just vibes

‘It’s game over for facts’: how vibes came to rule everything from pop to politics

In our present technological era, humans have also needed a new framework to avoid drowning in the daily firehose of entertainment, media, and information. Given this setting of increasing complexity, it becomes more appealing to use an associative concept like “vibes” as a simplifying framework for understanding or self-expression. If we can’t mak... 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 co... See more

You know that gut instinct? That visceral hit, that fuzzy chill that shows up uninvited — a warning, or a sudden go for it, even when nothing's clear. We’ve all felt it. Sometimes we trust it. Sometimes we shove it under a pile of airtight reasoning. But it always comes back. Stubborn. Unsettling. And often right.

Scanlon is immensely talented and onto something important. I wish she had devoted multiple chapters exclusively to vibes. Her editor should have given her the confidence to go for it and write the definitive book on the vibes-based economy. Don’t bother with the explainers or Taylor Swift, just go straight into why emotions deserve to be a field o... See more

Vibes are everywhere. Disillusioned Labour voters are “picking up bad vibes”, reports this paper. The Bank of England gets “wrong-footed by a vibe shift in the economy”. In the US, a “vibe-cession” – a downturn in economic confidence at an impressionistic level – was a key electoral issue. Google Maps will not only give you directions, but “vibe ch... See more

It has become clear that there is nothing in this world too far-fetched to become a vibe. The vibes are out of control. Anything can become a vibe. Even “zero vibes” could soon be a vibe trend, as long as you market it correctly

The em dash has become an unexpected flashpoint in the AI discourse, with Gen Zers calling it the “ChatGPT hyphen,” a supposed tell of ChatGPT-generated writing.