My Nokia or Blackberry moment

Muffled whispers in an age of consensus

A short note from the driver's seat - where language, laughter, and generation gap collide

Yesterday, I ended up driving my daughter and some of her friends back from a birthday dinner. They were in full post-celebration mode, that high-energy state where laughter comes easily, and conversation flows in overlapping loops. I was just the guy behind the wheel, quiet and steady, trying to be invisible without realizing that from their pov, this could have been a driverless car as well!

I did try using headphones but their conversation made listening to anything a chore. After a while, I got rid of it and stuck to driving. Over years of being a misfit, I find it easy to practice solitude in a crowd, as in, I can just space out completely. Which I did here. And yet, the level of energy within the close confines of the car made it hard. And there was some fun in watching my kiddo sometimes remember I am in the car and squirm!

Anyway, one word that kept bouncing around was vibe.

This outfit was “such a vibe.” That new boy? “Not giving vibe.” The music? “Vibey.” Even the restaurant's lighting was “like the vibe was trying too hard.” It was everywhere. Vibe wasn’t just a feeling. It was judgment, aesthetic, emotion, consensus - all rolled into one. A judgment delivered in a one syllable, let alone a word. I noted the pun, a sentence in a syllable, and then wondered if they would get it.

I thought I should chime in, but interrupting would have ruined the mood and my daughter would have disowned me! But inside, beyond the pun, I was uncomfy tbh. The use of vibe was jut too generic and widespread. This is what I wanted to understand and debate with them a bit, and fortunately I realized how impossible it would be to argue with any of it.

You can’t challenge a vibe. You can’t ask: “But why did it feel that way?” or “What do you mean by that?” A vibe doesn’t offer reasoning. It just is. It's the emotional version of gravity - no negotiation, no appeal. And because it's externalized, backed by group energy, tone, consensus, any questioning starts to feel like you're not just disagreeing, you're being difficult.

Was vibe the same as intuition? No, intuition was internal. You could ask someone to explain their intuition. Maybe they'd struggle, maybe they'd land on something. But the door was open. There was a person on the other side. You could talk. Vibe? It’s a wall. It’s aesthetic certainty. Try to prod it, and suddenly you’re the one who’s off. Not tuned in. Not aligned. Out of step with the collective hum.

That unsettled me more than I expected.

It’s not that I think they’re wrong to use it. Language evolves. Every generation invents shorthand to navigate a world that feels overwhelming. We had our words too. And I’m sure my parents never understood the terms we used. I particularly remember this discussion with my dad on why Socrates was absolute mindrape, and my dad found the term “reasonably inappropriate”. The word vibe reminded me of “Just Like That”, or JLT, which I encountered with similar chagrin a couple of decades or so ago. The ultimate end-conversation-heuristic. Hush, it’s sealed.

But I do worry what’s lost when everything gets compressed into one emotionally-loaded word. When a person’s creative work, or a conversation, or even an idea, can be dismissed because it “doesn’t vibe.” It shuts the door on depth. It makes disagreement feel antisocial. It replaces discussion with emotional alignment. Anyway, I didn’t open my mouth, and paid attention to the wonderful roads of Bangalore. The car was full of joy, and I didn’t want to be the guy who was a buzzkill.

When we got home, my daughter and her friends were headed to someone’s house to continue their celebrations. My kiddo lingered a bit while the others went on. She looked at me like she knew I’d been through something, not exactly trauma, but some light intellectual discomfort. She smiled. “Not bad, you knew to keep quiet”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I got the vibe right”; and we both laughed and went our ways.

Later that night, I sat alone for a while, thinking about how things shift. Language. Meaning. The very texture of how we think. I remembered how I used to frustrate my parents too - with my music, my slang, my need to be different. Maybe this was just the next turn of the wheel. But something feels different this time. Vibe isn’t just a word. It’s starting to shape how we judge things. And the more it becomes our collective compass, the less room there is to stop, question, or even just say “Hang on, can we talk about this?”

The winds are changing, I can feel the new generation finding their feet and shaping the world around. Time is short for the incoming crowd. Quick decisions, quick change, high adaptability. They keep moving on, faster and faster. And have some different gestalt emerging in their minds. Its a different imbibing and learning style. It’s fun and instructive, life is such a fantastic teacher to the willing student! It totally vibes!