vibe shifts, through photo dumps, aesthetics, and reading
The Lit List No. 9
Ever since this piece on a cultural vibe shift that I know we’ve all seen and read one too many thinkpieces on by now (here’s one more), I’ve seen signs of its imminence everywhere on social media, which is a place I spend a lot of my time, for better or worse.
I’m not very cool or trendy, even though I love to notice new trends. But a vibe shift goes beyond fads. If you haven’t heard of this yet, a “vibe shift,” defined by Sean Monahan in his Substack 8ball, is when “social wavelengths” that once felt like immutable staples of culture start to feel outdated.
There’s been much speculation on what this vibe shift will entail, though my prediction (and not an original one) is that it will be one of hedonism fueled by an impending sense of futility. If the world is ending, and it increasingly feels like it is, why not indulge? Why not let go of perfectionism and productivity?
We could be due for round two of the roaring ‘20s, as evidenced by the newest cool girl aesthetic, night luxe. Think a modernized version of The Great Gatsby — martinis, sparkles, silk, black, champagne in couple glasses, art deco, LBDs, decadence, chandeliers, dark and moody, hangovers1. And since this is a substack about books, how fitting that The Great Gatsby itself takes place in 1922! 2
A monumental vibe shift goes beyond specific trends, but I think social media aesthetics are one of the best places to look for shifting cultural markers. They reflect our values and preferences, and it stands to reason that predominant aesthetics are reflective of macroscopic values and preferences. Along those lines, I can’t stop thinking about how the Instagram photo dump is a harbinger of ~vibes~ to come.
Photo dumps are not a new phenomenon. However, last week I was minding my own business on Instagram and was cursed with an ad detailing why photo dumps are good business tools for engagement, because capitalism finds an angle in everything. Long live the photo dump, the photo dump is dead.
I’ve always loved Instagram’s carousel feature, but my first post that I identify as qualifying as a photo dump — that is, a carousel post that isn’t tediously filtered and flattering and mimics your own camera roll in that it’s kind of random — was in 2020. Since then, the dump has evolved to be somehow both more chaotic and more curated.
It’s fitting that this started gaining traction in the pandemic, when all bets were off on looking photogenic or doing instagrammable things but the nagging urge to post hadn’t dissipated. We were still lab rats hitting the trigger for the dopamine rush that posting gives up, but we didn’t have anything to post. Enter the photo dump.
A desire for something new coincided with an increased awareness in how we’re perceived and how we present ourselves, as well as a shift in societal values. As lockdown measures were in effect, travel influencers posting from vacation seemed irresponsible and out of touch. When social justice issues came to the forefront of our collective conscience, those posting outfits and Amazon hauls looked ignorant. We were experiencing burn out (still are!), and influencers’ messaging was not the salve we asked for.
Influencers and content creators are still going strong, though, even the ones with heavy filters, the same designer fashion, and lavish vacations. But even still, you can see the more aware ones, especially the nano- and micro-influencers, slowly make moves toward content that feels more personal and less of a content farm, even though it is still effectively a business for them. And because it is, the effortless look you’re seeing cannot possibly be effortless.
Of course, once those people with incredible influence get in on a trend, whether it’s content creators selling products or celebrities selling themselves, we start not only wanting to get in on the action but also talking about the implications and waxing poetic on what this all means for our society. I keep asking myself why this has been so popular and why it matters at all (it probably doesn’t), and I think it probably depends who you ask.
For millennials, the photo dump recalls the painful era of taking a digital camera with you and then uploading every single image under an album with a cringey name (I have one from 2009 called SICK NASTYYY ! and another of-an-era album called ZOMG LOLZZZ, please send me your worst and make me feel better).
We took pictures of literally everything and everyone, which is exactly how most of us take pictures now, except our cameras are much more accessible. And after posting, we had to like and comment on individual pictures within each album, or tag ourselves if our friends didn’t have the energy but we were desperate for that photo of us wearing sunglasses at a frat party with a bottle of mango Burnett’s vodka in our underage hands to show up on our profile. It was a dark time that has actually reignited conversations with old friends as we bond over how embarrassing we were and hastily make those albums private.
Once we all started using instagram regularly, we developed a less-is-more attitude that focused on aesthetics when it came to sharing. I made my account in 2011 and quickly learned that it was too exhausting to post every photo my awful iPhone camera snapped, birthing a decade of anxiety over which one photo to choose.
With a carousel, you’re limited to 10 photos, which requires enough self-restraint that we can’t get too carried away as we did those Facebook albums while still allowing for a little expression. It’s nostalgia, but curated nostalgia.
For Gen Z, I can only speculate on motivation as I’m not Gen Z, but I’m most fascinated by their use of the photo dump. For a while, it seemed like Instagram simply wasn’t cool amongst Gen Z anymore, and I think it’s still true that they put less pressure on a perfect grid and naturally understand the app’s flaws.
I remember entire articles (that I of course can’t find now) about the stress and pressure teenagers were feeling to only post with long intervals of silence between photos and only if the caption was going to be clever, meaning if they’d posted in the last month and didn’t have anything to say about their photo, it wasn’t going to be shared at all.
It makes sense that they’d instead gravitate toward Snapchat, Vine (RIP), and eventually TikTok. But with the photo dump’s new rules, which are outwardly that there are none (there are), they’re allowed to engage while still maintaining the message that they know this is all bullshit, as evidenced by mirror selfies (a surprising and triumphant return!), snot-filled crying close-ups, and memes. The photo dump creates the illusion of self-awareness, an essential pillar to the Gen Z identity.
