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When I reached out to the self-proclaimed “open source villain” CC for an interview, I was pretty sure she was going to email me from her pink mermaid wallet.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” she told me of her online shell. “It’s a Tamagotchi device. It’s also an e-reader. It’s connected to a network with my vault and my servers, so it has access to all my server data, which has all my PDFs and books and notes and everything…and 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 funky electronic kits — mini-computers that she makes herself — that she’s documented the process on her blog Bimbo Tech so other women can follow in her footsteps, even if they don’t yet know what RAM is.
The idea of an electronic kit originated in William Gibson’s 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer, and when credit card-sized computers like the Raspberry Pi came on the market in the 2000s, hardware enthusiasts began creating their own electronic kits and sharing them in specialized online communities. But over the past few months, these communities have exploded in popularity thanks to women on social media teaching each other how to build ultra-feminine technical computers by documenting their builds.
“I have a running joke that there’s an inherent misogyny in tech — because whenever they release a pro model, or an elite model… I’m always, let me guess, it’s black or it’s silver,” CC said. “It will never come in pink.”
The process of customizing and designing an electronic skin has become an art form in itself. On Instagram and TikTok, you can find an electronic platform made of wood and moss to play Game Boy Color games; a desert-inspired MP3 player built inside a 3D-printed fossil; a Barbie doll house that opens to reveal a handy mini-computer; Or a duck figurine that can be used to record voice notes.
“I don’t want Meta AI glasses. I want hacker books in a fancy little sleeve,” creator Sarabelle Kim said on TikTok. “No one can watch you there. You can get some basic parts from a thrift store or eBay and just customize it.”
There is clearly an aesthetic motive for the emergence of online groups for girls – why no Do you use Hello Kitty wallet to check your email? It’s fun for fun’s sake. But the women who build these amazing, stunning cyber groups aren’t just about shining. This trend is reaching its peak at a time when people feel powerless in the face of the ubiquitous homogeneity of Big Tech.
“I think that’s a refreshing thing for people who sold these Apple-like devices… If you try to jailbreak, if you try to do anything with this phone that you paid $1,000 for, that you have, it’s out of warranty,” CC said. “So I love seeing people taking the power back into their hands, putting the control back into their hands, which always means creativity when people are given the means to step out of the black box.”
Maro Vardanyan doesn’t work with hardware as a blockchain developer, but she has always enjoyed collecting old computer parts and repairing them.
“A few months ago, I just started as a hobby making art pieces, jewelry and wallets using old recycled or upcycled computers,” she said. “When I saw everyone making electronic collections, I said, ‘Wait, why would I only make upcycled, upcycled collections when I can actually keep the pieces on something that’s wearable, or transportable?’
Vardanyan took a different approach to building online collections, choosing instead to emphasize the historical relationship between fiber art and technology. Referring to her work as “knitting with computers” or “macrame motherboards,” Vardanyan deliberately points out the role of weaving—a practice often seen as female domestic labor—in the history of early computing.
Before silicon processors, some early computers ran on magnetic memory, made up of copper wires that were precisely threaded together to encode the 1s and 0s of binary code. In order for NASA to build the Apollo guidance computer, for example, expert textile workers were tasked with precisely weaving wires into highly complex patterns, which powered the spacecraft that landed the first man on the moon.
“The original processor was hand-woven by seamstresses, not by engineers or anyone else,” she said. “I feel like I’m into hand weaving, and even fashion meets technology…it’s full circle.”
Vardanyan began weaving pink Raspberry Pis to make purses and corsets, then posted photos of her work in progress on X.
“Of course, when macramé became widespread, all the men said, ‘That’s a waste of a Raspberry Pi,’ or ‘What about the rain?'” she said. “And then I have to say, ‘Actually, it’s kept in an acrylic shell.’ And then they say, ‘This is too functional, and the GPIO will lose power!’ And I’m like, ‘Actually, I’m using conductive filament, so it’s actually going to move and work at full capacity.’”
CC has also encountered condescending men online who dismiss the idea of someone using a Raspberry Pi on something as trivial as a clamshell wallet computer during a RAM shortage.
“This guy was on Reddit saying, ‘You built your first computer a month ago, so calm down.’” “Remember, I’ve been building computers for many years,” CC said. “So, long story short, he ended up apologizing and buying me a circuit board for my next internet device.”
From Mermaid’s CC wallet computer to Vardanyan’s Raspberry Pi corset, these electronic kits represent a direct rejection of Silicon Valley culture, and not just in their scandalous embrace of pink. They’re intentionally impractical and ineffective, which seems sacrilegious in a culture so obsessed with improvement that unregulated Chinese peptide injections have become commonplace. It is a radical act to choose DIY technology experiments in order to have a closer relationship with devices that seem so abstract despite their ubiquity.
“Ten years ago, I was walking into a conference, and there were three girls there, and people were saying, ‘Are you getting hired for the marketing team?’” Vardanyan said. “I can’t even tell you how amazing it is to see so many girls all over my social media and Instagram working on hardware, working on software, and then educating [each other]This is definitely the energy that we are missing at every level in society.
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