Emily Segal, co-founder of Nemesis, dives deep into the quirky world of branding in a vibe-centric marketplace. She discusses how we’ve transitioned from storytelling to brands merely emitting frequencies, ripe for algorithmic manipulation. Emily critiques the absurdist trend of presenting heritage as just another vibe, highlighting the low-quality 'slop' in today’s brand narratives. She poses intriguing questions about the future of brands as they become influenced by machine learning while contemplating the essential purpose they must redefine. Get ready for a thought-provoking journey!
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insights INSIGHT
From Storytelling to Frequencies
Brands have shifted from storytelling to emitting frequencies or vibes rather than clear narratives.
Vibes often reflect transient, low-grade AI material that looks authentic but lacks depth.
insights INSIGHT
Brand as Vibes Saturation
The concept of brand as vibes encapsulates a fleeting sense of belonging created by mood boards and cultural trends.
This vibe-driven branding saturates the market, leading to an overload and diminishing authenticity.
insights INSIGHT
Vibes Mirror Machine Learning
Philosophers link vibe detection in humans to machine learning's auto-encoding algorithms that group similar sensory inputs.
Seeing vibes is akin to how algorithms prioritize perceptual elements, revealing and obscuring different features.
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What happens when everyone becomes a brand for fifteen seconds? And what happens after brands become nothing more than ambient frequencies in our endless scroll? Today, we’re running back the highest-rated talk from VISIONS: LA.
Emily Segal (K-HOLE, Nemesis) presents groundbreaking research on the post-peak vibe era, exploring what comes next when brands can no longer hide behind mood boards and atmospheric storytelling. From “strawberry girl summer” to “rodent boyfriend energy,” we've reached the absurdist endpoint of vibe-driven commerce…but what emerges from the wreckage of algorithmic sentiment monitoring?
The Death of Vibes and What Comes Next
Key takeaways:
Post-Peak Vibe Reality: We've moved beyond brands as storytellers to brands as frequency emitters, where TikTok and Spotify algorithms understand our emotional states better than therapists, creating a landscape of "slop"—low-grade AI material that looks the part but doesn't feel authentic.
The Algorithmic Gaze: Vibes aren't just cultural phenomena—they're how we see the world through machine learning's eyes. When we catch a vibe, we're processing information like an auto-encoding algorithm, making certain perceptual elements more obvious while obscuring others.
Heritage as Just Another Vibe: Even attempts to escape contemporary vibe culture through "authentic" heritage branding ultimately become vibes themselves. There's no outside to the constant vibe machine, and stealth wealth still leaves traces of exposure.
Three Paths Beyond Vibes: The future belongs to brands that are either impossibly dense with human labor (too substantial to reduce to vibes), exceptionally simple (pure speculative energy), or deliberately incoherent (escaping algorithmic detection entirely, like dazzle camouflage for brands).
Join the visionaries forming tomorrow’s culture through commerce at VISIONS Summit: NYC. Step into the future for 50% OFF with discount code AFTERVIBES.
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