Vibe Shift by Sean Monahan
“This post won’t be an explanation of the meme. If you want to know what it means Google the words, look up the accounts, consume the associated content. Instead, I want to point out that the general anxiety the meme has engendered is evidence of a vibe shift.
In my life, I’ve lived through four vibe shifts.
Hipster/Indie Music (ca. 2003—2009)
Post-Internet/Techno Revival (ca. 2010—2016)
Hypebeast/Woke (ca. 2016—2020)
[ABOVE MEME] (ca. 2021—????)”
“I’m hesitant to name our current vibe shift. It’s clearly a return to scene culture, contains elements of Naughty Aughties nostalgia. The players are personalities more interested in the literary than the artistic, more interested in the who follows than the how many followers. Musically—well, I’ve already made my prediction: it’ll be a return of rock.”