The first is more social than media. It’s driven by a backlash to performative, status-seeking social media: people want to spend quality time online with close friends and family. This means less Facebook and Instagram and more WhatsApp and Messenger.

Substack used to feel like a cozy book club for intellectuals, and I’ll admit I liked that vibe. Substack now feels like a sprawling bookstore—the kind with an entire Starbucks inside—where you head straight for the quiet corner upstairs, only to find all two chairs already taken. Now they’re installing TVs everywhere ... and a lot more people are... See more

“We started talking about vibes in September 2020,” says Dr Antonia Ward, chief futurist at trends intelligence company Stylus. “We were looking at how social media was reflecting a more chaotic mood. Before that, platforms such as Instagram had been quite buttoned down and filtered, but something shifted. We began sending a more impressionistic... See more