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The Hottest Anti-AI Gadget Right Now? A Whimsical Homemade Cyberdeck
Forget sleek MacBooks and boring gray laptops. On TikTok, young women are going viral for building the most delightful rebellion against modern tech: custom “cyberdecks” stuffed inside purses, pink donut boxes, and mermaid-themed clamshells.
The breakout star is 22-year-old Londoner Annike Tan (known as Ube Boobey online). Her first creation — a glittering, pearl-covered “mermaid laptop” made from a vintage clamshell purse — exploded with over 32 million views. Complete with gold accents, fake moss, makeup tucked inside, and a custom gold-ring mouse, it’s equal parts fantasy and functional.
Inside? A Raspberry Pi, a small screen, and a keyboard. She’s loaded it with offline music, books, Wikipedia dumps, cat photos, and yes — it can even run Doom.
Tan’s message is loud and clear: “We should gatekeep cyberdecks from AI and megacorps.”
Originally inspired by William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel *Neuromancer*, cyberdecks were once the domain of bro-y hobbyists building rugged doomsday machines in Pelican cases. Now, a new wave — led largely by women — is giving the concept a hyper-femme, colorful, anti-minimalist makeover.
Other creators are jumping in:
- One made a “cyberduck” audio journal shaped like a cute bird.
- Another turned a tiny pink Dunkin’ Munchkin box into a working cyberdeck where you play as a barista serving lattes in a mini video game.
These aren’t meant to replace your phone. As Tan herself admits, she still uses her smartphone daily. But that’s not the point.
