As 20-year-old underground sensation OsamaSon smoothly rapped “I got sticks on me, don’t you end up in a ditch” in the video for his latest single “popstar,” a quote hung at the bottom of the screen which read, “our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents never had time to acknowledge.” This lightly-paraphrased quip from the 2010 romantic dramedy Beginners is one of the simpler and milder of dozens of angsty messages flashing across the screen in the video’s 103-second run time.

Walls of confessional text set on colorful backgrounds and styled with bedroom graphic design tricks (e.g. torn notebook paper details, collage) visually pepper the listener while their ears also experience overstimulation from “popstar”‘s hyper cloud rap production. OsamaSon’s flow is adept, but only a few conventional one-liners seem to cut through the surrounding madness.

Firstly, kudos to OsamaSon for making an experience out of what could easily just be another sub-two-minute post-SoundCloud banger. What is there to make of this brief, chaotic experience?

Vulnerability appears to leap out of Gen Z in surprise bursts. Today’s kids and young adults pushing pop culture toward its next form are not nearly as bottled up as their grandparents and not as performative as their parents and older peers. But they are chronically online in a way no one before them was. If the resonance of “popstar” says anything — proven by a lively, grateful comment section and public support from celebrity streamer Kai Cenat — it seems to say people are ready to talk about their suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and fear … just as long as they talk at someone and not with them.

The response to “popstar” thus far says Gen Z can process anything if it’s in a tell-all post, recorded monologue, or curated set of images. But in much the same way “popstar,” the song, completely contradicts the shit happening in “popstar,” the video, Gen Z Americans — and the rest of us, really — seem comfortable going along with the way things are as long as we periodically purge our most deep-seated feelings and cries for help.

We seem to know very well what is wrong with us and around us, can articulate it, but can’t stand to do it with other people without shutting down or blowing up. Our bravest and truest selves, then, are not reserved to be shared heart to heart, rather screen to screen — only within content can you fully exist. A Snap story, your friend’s podcast, a finsta account, anything to freely express ourselves online so it never has to happen irl. Or is real life online now?

OsamaSon’s quarter-life crisis is no longer unique on an individual level, but there is still a lot about Gen Z’s coming-of-age experience that requires unpacking if we care about righting collective wrongs. The chart-topping and viral musical works of our day remain upbeat, self-absorbed, and escapist despite so many people feeling down, longing for connection, and looking to solve their issues rather than run from them. While artists, especially rappers, play a role in pop music’s numbing effect on the masses, they’re also the only people willing to be candid about what’s going on in front of millions of people at a time.

If OsamaSon’s most vulnerable art to date is this motion Tumblr blog of a music video, I’ll take it. Seems like a lot of young listeners already have.

UPDATE 8/27/2024: Edited to include information about streamer Kai Cenat’s role in promoting Osamason