Once again, this is a newsletter about books, so how does the photo dump look in niche corners of the internet like bookstagram? I’ve noticed the photo dump as a helpful tool, actually — it gives us the room to include quotes we liked, multiple shots of a book we’re reading, relevant (or irrelevant) context, and my favorite, memes and reaction pics.
My few photo dumps there have allowed me to post what I want about a book without having to overthink the image, which means I get to think more about what I have to say. Which is not to say I’ve gotten any more thoughtful or insightful in my book commentary, but it has become more of what I value in my own and others’ posts.
It would seem, then, that the rise of photo dumps has solved many issues we all have with social media: it’s too curated, it’s impersonal, it’s not real life, there’s too much pressure. Put together a seemingly not-cohesive string of photos in no particular order, with bonus points for outtakes or close-ups of inanimate objects, and you’ve nailed a trend. The photo dump promises acceptance as you are, even demands imperfection.
But no trend can exist without effort. If no one tried to set, partake in, or even scoff at trends, they wouldn’t exist at all. Photo dumps, while seemingly charming in their lack of presumption, aren’t immune from the performative nature of all trends and fads.
The cool girl of five years ago was aspirational because she seemed to have it all, or at least a skilled photographer and premium Lightroom presets to make it look that way. Her photos were light and airy, like a tampon commercial. Her home never had visible clutter, her skin never had a blemish, her clothes never showed a wrinkle.
She was someone we knew we’d never be, and toward the end of her reign, we began to groan about how fake it all felt, as we sat in our sweats and panic-bought and doom scrolled our way through 2020. There was no transparency, no look behind the curtain, and part of this vibe shift is a demand that we get a glimpse of reality.
Today’s cool girl, especially if we want to lean into the night luxe girl, oozes charm, but more messy. She still has it all — we wouldn’t worship her if she didn’t — but the way she portrays her life is different. She doesn’t hustle, she indulges, and she doesn’t try hard, least of all on social media. She’s reading the classics again, or cool-girl feminist lit like Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. She’s socially aware and has a dark sense of humor about it, and of course she’s watching Euphoria.
But most importantly, when she shares her life with us on instagram, she gives us photo dumps. And when she posts blurry shots of her friends or a quick snap of her table filled with half-empty forgotten cocktails, it feels accessible because our own camera rolls are also full of the mundane. We think we could do this too.
So then we start taking more photos of insignificant things and try to look less posed even though we’re still posing, adding no-filter filters (to our faces with no-makeup makeup) or effects to blur the photo or add grain. Maybe we leave a few of them unedited, just to show we don’t care too much. And then we narrow it down to 10 photos, debating over their order, trying to strike the perfect balance between impressing our friends/strangers and looking unbothered.
The thing with any aesthetic is that it has to be defined and respected, and it’s virtually impossible to exist on social media without caring at all. And while I’ve personally enjoyed feeling like I have the space to care less (I’ve been posting more of whatever the hell I want on my booksta and last month, I posted my first unedited batch of photos on my personal account since I made it !!!), if I didn’t care at all I wouldn’t be here. And while it’s likely that many of us post photo dumps without this much thought, it’s not likely that we don’t wonder what others will think.
The way we want to be perceived on the internet might have shifted, but the fact that we still want to be perceived at all proves that social media usage is simply trying on a new hat, not undergoing a monumental shift away from the inauthenticity we claim it breeds. As for the broader cultural vibe shift, choose your fighter now, or don’t — if you’re not ready or willing for a change, who cares? It’s okay to simply exist.
To bring it back to books, here are a few I think either signify the vibe shift, will survive it, or be resurrected by it:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — for obvious reasons
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton — idk it just makes sense to me
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann — this also just makes sense to me. It pokes fun at sad, self-indulgent rich people in the same ironic and funny way as Gatsby does, and it also has the vibe of “I know I shouldn’t want to be these people but I still kind of want to be these people.”
Any book with That One Font on the cover
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh — under the reign of the new vibe, we’re all about working less and sleeping more!
Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe — speaking of working less
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino — because you’ll need to stay jaded and self-aware to keep you grounded all that fun you’ll be having!
Bunny by Mona Awad — While not exactly hedonistic, the type of weird literature that doesn’t give a fuck could be popular in the next wave of literary trends. Another one in that same vein is A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan.
Diverse books — we’re all aware of how white publishing is (I mean, look at this list), but I think we’ll see an increased focus on racial/gender diversity.
Romance novels — if the next wave is all about light-hearted fun and pleasure, look no further than the rom-com genre! But I think it’ll be the modern authors (Jasmine Guillory, Casey McQuiston) that come to the front, not the old-school romance novels with real-life models on the covers.
Books that work well on TikTok — it might not be your strong suit3, but BookTok is here to stay. Some books work better there than others, whether that’s because of mass appeal and accessibility, the conversations it sparks, or the preferences of a generally younger audience.
Another long one, and I still feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. If you have thoughts about about vibe shifts (lol), aesthetics, photo dumps, etc., please talk to me!
And also, exciting news, Substack has an app now. It’s actually really great. If you want to get all your newsletters (including this one) in one place instead of letting them sit at the bottom of your promotions tab for two weeks, you too can download it:
Don’t attack me but a not-small part of me is very much into the night luxe aesthetic and you’ll pry my coupe glasses from my cold dead hands!
I recently did a Gatsby reread ahead of a read of The Chosen and the Beautiful, and while I understand that Fitzgerald’s whole point was a warning (we all saw people throwing Gatsby-themed parties without any sense of irony in January 2020), I can’t help but also be kind of obsessed with it?
I made one (1) book-related TikTok last year, and the only likes it got were from the friends I directly shared it with. It’s even worse than my dumb TikToks. This is simply not my medium.