Why Every Artist Needs to be a Luddite

Manifesto Part 4: Embrace Luddism

Jan 13, 2025

Hi,

This is the fourth piece in a series of deep dives into the Everyone's Creative Manifesto. You can read the other parts by following the linked headings here.

Today I want to tell you about why I call myself a Luddite.

Remember the Luddites

Technology should empower creativity, not compel it.
Nobody should have power over what and how you create.
We need to protect that power for each other at all costs.

In the 19th-century, there was an existential threat to people who made things for a living. That threat came from industrialists and capitalists, in the form of automation and new technology that both threatened the livelihoods of those unwilling to adapt, and the quality of life of those who tried. Out of this era, a movement was born, and the Luddites formed to fight back. Luddites were cloth workers and crafts people who's way of life were being attacked by the newly forming business class. The tale of the Luddites includes vandalism, assault, riots, secret codes, espionage, political assassination and eventually the public execution of people who's only crime was damaging property.

If, like me, you weren't aware of who the Luddites actually were, you should read Brian Merchant's book, Blood in the Machine (and his newsletter, too).

Now, in the 21st century, we use the term Luddite to mean "someone who resists and fears technology." This isn't by accident, either. Just like how the term "carbon footprint" was popularized by the fossil-fuel industry to shift attention away from their responsibility for climate change, being seen as a "Luddite" has been framed as being primitive, backwards and unintelligent by the very people the Luddites fought against - the capitalist class.

But being a Luddite isn't about being stupid or fearful. Being a Luddite is about solidarity, honour and pride. It's about standing up for you and your fellow workers. Everyone who works and makes things for a living needs to be a Luddite if any of us are going to survive with our craft and our careers intact.

Embrace Luddism in Your Work

The point of being a Luddite isn't to hate technology, because ultimately, technology is human. It's an extension of ourselves - not separate from us. But as things continue to advance, technology can begin to feel like magic. We've arrived at a point where many of us have very little understanding of how the tools we use every day function or how they were built. This can make technology feel more separate from us - it makes it feel less human. Regardless of how it feels, though, the reality is that technology is deeply connected to humanity - just as creative labour is deeply entwined with technology, too.

When you embrace Luddism, you start to see that as we become dependent on proprietary tools, our work grows to be at the mercy of the people who own and sell the tools. This isn't how it should be, and right now we're seeing the impact this dynamic is having in almost every creative field. But what should we do about it? Do we reject technology altogether? Do we break our computers, burn our phones and run into the woods and make cave paintings for the rest of our lives? For some reason I don't think that's going to help.

How to Be a Luddite

For the past 40 years, professional artists' work has moved more and more into digital spaces. We use software and computers to create things that speak to people and inspire them. But software isn't why we do what we do - it's how. It's one way how.

The point of being a Luddite isn't to reject technology altogether - it's to reject the use of technology to dominate workers. Use technology. Embrace it. Apply it to your work to create even more wonderful things and to push the boundaries of what we can be. But remember who's driving the creation and honour your place in the process. Remember that tools are lifeless without people to operate them. Don't fall into the trap of believing you need the tools to be creative or to express yourself.

The more we rely on technology that we don't own or control, the more that ownership and control shifts to corporations. We can't let that happen any more than it already has.

While digital Luddites can't smash the machines of industry the way the original Luddites did, we can still fight back. The only way companies like Adobe, Apple or Microsoft have any power over us is through our dependence on their tools and services. In their ideal world, we wouldn't be able to create anything without paying them a monthly fee. We're frightfully close to their ideal world, so it's become more important than ever that we resist.

Digital Luddism is about untangling ourselves from their web.

Try new tools.
Support independent developers.
Ask yourself if you depend on a program or tool, then ask yourself if that makes you feel more secure in what you do.
When the thought that you "need" a certain program to do your work enters your mind, be fearful and do everything you can to prove that thought wrong.
Recognise that you can't afford to depend on a tool you can't replace.

For those of us in decision making positions, we should continually question the standards of our industries and support diversification of workflows and tools used. There's an increasing entrenchment that happens when the standards people are taught are defined by what is most commonly used in industry. This leads to a self-perpetuating cycle where all we learn are the standard tools because they're the standard tools, which is then what we teach new artists to learn because they're the standard tools. This only serves the companies that make the tools and traps us more in this system.

In the world of digital creative work, a lot of great progress is being made through the use of open source development. Tools like Blender have become robust and viable for professional work, while they remain open and free for anyone to learn and use. There's a growing list of great open alternatives to the programs we've become dependent on for creative work, and it seems like the desire to embrace this kind of development is growing, too. We need to support these developers and pay for the tools we use if we want to see more of them.

But beyond just hoping all the tools you use eventually have free and open source alternatives, you should practice flexibility and adaptability in your work so you have the agency and freedom to use new tools whenever you need to. You don't need to cancel your Adobe subscription to liberate yourself from Adobe. All you need to do is believe you can leave whenever you want to, so when the time comes, they have no leverage over you. I have found the best way to believe that is to practice it - by experimenting with other tools frequently and proving to myself that I can learn and adapt quickly and efficiently and make do without tools I thought I needed.

Never Forget the Luddites

Corporations are not moral actors. They're self-interested, immortal vampires - parasites that thrive on moving as much money from your pocket to theirs. Anything they produce, view it with suspicion. Bring a stake and garlic and think about what it's trying to do to drain from you what it needs to survive.

Edward Ongweso Jr., This Machine Kills, Ep. 381 (1h 14m)

History almost allowed the Luddites to be forgotten. Our popular understanding of what that word means has been corrupted, and we can't afford to let that happen again. Working people today have so much in common with the working people of the 19th century - and in the end, those workers were overpowered, indentured and many of them were killed in order to establish the economic system we live under today. How’s that working out for you?

This might sound like fear mongering - is Adobe going to round up concept artists and have them hanged for switching to a different digital painting program? But the point is that the Luddites saw what was coming, tried to resist, and the capitalists fought back to the death. They stamped it down because free and fair labour is a threat to capitalists - they can’t afford for you to have more power than they do, because then they would have no reason to exist.

Corporate and industrial interests rely on sucking more and more value away from us and hoarding it for themselves, and the only way they can do that is if we have no ability to prevent it from happening. You can't cancel a subscription to the only tool you can use to make a living any more than you could boycott a medication you need to survive - that's where the pressure comes from, and that's why we can never afford to forget about the Luddites.

Everyone’s Creative. Everyone should be a Luddite, too.

With Love & Solidarity,
Simon 🐒

🔗 Links & Thinks 🧠

There are lots of different places to find alternatives to the most popular and problematic digital art tools. This list is a good start for alternatives to Adobe products. This site is a good start for looking up everything else.

It's also a good idea to discuss and share the different tools you use - especially if they're made by small developers who can't afford to advertise. Photopea is a free, browser-based version of Photoshop that is so similar that almost all of my Photoshop instincts transfer over to it. I created the banner image for this piece using Photopea. Rough Animator on the iPad is still my favourite app to quickly rough out animation - a task I used to use Photoshop for. I've also been experimenting with Inkscape and the free version of Davinci Resolve to continue learning alternatives to Adobe apps I'm accustomed to.