Graphic Content

If Instagram was once a place to document life as it should be, it has since become a site to daydream what life could be. The platform, created in 2010, was first for images that hovered between the picturesque and the mundane: unassuming selfies, smiling friends, the occasional cotton candy sky. Throughout that starting decade, users showcased their joy. Vacations, birthdays, engagements, friends—photos were edited, pressed under filters and bright lights to make smiles seem bolder. Around the turn of the decade, when joy became harder to find or express, users came to Instagram to post other feelings: anger, confusion, dark, twisted jokes. Where Instagram’s first decade was defined by aesthetics, the second will be defined by vibes.

“Vibes,” as a concept, intentionally defies definition. Often, the term is automatically associated with a positive or negative value: vibes are either good or bad. In physics, vibrations are defined as a “periodic back-and-forth motion of the particles of an elastic body or medium, commonly resulting when almost any physical system is displaced from its equilibrium condition and allowed to respond to the forces that tend to restore equilibrium.” Liminal, invisible, intangible, concerned not with arrivals or departures but creating something magic in the expanse in between. Vibes exist in a space beyond words, beyond the boundaries and limitations that language begets. Try as I might to describe them to you, you only know a vibe when you feel it.

A quick search of the #vibes hashtag on Instagram provides us with a wide array of photos—some of people, others of nature or food. Though most of the images are conventionally beautiful, vibes must reach beyond beauty—a trait that separates this trend from the 2010s fascination with an Instagram “aesthetic.” While at first the images may seem totally disparate, commonalities can be teased out. What connects a sunset, a perfect meal, and the smile of a loved one are not time, place, or style, but a collective rejection of all of these things. These moments are not corporeal. They are a nod to the senses. A texture; a color. The warmth of a blinding, crooked grin. These things define the vibe while simultaneously freeing it from the burdens of definition, taking us urgently out of the body and transporting us to someplace softer, almost liminal. Where a regular photograph captures a specific moment in time, graphics are timeless in both their lack of human faces and their emphasis on emotion rather than objects. On Instagram, the rise of images focused on vibes rather than bodies suggests a more casual emotional experience: the social media equivalent of browsing a self-help book at the library, and then neatly placing it back on the shelf once you’ve had your fill.

As the pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprisings moved across the world, posting apolitical content no longer felt realistic or socially acceptable. Instagram etiquette began to change. Selfies were switched out for a sea of infographics: glossy, informative slideshows that conveniently broke down our most important political issues—from the Indigeneous land back movement to the need to defund the police—into beautiful, shareable chunks. Memes and other text images dominated the grid, providing a combination of sometimes unhinged and sometimes poignant discourse on everything from self growth to childhood trauma. Their tone toes the line between honesty and optimism; a recognition of despair but a refusal to fall prey to it. The tongue-in-cheek nature of these graphics has given rise to a new social perspective, one where collective woes are lamented and aspirations for something sweeter are proclaimed. Perhaps users once used Instagram as a place to document how wonderful their lives are. Perhaps now the platform has become the site to acknowledge a society in chaos.

Though these designers and accounts all differ, they share a few important qualities. A certain visual vocabulary is evident: a preference for muted colors, italicized fonts, and pastel lines. Much like other text graphics currently dominating the platform, they rarely depict human faces. Where they differ from other text images is in their use of language. Words are often sparse and carefully chosen, lovingly curated into soothing, if somewhat nonsensical phrases to dispense more amorphous concepts: emotional guidance, affirmations, enlightened musings that often border on the spiritual. To scroll on Instagram today is to experience a sort of psychological whiplash: a selfie followed by an infographic, a vibe graphic preceding a meme. “Just be and enjoy being.” “Believe to receive.” “I am nothing, I am everything.” Text is often written in present tense, allowing users to more immediately participate in the fantasy: you are nothing and you are everything, right here, and right now. The images become a visual impasse, an emotional interruption.

There is a certain tension present between the intentions of the creators and the interpretations of the viewers: while some could view the images as optimistic, others could see the same set of graphics as nihilistic. These images, which originated in the latter half of 2020 and have steadily grown in popularity as more users adopt them, are named not for their aesthetic considerations but the specific energy they exude: an intriguing blend of mindfulness and spirituality embedded onto a pastel dreamscape. A multitude of designers are contributing to this trend. Estefania Loret de Mola is a graphic designer whose work waxes poetic on the intricacies of self growth. In one post, the words “mindset” and “action” are encircled by two arrows; the text sits on a collection of dreamy swirls in pastel red, yellow, and pink. @anewspecimen depicts ethereal, angelic figures and gently philosophizes on love and energy. “Be someone’s light,” one post proclaims. Amid a dark gray background, someone presses a bright orb into another’s back. Manassaline, who is more prone to text than her designer peers, uses her graphics to reassure her followers they are on the right path. In one graphic, “the past” sits in one corner and “the future” in another. “Be here now” the center of the image reads, a black dot planted on an expanse of green. @beamingdesign uses neons and pastels to put her followers at ease. “Just be and enjoy being,” one graphic suggests, blue fading into pink into green.

In this decade, to use Instagram is not about considering the fact or fiction of an account, but another kind of honesty: one that is nebulous, atemporal, and shared. At a time when nothing feels tangible or permanent, to thrive in a messy plane of ethereal obscurity feels like the only language we can rely on. The graphics have created a lexicon: a visual language to describe the indescribable. Sadness, anger, fear, self doubt—what more is there to say? But those periodic back and forths can fill the space that’s left by silence. Where words fail, vibes provide

Mary Retta writes about culture, identity, and the internet. Her work can be found in VICE, The Nation, The Guardian, and elsewhere.