Why this millennial is embracing the 'vibe shift'

The year is 2009. "Lisztomania" blasts from my laptop speakers, a better pick-me-up than my morning coffee as I get ready to start my day. I do a quick scan of some music blogs — what scandalous Pitchfork rating has music Twitter in a tizzy today? — before grabbing my American Apparel infinity scarf and heading to my college class.

If this sounds familiar to you, you may be a former indie kid. While much of what's being called "indie sleaze" has its roots in British phenoms like the Libertines, Alexa Chung, and Arctic Monkeys, it quickly became a global vibe (in modern parlance), morphing into hipsterdom and encompassing everything from electro-pop to skinny jeans to festival culture to the blogosphere. Music was at the heart of it, but it wasn't just about music. It was a response to the global financial crisis, the bubblegum-pop uniformity of the early aughts, and a way for kids who grew up listening to "The O.C." soundtrack to shape their identities.

And I loved it. Maybe it was the exuberance of youth; maybe it was seeing the world start to connect across this powerful thing called social media; maybe it was just some catchy music. Whatever it was, I saw my reality expand. Suddenly, I could sit in my dorm room and watch Black Cab Sessions taking place in London, or a Blogotheque Takeaway Show filmed in Argentina, and I could talk about it with people in the Netherlands or New York or Newcastle. This felt distinctly different from social media as I'd known it before: It wasn't about connecting with your IRL friends on Facebook or MySpace, or even about building personal communities or fandoms à la LiveJournal or Tumblr. No, this was something different. Something almost... professional.

It would be years before "creator" became an actual job title, but looking back on it, that's essentially what I was. There was no Substack, certainly no TikTok, and even LinkedIn had only just started integrating tweets into its feed. But, as a twenty-year-old college student bracing herself for a tight labor market, I realized I could shape my own identity — carve out a space for myself in this great digital world, one that would enable me to create my own opportunities. I was a blogger and social media hound, using my writing and even mobile photography to get my name out there as I prepared to enter the workforce. And, in hindsight, this moment in time was very precious. It felt like a perfect alignment between technological progress, cultural expansion, and my own process of self-definition.

For Gen Z, this experience is much more the norm. Growing up in a digital world meant self-expression, community-building, and technology were intertwined — and present from a very young age (which, of course, presents its own issues). And yet, it's only relatively recently that trend forecasters have been predicting a "vibe shift" hearkening back to what was essentially the Internet's teen years. "People [are] going off in a lot of different directions because it doesn’t feel like there’s a coherent, singular vision for music or fashion," Sean Monahan, "vibe shift" predictor (and part of the art collective that defined "normcore," for those keeping track) told The Cut. "... People want to make things personal again.”

I don't think it's an accident that this shift comes as the creator economy evolves and expands. "Social media isn’t a place where you can be as creative anymore; all the angles are figured out," Monahan also said. And while I agree that social media is a more saturated landscape than it was in the early aughts — although, even then, there were plenty of influencer titans — creativity (and the opportunities that come from it) is booming. That desire to define yourself online and "make things personal" is more established now than it was a decade ago: It's just part of building your brand. And, now more than ever, that brand can mean big business.

I'm not technically a "geriatric millennial" (and this less-than-kind designation now has a Gen Z equivalent, if you can believe it), but I've still been around long enough to look back and see how tech, social media, and work have transformed in the past decade. In so many ways, our world looks vastly different than it did then; Casey Newton wrote about tech journalism's "vibe shift" back in March, and it's a good overview of how conversations have shifted even in the past couple of years. But in other ways, the through lines between the early days of social media, the growth of digital micro-communities, and innovative self-expression, couldn't be clearer.

It's why this whole notion of a "vibe shift" is so exciting to me. It doesn't just mean that fashion trends are circling back around (whether we want them to or not; I'm looking at you, low-rise jeans) — it also means that, despite the historic and cataclysmic challenges we've faced in recent years, there's still plenty to be excited about. I know I am.

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Of course, nothing is quite that simple, and I certainly don't have rose-tinted glasses about the state of the Internet today. It's why I'm so excited to launch this newsletter: I want to delve deeper into these topics and beyond, exploring the seismic shifts in how technology, work and the world operate. I think we millennials have a unique vantage point on these transitions and I'm looking forward to exploring them. If you have thoughts, suggestions, topic ideas, or more, please let me know in the comments!

Quick final note: This newsletter is purely my own musings, not officially affiliated with LinkedIn or LinkedIn News. Although many of my colleagues write phenomenal newsletters; follow your local LinkedIn News page to check 'em out!