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

From voters picking up ‘bad vibes’ to the Brat girl summer, vague instincts now make the world go round. Does this represent a crisis of seriousness or has it always been feelings that make us human?

Facts were cool for about 250 years. From the Enlightenment until this century, facts were where it was at. They had a good innings. But it is game over for facts, the end of the line for statistics. These days, what counts is what you feel. In other words, it’s all about the vibe.

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 check” a neighbourhood for you. Of all this year’s hit albums, the one that had a vibe named after it – Brat – won the culture, catapulting Charli XCX to seven Grammy nominations. When a new production of Romeo & Juliet opened on Broadway recently, a US newspaper wrote that “the vibe is very ‘teens hanging out in the Target parking lot’, only with a lot more sonnets and glitter” – because even William Shakespeare is no one without a vibe these days.

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