption,” she explains. Her current cyberdeck stores movies, music, maps, TED Talks, books, around 1,000 Wikipedia articles and a few games, including Doom 3 – all available offline.

The potential for customisation is another major appeal. “I think people have always yearned to personalise everything that they own,” Tan says, pointing to the way people add stickers or charms to phone cases and laptops. “My audience is in their 20s and 30s – we all grew up with technology that was fun and hadn’t taken over our lives yet. So, there’s an element of nostalgia too.” Many take inspiration from the colourful electronics of the 2000s, or the hyper-feminine gadgets featured in Totally Spies – an animated series about three young Valley girls turned spies. “In the past decade, we’ve seen everything turn more minimalistic. It’s more profitable for these companies to have tech that can be sold to everyone, but because it can be sold to everyone, it is designed for no one,” says Tan.

Crucially, the ability to customise your device also returns a sense of autonomy that has been lost in big tech’s drive towards mass standardisation. Alongside this aesthetic flattening, there has also been a loss of interoperability. Cory Doctorow, author and tech activist, describes the phenomenon through the analogy of shoelaces: “The person who sells you your shoes doesn’t get to tell you what shoelaces you can use — any piece of string will work there [... but now] a lot of companies have taken steps to make sure that you can only use their shoelaces when you buy their shoes.” In other words, big tech companies increasingly force you to use their software, with few alternatives. With cyberdecks, you decide what to include.

Understanding how our devices work also adds to the allure of cyberdecks. “When you build a device, you really understand what it does and why, because every decision is yours. There are no hidden tricks designed to keep you scrolling, no features quietly running in the background for someone else’s benefit,” says Annette Zimmermann, associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The sense of agency this provides is empowering and joyful, in contrast to the largely negative feelings associated with tech today. “Carrying something [you’ve] made, that reflects your specific needs and sensibilities, produces a relationship with technology that feels less like consumption and more like expression,” Zimmermann adds.

The people who have most consistently been diminished by the dominant tech culture have both the sharpest appetite and the most at stake in imagining something different

Many DIY tech ideas are rooted in cyberpunk and solarpunk thinking – two philosophies distinctly opposed to corporate control and capitalist extraction. The cyberdeck community is deeply aware of the systems at play, as well as who controls and profits from them. “Some builders go [as far as] constructing devices specifically designed to evade surveillance infrastructure: building private messaging networks, integrating with Meshtastic to enable off-grid communication that moves entirely outside the reach of corporate and state monitoring,” Zimmermann explains.

When tech is controlled by a “remarkably homogenous group of people” – the “broligarchs”, as Zimmermann calls them – some of its most imaginative users get shut out. “The people who have most consistently been diminished by the dominant tech culture have both the sharpest appetite and the most at stake in imagining something different,” says Zimmermann. “They’re modeling the idea that even if you don’t have a Computer Science PhD, you can engage with technology in a deep and meaningful way, and in a way that questions existing power imbalances.”

In learning how a device works, ethically sourcing its materials and customising its purpose, the user experience can start to feel good again. As technological consent continues to erode and the broligarchs expand their reign, cyberdecks remind us that we still have agency in our technological choices. You don’t have to blindly accept the terms and conditions: you can become more tech literate and take control of how you interact with technology day to day. Sometimes that means breaking up with ChatGPT; other times, it means building a mermaid cyberdeck. As Tan puts it: “It’s a small way to rebel, and I think that’s what makes it so powerful.”