The Other Stuff with internetVin Tommy Trinh: Unveiling The Now | The Other Stuff #31
Tommy Trinh (@tommytrinh) is a co-founder of New.
In this episode, we explored Stewart Brand's pace layering diagram and the slow-moving forces underneath everything – culture, myths, values, and the narrative structures that have been recurring throughout the history of humankind. We kept finding the Epic of Gilgamesh in places we didn't expect: anime, wrestling, video games. From there we traced the evolution of games as a medium, from early first-person shooters to souls-like difficulty to simulators to AI-generated worlds, and what each genre reveals about why people play.
The last stretch of the conversation was about something harder to name. We shared how things have started to feel uninspiring, how it feels like we're in a state of limbo between how the world used to work and whatever comes next. The meta is too visible, media feels formulaic, and the thresholds that used to structure our sense of what's possible have quietly dissolved. What is even unknown anymore when an LLM can explain anything? Does the value of direct experience go up as the baseline of what's virtually accessible rises? What are the new thresholds? How do you posture yourself within a shift you can feel but can't fully articulate?
This is a conversation about the stories we keep telling, the games we keep playing, and what becomes worth pursuing when the map has been filled in.
The Other Stuff is hosted by internetVin, filmmaker and entrepreneur and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New.
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Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:23 Pace Layering & Myths
00:15:13 The Epic of Gilgamesh
00:25:46 GoldenEye & id Software
00:41:48 The Neo Geo
00:57:38 NBA Jam & Def Jam
01:02:13 Wrestling is Anime
01:19:53 Souls-like
01:30:38 Simulators & Realism
01:47:28 AI in Games
02:05:48 Death Stranding & Kojima
02:15:40 Yellowknife
02:32:03 Searching for New Frames
02:52:00 Baselines & Thresholds
03:01:15 Frequency, Intensity, & Speed
03:06:38 Nostalgia & Primitive Technology
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