Deceptive Flow: Why
Everything Feels Like a Vibe |
UX Collective
AI
summary
The rise of "vibe" culture reflects a shift from deep thinking to
emotional engagement in various fields, including coding,
marketing, and design. While vibing can create a sense of
productivity, it often leads to deceptive flow states where
genuine insight is lost. This phenomenon is driven by cognitive
biases that favor ease and comfort over critical reflection. As
society increasingly embraces vibe-driven approaches, it risks
prioritizing feelings over facts, leading to a culture where
emotional resonance shapes beliefs and behaviors, potentially
steering innovation and understanding into darker territories.
Created
@3 juillet 2025 14:48
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https://medium.com/user-experience-design-1/everythings-avibe-is-it-progress-or-just-an-illusion-fcd32b2844bb
Everything’s a vibe: is it progress or just
an illusion?
In a world where feeling productive replaces thinking
deeply, are we innovating or just vibing our way into
deceptive flow?
Ian Batterbee
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11 min read
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Apr 21, 2025
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Deceptive Flow: Why Everything Feels Like a Vibe | UX Collective
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Trapped in a vibe loop: When vibing feels productive, but real insight leaks
away.
I felt I was missing something. Everyone’s talking about vibes: vibe coding,
vibe marketing, vibe creation, vibe economics. It’s vibe-this and vibe-that.
Everything’s a vibe now. Honestly, I started wondering if I was just out of touch
with cool kids, behind on the latest slang or maybe not vibing hard enough.
It turns out I’m not alone.
Still, the more I hear about these vibes, the more I wonder: is this just a playful
trend, or is it something deeper?
What started as casual slang is now everywhere — from how we code and
market to how we pitch, design, and even write job descriptions.
It seems we’re not just in the business of creating products anymore — we’re
crafting vibe experiences. The value goes beyond function; it’s all about the
feeling.
We’re also witnessing a vibe-driven culture that replaces fact with feeling. And
that raises a profound question:
If everything’s a vibe now, are we
building towards progress or just
floating on emotional autopilot?
Vibe is the new flow
When did the vibe craze begin, anyway? It’s not as though the slang popped
out of nowhere. Remember that ’90s R. Kelly song, She’s Got That Vibe?
In the context of technology, the word vibe has trended since early 2025,
when OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy coined the term vibe coding.
Karpathy introduced the phrase to refer to using AI prompts to generate code,
allowing developers to shift from manual coding to higher-level problemsolving. Hence, the vibes.
“There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding,’ where you
fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget
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that the code even exists.” — OpenAI co-founder Andrej
Karpathy.
That said, vibes aren’t limited to software development. They also apply to
marketing, design, innovation, writing, economics — even cooking and
mopping the kitchen floor.
But is there a general way of describing a vibe? While the word itself is
surprisingly complex, we could frame it like this:
A vibe is an immersive wave we ride
when tools dissolve, thinking blends
with feeling, and outcomes just feel
right. It’s a flow state where everything
clicks.
Interestingly, this description echoes psychologist Mihály
Csíkszentmihályi’s concept of flow: a mental zone where we’re fully absorbed
in a task, time dissolves, and action feels effortless. We often refer to this
phenomenon as “being in the zone.”
We’ve all experienced this rewarding state where high skill meets high
challenge, and work becomes play. Whether we channel words to the page like
a poet in motion, lose ourselves in a sea of design flows, or pull off complex
video game combos like performance art, these flows are beautiful.
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Csíkszentmihályi’s flow state: When a high challenge meets high skill,
creativity becomes automatic.
Vibes or “vibing” can feel like swimming in Csíkszentmihályi’s flow. But there’s a
darker side to that creative and energising rhythm worth considering —
something we might call deceptive flow.
Not to be confused with the cybersecurity term or deceptive patterns, in the
context of vibing, deceptive flow isn’t about tricking others — it’s about tricking
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ourselves. It describes a state where ease and immersion create the illusion of
progress while quietly bypassing the friction where real learning and insight
usually occur.
In other words, we think we’re making progress but just cruising on emotional
autopilot.
Several cognitive biases, including cognitive ease and fluency illusion, help
explain these misleading flows.
Cognitive ease, popularised by psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel
Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow, refers to the mental comfort we
experience when something is easy to process.
When information flows smoothly, we are more likely to believe it. For instance,
we often place more confidence in a clean, well-designed website than a
cluttered one, regardless of the accuracy of the content.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is
not ignorance, it is the illusion of
knowledge.” — Daniel J. Boorstin.
Then there’s the fluency illusion, a cognitive bias that tricks us into
overestimating our understanding after passive engagement. Completing a UX
boot camp might make us feel we have grasped the subject when, in reality,
we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Instructional Designer Kanchan Shine highlights how repetition reinforces this
illusion: “Repetition provides a false belief or ‘illusion’ that we’ve ‘learnt’ or
‘mastered’ a concept,” she explains. “Reading something over and over again
does not always equate to learning or mastery.”
In a vibe-driven world where we value speed and ease, we rely on these
cognitive shortcuts to supercharge our sense of progress. But that convenience
may seduce us into deceptive flow states more often than we realise, feeling
productive while becoming increasingly mentally detached.
So, where are these deceptive vibes showing up most? Let’s take a look.
