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AC Griffin's avatar

Reminds me of Mitch Therieau's brilliant essay in Drift magazine on "Vibe, Mood, Energy" in 2022 about the trajectory of those terms from origins in 60s hippie counterculture to a terms which capture the hazy, reactive appeals to intuition and 'if you know you know" on social media

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David Zweig's avatar

“Vibe shift” just seems like the latest way to say “new zeitgeist.” Or am I missing something?

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Nicholas Carr's avatar

I agree that "vibe" has antecedents in "zeitgeist" and "public mood," and such phrases do express something real about the changeability of public opinion, but the viral spread of "vibe shift" as a reflexive, all-purpose descriptor of politics and culture still feels like something new and different to me — itself an expression of the zeitgeist, if that makes any sense. "Zeitgeist" seems like an invitation to deeper analysis, whereas "vibe" suggests deeper analysis is not worth the effort. If we all say "vibe shift," then that ratifies "vibe shift" as a meaningful statement in and of itself.

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mike_mike's avatar

the origin of "vibe shift" as a phenomenon is possibly traced to the collective DIS

an arts group which began working in NYC around 2010

it's possibly helpful to note here that the Hudson estuary flows in two directions

as it seems there is a turn towards something elemental sensed in the moment described here

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Nicholas Carr's avatar

Yeah, I think what happened in 2024, particularly during Brat Summer, was that "vibe" expanded out of popular culture to take over political discourse.

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