I respect the teens that are doing this, for whatever reason, but I think reading too much into a trend piece is a mistake. I don't know these kids, and maybe t

I respect the teens that are doing this, for whatever reason, but I think reading too much into a trend piece is a mistake. I don't know these kids, and maybe they are 100% genuine, but the whole thing strikes me as being about the aesthetic and the fashion above all else. Wanting to be different to be different, and the best way to do that is to reject that digital society that we are all in now. When I was their age, I was similar -- down to wearing the trendiest of trendy clothing items (that were designed to not look overly trendy, but anyone in the know would know that they were), while still thinking myself some sort of "outsider." We had a communist club (despite all of us really being capitalists and having rich parents and benefitting immensely from capitalism), we rejected television as a lesser medium (despite secretly loving our favorite shows), upheld the virtues of "arthouse cinema" (which, you know what, fair -- I still love arthouse cinema) and we only listened to certain types of music -- on vinyl (some things never change) -- and this was just ahead of the vinyl resurgence. But secretly, a lot of us still listened to pop music on MP3s in our bedrooms, watched the same trash TV we claimed to reject, and enjoyed the same populist commercial films. It was an outward rejection, but not who we really were. It was aesthetic and fashion and came out of reading and loving Kerouac and Salinger and Thompson (authors I still love) and wanting to feel like we weren't part of the suburban bubble we were painfully part of. I look back at my pretentious, self-important 16 year old self and I don't feel pity or regret, but I see it for what it is, and it was about fashion and aesthetic and wanting to signify to the world that I was "different." But the irony is that feeling different is one of the most universal feelings a person can have. Again, I don't know these teenagers. And maybe they are completely genuine. I don't judge them or think less of them if it is all an aesthetic. Or if some of this is a purposeful troll. But there is still an irony about a Luddite club being profiled by the biggest media organization in the world and going viral on the very platform they claim to reject. I do dig the aesthetic tho. I would absolutely carry a flip phone for just the aesthetic today (you can tear my iPhone from my cold dead hands).