By Nicole Rayner

It’s 2025, the world is falling apart, and as if in a call to a higher power, everything has become ‘spiritual’ lately.

We all know that the trend cycle is collapsing in on itself and that attention retention is at an all time low, but still, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time where every item in pop culture is so starkly referred to as the ghost of something else. Labubus, matcha and coffee raves are all ‘spiritually Dubai’. Life of a Showgirl is spiritually Emilia Perez. Rachel Sennot’s new HBO show is spiritually AI. Demi Lovato’s new era is spiritually BRAT. These are all just the takes I’ve seen on Twitter in the past 48 hours. Don’t even get me started on reheated nachos.

I do think, though, that there’s something beautiful about this new jargon. Calling something spiritually representative of something more established feels poetic, and almost too kind, for a way of calling out unoriginality, stagnency and fraudulence. It also perfectly encapsulates what it feels like to ‘consume media’ in a cultural landscape that seems to be pacing circles into the grass, constantly retracing its own steps while unable to think up any ideas that don’t try to wear the clothes of concepts that were created a long time ago.

Okay. So what does this sociocultural etymology lesson have to do with going to an EsDeeKid concert in Berlin. A lot more than you’d think, actually.

One of the best places to see this spiritual embodiment in action–the redundancy of a trend cycle, and the brainrotted jargon being spoken itself–is in the accelerationist pressure cooker of a TikTok viral rapper’s first concert and afterparty in a city that loves to see itself as the most cutting edge, forward thinking place on earth (debatable at best). These are my observations.

Säälchen

The vibes of the night felt sinister the moment I descended upon Säälchen. A Youtuber was interviewing kids in the queue and a guy I ghosted a year ago used me to cut in line (fair, I deserved that). Inside, the pit was buzzing, but the bar was empty. Two white boys in durags (spiritually Temu versions of Spooky Black-era Corbin) were vlogging on snapchat with their flashes on, making everyone around them squint their eyes. I found my friend in the corner next to the bar. 

Despite the spiritually-middle-school-homecoming-dance of a moshpit, the crowd didn’t actually fully skew as young as I was expecting. Littered around the pit’s edges stood couples much older than me, perhaps parents on chaperone duty, but dressed with a bit too much spatial awareness to be written off entirely. Leaning over the balcony above, like Rick Owens royalty observing a courtyard of Minga London peasants, stood an array of twentysomething microinfluencers, straining their nonchalance, almost sheepish about their presences in such a juvenile environment. Looking any of them in the eye felt like getting spit on. 

The show started late. The crowd was restless, not that they were ever exactly relaxed, and the moment the lights dimmed and the opening DJ stood on stage the room erupted. 

Photo via davidxnly

The opening DJ tracklist was very spiritually Opium-tiktok-tag-trending-audios at best, but it’s what the kids craved. The moment the first Chief Keef song rang out through the concert hall I was thrown against the bar by the force of an expanding moshpit, where a couple brave aura farmers have their fifteen seconds of fame alone in the centre of the circle, before the crowd swallowed itself (only for the duration of the first chorus, no attention span present could accommodate for much more than that). Wash, rinse and repeat. I think the kind of teenage boys that love moshpits do so because they crave the spiritual satisfaction of human connection mixed with regulated aggression that they missed by never partaking in organized sports in school. Perhaps I’m just bitter because of how little everyone moved when the DJ played TL;DR.

Maybe it was due to the turbulence of the crowd, but it was hard to tell the exact moment that EsDeeKid hit the stage. Without warning the “4 Raws” instrumental rang out, the phone flashlights illuminated the rhinestoned hoodie on a figure standing center stage, and the crowd bubbled over. 

For a new artist and an even newer performer (and for someone most definitely younger than 22, who could not have stood taller than 5 ‘8), EsDeeKid put on one hell of a show. All the cryptic, ominous nonchalance that is so tightly attached to this corner of the underground was completely shaken off as soon as EsDeeKid hit the stage; he looked like exactly what he is, a young rising star basking in his come up, enjoying his own spectacle, just as much a member of the crowd as the star of the show. Every song opened a pit (obviously), but the energy in the room never faltered, and Phantom was the throughline track that always grounded the crowd in chaos when bodies paused to catch their breath. 

I adored the structure of the show, with Rico Ace joining the stage at the halfway point during Cali Man and taking over for a few songs afterwards. Not an opener, and not quite an intermission either, for that would wrongly imply that the room was given a minute to breathe. Still, it was a refreshing switch-up. Rico harnessed the crowd with just as much command as EsDeeKid. His three song solo, complete with an unreleased track, hit the crowd like a series of bombs.

The two joined forces again for LV Sandals, and the boiling liquid pit suddenly solidified in a crowd crush against the stage. With all the jumping and swaying, the phone video flashlights looked like strobes. It was quite beautiful, actually. 

The two brought out the heavy hitters from this point on. Mist, Tartan and even more runthroughs of Phantom felt like mallets ramming down on the crowd, squeezing out the final drops of energy from the once uncontainable pit of movement. When EsDeeKid had exhausted his discography but the crowd still demanded more, he returned to the stage with even more renditions of Phantom, in a spiritually-F!EN like ritual that took the songs total playthroughs up to 5.The show ended as abruptly as it began, and, as if he was extraterrestrial, EsDeeKid had disappeared from the stage before anybody noticed he was gone.

It was a good show. I have no notes. Though EsDeeKid is nowhere near the first of his kind sound or vibe wise, the kid can fucking perform, and his rugged Merseyside persona holds undeniable star power. Never in my life did I ever anticipate that I would see a crowd of hormonal German teenagers screaming at the top of their lungs in Scouse accents, but maybe that’s just because I wasn’t alive during Beatlemania. Is EsDeeKid the spiritual successor to Paul Mccartney? Only time will tell, I guess.

