Remember when we used to describe things with, like, facts? Now we say:

Everything is vibes. Not stories. Not truths. Not even moods. Just… atmospheric impressions, loosely held.

We’ve shifted from articulating specifics to naming sensations.

It’s aesthetic semiotics — a way of communicating meaning that’s less about what something is and more about what it feels like.

This isn't bad. It’s just... fuzzy.

When vibes become our primary filter, we lose the ability to distinguish between authenticity and performance. Between honesty and branding. Between identity and aesthetic.

Brands have jumped in, of course. They don’t sell features — they sell vibes.

Buy this candle, and you're moody and mysterious.

Buy this app, and you're a productivity bro with self-awareness.

Buy this $16 matcha, and you’re soft-luxury embodied.

Even people have become curators of vibe. Our social feeds are less scrapbook, more strategy — more “how do I want to be felt?” than “who am I, really?”

And in that shift, we’ve made authenticity another performance.

Something we package. Something we caption.

Vibes are emotional camouflage.

Eventually, we feel the dissonance.

When everything feels like something, but nothing is something, we start to crave weight.

We want language with edges. Stories with structure. People who don’t just look real, but are messy, complex, and uncurated.

It doesn’t mean we have to abandon aesthetics. It just means we have to ask:

Because vibes can decorate a life — but they can’t define one.