OPE! Mixtape #70: Obsolescence
Read the original obsolescence newsletter post.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
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Well, hello there. How are you?
Go Pacers. Always and forever.
Also, no newsletter next week. I’ll be spending a whole week away from my laptop. Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans and my non-American subscribers who have a morbid curiosity about one of our summer holidays. (Hi, Christian.)
Also, also, for my paid subscribers: Be on the lookout for a special email after the 4th of July. I have a surprise for you.
Anyway.
This Week: Obsolescence
I was doing a scan of the initial Death Stranding 2 reviews (I’m now convinced to at least check out the first game; I just picked it up), and I was struck by the subhead of Simon Parkin’s Atlantic review:
“In Death Stranding 2, players control a courier who trips over rocks, experiences sunburn, and faces his own possible obsolescence.”
That’s what 2025 feels like in so many ways. Standing exposed in the sun, waiting for something to change, getting sunburn while sitting around.
“Wow, that’s quite purple, Brady,” the voice in my head groans.
Yes.
Still, I’m having more conversations with friends and family in which no one seems to know what’s going on or what’s going to happen. Not that any of us ever knew. But it feels uncomfortably honest now. No one seems happy with where we are now. We all want something to change, yet no one is willing to change. So nothing changes. Until obsolescence comes our way.
Put that on a greeting card and smoke it.
And yeah, maybe Zohran getting elected is a sign that I’m wrong.
Hopefully I’m wrong.
Still, I’m getting a lot of blank stares.
I’m sure I’m giving them, too.
But I have to remember: I’ve been in this emotional state before with Kojima.
Famously, the first Death Stranding game, Kojima’s first big statement after his unceremonious end with the Metal Gear Solid series (you can Google that whole drama), was released in 2019 and followed a deliveryman trying to literally reconnect the United States’ Internet following a global isolating catastrophe that destroyed the world’s infracturcture. There’s also death ghosts, raindrops that make you age, phrophitical babies trapped in goo backpacks, and a lot of Monster energy drinks, but anyway. Regarding the broad strokes: What was silly and pompous upon its release turned serious and surreal just a few months later.
Once again, as he did with AI and the Internet in 2002, Kojima “called” it.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ONfg5qeK_mI?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
“What a genius!” I’m tempted to say.
Or Kojima is just a very talented artist who’s freakishly sensitive to the frequencies of modern life, and was not trying to predict the future but instead convey the timeless feelings, worries, and fears through the lens of his today.
Good art is less “write what you know” and more “write what you see,” and Kojima sees the world with such scary clarity of how we communicate ideas with each other. He’s got his pulse on the forces that can and will determine our futures. Still, he’s talking about how it feels to be alive today.
It’s like how critics still throw praise at Radiohead for “predicting” the 21st century with OK Computer and Kid A, when instead, they were just conveying timeless feelings through the tools of late ‘90s Brian Eno-friendly alternative rock that still resonate. Art becomes “predictive” if we can still connect with it years later. Radiohead were only concerned about today … the today of the ‘90s, or the today of 2025? Correct.
Their British rock cousins, Blur, said something similar a few years before OK Computer. The future today … it’s nothing special.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/c3h_dqnAQ5k?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
And now we fetishize this era as the good times!
Grass is always greener, etc.
We’ll see if Death Stranding 2 earns the same “Kojima called it” praise regarding the nature of post-globalization “work” and “value,” two words we’re redefining right now in real time. We’ll see if this game resonates in the future as we continue to stare at the sun, get sunburned, watch the people who are beneifitng the most from AI and the modern job market being the same people who were already doing OK, and face a new flavor of obsolescence that our parents and our parents’ parents are not prepared to prepare us for.
That last sentence, quite the word salad.
But also, I love the word “obsolescence.”
It’s fancier than saying “obsolete.”
It’s fun to read.
It’s fun to say out loud.
It softens the blow, in a way. Like vegan ice cream.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
- The AI lifestyle subsidy is going to end.
The internet is about to get (even) worse. - But also, how new AI jobs will make humans more essential.
“In freelance journalism, as in many fields where the work product is written text, you aren’t just being paid for the words you submit. You’re being paid to be responsible for them: the facts, the concepts, the fairness, the phrasing.” - How rock and pop’s elite screw their loyal supporters.
“… a minority of fans are expected to correct a financial problem echoing across the business in toto.” - Grammarly finally has some competition.
Welcome, Harper. - The cultural decline of literary fiction.
“It doesn’t matter that no white man born after 1984 has been published by The New Yorker, because I honestly doubt any serious reader of fiction could easily bring to mind a short story by any younger writer in The New Yorker at all.” The only one I can think of is “Cat People” from a few years ago, but the point stands. - How the music industry is trying to make money off AI music.
“Trying” doing a lot of heavy lifting here. - Writing toy software is a joy.
We could all probably use more hobbies, like “toys.” - We’re sending weed to space.
Far out. - So long, Windows’ Blue Screen of Death.
End of an era. - Skip the exit interview.
No potential upsides, lots of potential risks.
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE / WHAT I’M LISTENING TO
- Autocamper “Proper” Twee music for people who hate twee (compliment)
- Runner “Get Real Sleep” Always a sucker for riffs
- Wisp “Save me now” Very, very excited for this album
- Nicole McCabe “Running Backwards” Always a sucker for glitch jazz
- Joey Waronker & Pete Min “Tangled Woods” Also glitch jazz but a little more twee (compliment)
- White Reaper “Honestly” I was worried what would happen since they lost some key band members, but I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy this new direction
- Sef – “narcose” Damn
- fanclubwallet “Cotteon Mouth” One of the most underrated artists of the decade
- Mac DeMarco “Home” I love late-career DeMarco and the John Lennon of it all, but this is quite a boring song. Still hopeful for the new album
And that’s it. See you next time.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.