I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi
#10
2025 was an awful year to be online, and was a year where just existing on Instagram left me feeling so depressed that I eventually decided to (gradually) cut it out of my life. Even still, I felt like the very problems I thought I was avoiding by being offline were infiltrating my life as a university student - as a professor encouraged AI-editing for my senior capstone paper that I spent the entirety of the semester poring over. Further, a doomsday mentality loomed over my graduation ceremony last week, as all of us were aware that, to varying extents, we worked for degrees that may come to nothing. With this backdrop, I find it surprising how easily I swallowed the techno-optimism (or at least, observationalism) of I Love My Computer. But - it seems to me that Ninajirachi’s love letter to EDM and computers came at the perfect time.
This record makes the case for being raised on the internet not being that bad, without shying away from the dangers we all had to contend with. “iPod Touch” chronicles teen girlhood as it played out in the 2010s, and shows how being online wasn’t necessarily at odds with adolescence in the real world. The internet could bring you music that colored your childhood memories of going to the beach or the mall. “Fuck My Computer” is a hypnotic dubstep rager that’s about exactly what it says, delivered with an ironic and deadpan tone. Later, “CSIRAC” and “Infohazard” observe the darker corners of the internet, with the latter narrating the accidental finding of a snuff film online at too young of an age. “Delete” is about the phenomenon of posting and deleting thirst traps, and shows ambiguity about who these thirst traps are for - it could be Nina herself, or a crush who might see it in time, or it might just be her computer.
Sonically, this album uniquely has nostalgia for 2010s EDM (particularly the Porter Robinson side of things) and dubstep, along with electroclash and hyperpop. I never thought that I had nostalgia for this specific genre or vibe, but the more colorful EDM-tinged tracks on this album evoke such specific and visual images for me - like scrolling through the original girlsgogames homepage before websites all became minimal/homogenized later in the 2010s. Occasionally, I am reminded of how real 2010s nostalgia is when I hear “Clarity” by Zedd in public and get the urge to sing along as dramatically as I can - a sentiment that I suspect Ninajirachi might share. Ultimately, there isn’t anything we can do to reverse the horrific changes that have been done to the internet, but I like the healthy mindset I Love My Computer puts forth in processing Gen Z chronic online-ness and maladaptive nostalgia, and I equally love the sonic jolt it gives me when I listen to it.