THE AFTERPARTY

After the show, my friend hurried me into a pre-booked Uber, and we were instantly en route to the club. The Rebel Tour official afterparty would be taking place here, and while I wasn’t originally planning on attending, I managed to secure a skip list position, so who was I to turn this golden ticket away? My friend did not have this same luxury, and we stood in our opposing lines for well over an hour, even though the club doors were supposed to already be open upon our arrival.

The guest list line was short, and I was up front, next to a man with a thick midwestern accent who looked spiritually Lucky Blue Smith in the face but spiritually The Dare on the body, sporting a crisp tuxedo. He looked insanely familiar, I must have seen him on my For You Page before. Eventually, excruciatingly, we were ushered inside. It was absolutely empty, of course. I sat with spiritually Lucky Blue Smith as he debated ordering Uber Eats to the club. People trickled in, and in true Berlin fashion, they headed straight for the couches to pour out powders onto their phone screens. My friend texted me to tell me he got rejected at the door. Maybe his jacket wasn’t monochrome enough. 

Photo via davidxnly

As I threaded my way through to the bar I passed by Spiritually Slayyyter guiding the spiritual Clermont Twins to a huddle of leather-clad buzzcuts leaning over an array of white lines. Beer here was served in tumblers. The music was very spiritually H&M, not quite my cup of tea and not quite in line with the “”opium vibes”” of the night either, but the lack of dancing in favor of serving face in dark corners just depressed me. I joined a witchlike girl on the dancefloor and we took up as much space as possible.

The room filled up with more characters. Spiritually Cameron Winter entered and spent half of the night glaring at me as if he wanted to kill me. A gaggle of Spiritually Johnnie Guilberts arrived to mew stoically next to the dj booth. I found myself beside Spiritually Lucky Blue Smith again and he introduced me to his friend, who I found out moments later is a TikTok famous furry with an outrageous Rick Owens collection that I follow on Instagram. Spiritually Sabrina Carpenter entered the room with someone that might’ve actually been Fat Nick, but I haven’t thought about Fat Nick since 2017, so I couldn’t be 100% sure. Maybe-Actually Fat Nick started not so subtly flirting with an older lady, Spiritually Angelina Jolie, much to Spiritually Sabrina Carpenter’s dismay. I was getting really tired. 

Almost three hours had gone by and the opening DJ had finally come to an end, which was followed by a short electropunk performance by a very cool, very Berlin, spiritually-Fecal-Matter-cladded girl and her less exciting (but just as Berlin) DJ. Maybe-Actually Fat Nick was filming with his flash on like a dick and kept shoving his elbow in my face and I had just about had enough. EsDeeKid was not going to be showing face anytime soon, and I wanted to go home. I had grabbed my coat and was just about to head down the stairs and out the door when I saw my friend coming up the stairs. I was turned around, asked to hold an iPhone, and offered a rolled up bill. 

I try so hard not to be cynical, I really do. I believe in experimentation, trying on different hats and leaning into the trends that make you feel seen. But in that moment, when I was grinding my teeth and drenched in paranoia on a sweaty Berlin dance floor surrounded by Yeezy-esque shield sunglasses, Jaded London two pieces and scowling faces while a 2hollis remix blared through the loudspeaker, I never wanted to see a studded belt or hear an arpeggiated synth again in my life. Not that I was any better, I was also wearing an archive designer top and scowling right back at everyone. I was so fucking tired. Maybe we all were.

I had just reached the point in the night where I forgot why I ever showed up in the first place when EsDeeKid and Rico Ace finally crept behind the DJ booth. All the 6’5-in-their-Ricks boys that were faking nonchalance the whole night suddenly surrounded the DJ booth with their phone flashes up. I knew the little 17 year old moshpit fiends they used to be still lived inside of them somewhere, underneath their fitted T-shirts. I watched from the back, standing on a sofa. 

The Merseyside boys did not look like they wanted to be there, and I couldn’t blame them. It was 3am and they still had over a dozen tour dates ahead of them. The performed Phantom, LV Sandals, 4 Raws, and danced behind the booth as the DJ once again played Chief Keef and TL;DR (the club crowd went up just marginally more than the concert crowd for this, but still, what the fuck?). Then, anticlimactically they left. The crowd looked confused. All those hours spent going aura-for-aura with strangers for what, a 15 minute main event? Did we all feel stupid? I certainly felt stupid. It was finally time to go home. 

As I left, a Spiritually-Slenderman figure wearing Rick Owens kiss boots and a purse covered in labubus slipped and fell down the staircase by the coat check. When their friend helped them up, they told them that “the concert was shit, he only played three songs and he left. It was a waste of time”. I felt taken aback at their entitlement (the concert was five hours ago, and it was great, actually), as if I wasn’t thinking the exact same thing five minutes ago. I got in my Uber and went home.

That’s the thing about these underground gone overground scenes, about trend cycles, and about spirituality in general. It’s all smoke and mirrors at the end of the day. Even if the art at the core of things is good and worth showing up for, being a face worth noticing among the crowd is just as much of the performance as the headliner themself. Of course we’re all facetious in these settings, because when we’re all a part of the piece, we’re bound to criticize each other as much as any other piece of art we may consume. I guess that’s why everyone became so prissy when the main attraction of the night didn’t live up to their expectations–the spectacle was shattered, and everybody wanted an excuse to keep performing. I can purse my lips at it, but an environment like that would almost be worse if it was joyous. It would be eerie. Besides, isn’t faux misery all part of the spectacle?