End of an Era

Last year I was going to write a lot about being 35, and what it means to not be a youth any longer. But instead, turning 36 has brought more along the way. For some reason, 2025 has really given me a lot more to deal with, and I feel much of my life adjusting for an older phase.

I had mentioned in a number of posts about the decline of mechanical keyboard companies. I’ve realised I can’t do much to stop it. It’s not as if I have so much money to throw, to sustain a business singlehandedly. I’m only one guy, and I do try to use my voice as much as I can to talk about keyboards, and to introduce people to it. But the current market isn’t set up to help the smaller shops with a very specialised build. Everyone wants something cool, cheap, and easy to work with out of the box. It’s something else to have to build an entire set up, and all I can do is talk about how I find it interesting and enjoyable. I can’t make other people like it, and it’s not my job to do that. I have to do my part, and how people spend their money is entirely up to them.

But mechanical keyboards is just one part. Over the weekend, I watched the last streamed concert of my favourite J-electro groups, Perfume. It was such a bittersweet moment as they recounted how they had spent the last twenty years working on their music careers. They had completed four Tokyo Dome tours, and at least three to four world tours. They performed in so many venues, and even winning a Cannes Lion for their creative performances. It was nuts seeing them recount everything together.

They promised a comeback and this break would just be to rest for awhile, to reset and to level up. But it was still a sad moment to sit and reflect about. I had many memories tied to Perfume throughout my young adult life. Being part of a fan club, contributing and meeting friends through all that. Travelling around the world to watch them perform was also pretty dope. I wouldn’t have done a lot of things if I hadn’t heard their music or get into them.

Funny enough, I got into them because of Last.fm, an early stage music platform that recorded all your music plays and they would suggest related artists. I was listening to a ton of electronic music and japanese indie folk with female vocals, and the intermix of it was Perfume. I didn’t think it would be great, but the moment I started listening, I never went back. Last.fm is quite dead now of course, in the spotify era of music. Or at least I’ve not visited it for ages.

I was also in this whole clearing up phase, and I’ve been tossing out things. It’s just hitting so hard how some of the shops I used to go to had closed down. There were shoes I had gotten from Liang Court on a whim and they were awesome sneakers. There were T-shirts from Threadless I bought when they had $5 deals. There were so many toys from eras past I’ve held all these years.

And it’s the end of an era because time’s moving along and I have to grow along with it too.

I had another friend share once about how it’s sad how we’ve gotten used to places disappearing in Singapore. But it’s honestly a big part of life we millennials are not used to right now. We’ve had our childhoods mixed into the whole digital realm, and perhaps because we’ve been able to see the Internet remember things, we want to keep on having some of these things as well.

I don’t know if that makes sense, but I guess when we hit our retirement age, we’ll bring a whole lot of stuff back. Like how the oldies brought back disco in the 90’s, we’ll probably bring back party rock anthem in the 2030’s.

I don’t know what’s the next era gonna be like exactly, but now as a 36 year old, I’m getting more settled on what I don’t want to be, and I want to be a lot more selective on what I want to keep. After all, nothing is coming with me to the grave.