Extra! Extra! We’ve got a discourse today!
And it is… this story from The Cut by Allison P. Davis titled, “A Vibe Shift is Coming.”
In a true Amy Explains, lemme give you a little bb recap:
Trend forecaster Sean Monahan has coined the phrase, “vibe shift,” describing this idea: “In the culture, sometimes things change, and a once-dominant social wavelength starts to feel dated.” Really just a fancy, frivolous phrase to say, as time goes on, so do trends, and sometimes you can catch exactly when those trends start to shift.
So think of the last 20 years, you had the risque post-9/11 fashion era, the rise of twee/hipster/Zooey Deschanel, the normcore/New Balance sneakers/Dad bod era, the time of hypebeast/streetwear. These things come and go, and people who want to stay in the loop socially and economically desperately want to know what the next “vibe shift” will be.
There are some fun bits in the story: I love a good stepback analyzing past trends. It talks about the way in which the pandemic has messed with the trend cycle, how for those who have chronic FOMO may have felt a sense of relief not having to keep up with the ever-evolving “vibe shift.” But even though we stayed inside for a better part of two years, culture still has indeed changed, and in some ways unpredictably.
(A brief side tangent about a random detail in this story: I’m always so taken aback when young people from New York talk so casually about taking drugs. Were we not all in the same D.A.R.E. program?? You guys live in apartments without bathrooms but you can afford cocaine? (I have no idea how much cocaine costs) Nancy Reagan doesn’t haunt you “A Christmas Carol”-style with threats of trickle down economics every time you snort a line?)
There are also some fair things to critique about the story, take this passage for example:
I find it hard to believe that a successful trend forecaster thinks of newsletters and podcasts as something “new,” as if nobody’s written a real blog in over 10 years. As if tumblr didn’t kill the idea of blogging altogether.
Also when you really think about it, what the hell is a “vibe shift”?? Is this just another unnecessary piece of jargon to explain something that doesn’t need explaining?
You could say that Beto O’Rourke “didn’t survive the vibe shift” or you could say that when he lost the Texas Senator race to Ted Cruz in 2018, people just realized he had nothing to offer the current political sphere.
Another thing — and the story does briefly note this — the noted vibe shifts seems to really just be… stuff white people do. Mainstream discourse focuses way too much (and boringly so) on just like, white people trends and/or the trends they appropriated from others.
So there are definitely things to not love about this article, but some of the feigned outrage directed toward it definitely seems to be a bunch of 30-year-olds freaking out about getting older.
I see it sort of similar to the side part/skinny jeans/cheugy fiasco: Yes, things you like will go out of style. No, you will not be crucified for not keeping up with the trends. No, you do not need to yell at people forecasting/creating these trends, pretending like they’re somehow the ones who are wrong.
Even though the story published THIS MORNING though, I’m already very late to the discourse: the backlash to the backlash is already here.
A thing happens, people like it, then people hate it, then people tell the people hating it that they’re overreacting. And you know what, the overreaction to the overreaction is also probably an overreaction!
Somebody sedate me.
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