Soup Is Good Food (2025 Remaster)
Or: How Dead Kennedys Predicted the LinkedIn Economy
In 1985, Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys released "Soup Is Good Food," a brutal prophecy about technological displacement and corporate cannibalism. Forty years later, as I scroll through LinkedIn watching professionals optimize themselves into algorithmic nutrients, I realize: the soup kitchen is open, and we're all on the menu.
"Machines Can Do a Better Job Than You"
The song opens with a corporate termination notice wrapped in false concern:
"We're sorry, but you're no longer needed / Or wanted or even cared about here / Machines can do a better job than you"
In 2025, we don't get fired—we get "rightsized." We don't get replaced by machines—we get "augmented by AI." The language is softer, but the outcome is identical. ChatGPT writes your marketing copy. Midjourney designs your graphics. Automated systems handle your customer service.
But here's the twist Biafra didn't see coming: we're not just being replaced by the machines. We're training them to replace us. Every LinkedIn post, every work sample uploaded to Google Drive, every creative brief fed into an AI tool—we're building our own obsolescence, one data point at a time.
"Computers Never Go on Strike"
"The unions agree / Sacrifices must be made / Computers never go on strike / To save the working man you've got to put him out to pasture"
Welcome to the gig economy, where everyone's an "entrepreneur" and nobody has benefits. Uber drivers aren't employees—they're "partners." Amazon delivery workers aren't staff—they're "independent contractors." The algorithm determines your pay, your schedule, your worth. And algorithms, as Biafra noted, never go on strike.
But we do something worse than striking: we optimize for the algorithm. We A/B test our own personalities. We growth-hack our relationships. We gamify our productivity. We've become willing participants in our own systematization.
"Soup Is Good Food"
The chorus hits like a sledgehammer:
"Soup is good food (we don't need you any more) / You made a good meal (we don't need you any more) / Now how does it feel (we don't need you any more) / To be shit out our ass / And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash"
This is the LinkedIn economy in four lines. We create content to "build our personal brand." We share vulnerability to "be authentic." We optimize for engagement to "grow our network." And the platform consumes it all—our ideas, our relationships, our professional identities—processes them into engagement metrics, and profits from the waste heat of our digital lives.
Every "Thanks for sharing!" comment is someone seasoning the soup. Every viral post is another meal for the algorithm. We're not using LinkedIn—LinkedIn is digesting us.
"You'll Just Have to Kill Yourself Somewhere Else"
"We're sorry, we hate to interrupt / But it's against the law to jump off this bridge / You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else / A tourist might see you and we wouldn't want that"
The platforms have become suicide prevention theater. They'll give you a crisis hotline when you search for "how to die," but they'll also serve you content designed to keep you scrolling through your despair. Mental health awareness posts go viral not because they help, but because they generate engagement.
We've built systems that profit from our psychological distress while maintaining plausible deniability about causing it. It's not that the algorithm wants you to be miserable—it's just that miserable people scroll more.
"Force Feed You Mind Melting Chemicals"
"Force feed you mind melting chemicals / 'Til even the outside world looks great"
Biafra was thinking about psychiatric medication and institutional control. But he accidentally described social media dopamine manipulation with surgical precision. The endless scroll. The notification pings. The algorithmic amplification of outrage and anxiety. The way reality feels impossible to parse because every news source is optimized for engagement rather than truth.
We've made the outside world look terrible by comparison. Why deal with messy human relationships when you can get perfect parasocial validation online? Why engage with complex political realities when you can scroll through content that confirms your existing beliefs?
"We Human Rodents Chuckle"
"'Poor rats', we human rodents chuckle / At least we get a dignified cremation"
This might be the most prescient line in the song. We've become complicit in our own processing. We make jokes about being "trapped in the algorithm" while feeding it more data. We ironically tweet about surveillance capitalism from our iPhones. We write LinkedIn posts about authentic human connection while optimizing them for algorithmic distribution.
We're not just the lab rats—we're the lab rats who've learned to run the experiments on ourselves.
"At 6:00 Tomorrow Morning, It's Time to Get Up and Go to Work"
The song ends with the ultimate horror: even after being completely consumed by the system, you still have to show up. Because the alternative—true disconnection from the digital economy—is professional and social suicide.
You can see the machine clearly. You can understand exactly how it works. You can write blog posts critiquing it. And you'll still have to log into LinkedIn tomorrow morning because that's where your network is. That's where the opportunities are. That's where you exist professionally.
The Soup Kitchen Is Always Open
Dead Kennedys called it "Soup Is Good Food" in 1985. In 2025, we call it "building our personal brand," "growing our network," "staying relevant." Same recipe. Better marketing.
The soup kitchen is always open. We're always on the menu. The only question is whether we'll keep pretending we're the customers instead of the cuisine.
"Now how does it feel to be shit out our ass and thrown in the cold like a piece of trash?"
It feels like another Tuesday in the attention economy.
This post was optimized for engagement and will probably be consumed by the very systems it critiques. The algorithm is using me too. LOL.