What Sticks

I’m one of those people who figures out what works and then just wears it forever. UNIQLO, DIESEL, Adidas - specifically the Superstars. I’ve worn the same shoe for years because once you find something that fits right you don’t need to think about it anymore. The Made in France Consortium version costs more but doesn’t really change anything. A shoe that works is a shoe that works.

Consistency matters to me, though not in some precious way - just in a lazy way. Why spend energy choosing again if you already know the answer?

It’s the same with everything else that catches my attention. The controllers from old consoles had real substance, actual weight to them. Now you can get stickers of them for your laptop, which is just people wanting to keep that feeling around. I understand that.

Headphones are their own joke. Beats sound like you’re inside a garbage compactor, but at least Hiroshi Fujiwara’s fragment design collaboration made them look presentable. You’re still wearing bad headphones, just less obviously.

The car fantasies are mythology. The Mercedes SL 63 AMG, the Ferrari, the Harley with Dyna Guerrilla on the side - these are images of a life you’d never actually want. The girl-magnet mythology, the total freedom, leaving everything behind. It’s appealing until you think about it for thirty seconds. But the object holds the fantasy anyway.

Gaming actually mattered though. PlayStation was real. Final Fantasy VIII is an actual memory, not a fantasy. The 20th anniversary edition is expensive and stupid but I understand wanting to keep that close. Same with magazines like WASD - actual paper, actual writing about games like they’re worth thinking about. That sticks.

I play Monopoly and lose and get genuinely angry at people for taking my fake money, but the Zelda edition just looks cool on a shelf.

You figure out what matters and you stick with it. Sometimes it’s smart, sometimes you realize years later you picked wrong. But at least you’re not constantly questioning yourself. Which maybe is just giving up. But it feels like knowing something.