From vibe coding to vibe living
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Recent trends and discussions show that vibe coding and vibe marketing are
the most prominent and widely discussed terms. Various industries, from tech
startups to global consumer brands, leverage AI to automate and enhance their
strategies.
Let’s start with vibe coding and work our way through some others.
Vibe coding
Among the many vibe coding articles floating around, UX Designer Rodrigo
Garcia offers one clear definition: “The practice of building software by talking
to an AI coding assistant instead of writing everything by hand.”
Then, creative entrepreneur Pete Sena frames the premise of vibe coding as
giving AI instructions in natural language to generate the code. “No more Stack
Overflow deep dives at 2 AM. Just vibes,” Sena points out.
In other words, vibe coding involves less friction (and hopefully less caffeine)
and more focus on the work that deserves attention. While this isn’t necessarily
bad, it’s in its infancy, and we’re still learning about what it means.
It reminds me of a junior designer called Carlos, who once copied and pasted
code like it was second nature; he knew what to do but didn’t know why.
When we outsource work to AI, we risk trusting how the output feels over
whether we truly understand how it works. The vibes might feel right, but the
foundations can be dangerously shaky.
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The new flow problem: As tools reduce friction, we risk mistaking momentum
for mastery. Deceptive flow feels immersive but hinders growth. False
progress looks productive but lacks reflection.
That brings us back to Csíkszentmihályi’s flow. Like in Carlos’s case, working in
an effortless rhythm of copying, pasting, and generating feels great. But you
miss the deeper learning when you’re not truly engaging with what you’re
producing.
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This phenomenon applies not only to coding but also to other fields, such as
marketing and design.
Vibe marketing
Whereas traditional marketing is fast-paced and trend-driven, vibe-led
marketing focuses on emotional resonance in both the physical world and
across digital channels.
In the physical sense, Pratik Kalam describes vibe marketing as a shift from
fleeting micro-trends to lasting emotional experiences: “A vibe is an enduring
emotional experience that transcends shifting fads,” he explains.
Brands like Apple, Red Bull, and Spotify embody this by not just selling products
but immersive identities. They don’t compete on features or price but on how
deeply they resonate. In a vibe economy, loyalty isn’t logical; it’s emotional.
On the digital side, AI-led vibe marketing is redefining the pace of producing
content to maintain that emotional pulse. Influencers and creators enter
Csíkszentmihályi-style flow states, pumping out high-quality product videos
and visuals in seconds.
Turning stills to cinematics: MayorKingAI, in collaboration
with @higgsfield_ai, transformed a static shot into a dynamic bullet-time
sequence. The camera control is next level.
A few prompts into an AI generator can turn static images into motion or rough
ideas into convincing ads, allowing creators to focus on emotional tone over
production effort.
But is AI-led vibe marketing truly emotionally deep, or just another deceptive
flow? While it may feel right, it lacks the creative tension that made Steve Jobsera storytelling powerful. That kind of emotional resonance didn’t come easy; it
required a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
Vibe designing
We’re witnessing a vibe remix design culture where anyone can instruct an AI
generator to whip up polished outputs in seconds, from creative art to
functional prototypes. It’s a low-effort and high-reward process.
As I mentioned in my recent article on constraints in design, people are raving
on social media about their prompt-driven creations, like blister-packed action
figures and comical memes.
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Blister-packed action figure fun: Everyone is in the vibe remix culture. Image
credit: Kristen O’Neall.
Usability icon Jakob Nielsen has especially provided some interesting
commentary on how generative AI transforms UX design by “taking on lowlevel tasks” and “freeing professionals to focus strategically.”
Rather than starting from scratch, designers can now glide into a
Csikszentmihalyi-style flow, instantly turning ideas into wireframes and
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prototypes using tools like Figma’s First Draft and Webflow. Once again, it’s
less friction and more vibes.
Turning ideas into instant templates: Webflow’s AI-powered templates adapt
instantly to your business needs — just describe your vision, and start building
faster without starting from scratch. Image credit: Webflow.
However, problems in vibe designing mirror those in vibe coding and vibe
marketing. Automating creativity and innovation is similar to outsourcing the
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soul of creation — the struggle, the surprise, and the “aha, I did it” moment that
friction typically produces. Without that tension, we slope into a deceptive flow,
chasing false positives and mistaking momentum for meaning.
Vibe researching
A similar pattern is emerging in research, where researchers vibe through those
Csíkszentmihályi-style flows, using prompts to transform raw feedback into
insights and discover hidden themes in seconds. The result is less grunt work
and more time for strategic thinking.
Platforms like Dovetail offer “magic” AI features that provide shortcuts to the
slow work of listening and watching. Auto-summarising transcripts, slicing
customer calls into highlight reels, and clustering themes happen instantly at
the click of a button.
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AI-assisted research: Dovetail’s Magic AI turns hours of research into insights
in seconds — auto-summarising transcripts, surfacing themes, and
highlighting what matters most. Image credit: Dovetail.
Vibe researching might save time, but it risks skipping the reflection necessary
for meaningful insight. The ease of retrieving instant “facts” can create a
deceptive flow state that activates confirmation bias and fluency illusion. We
may stop uncovering the truth and instead begin generating convincing fiction.
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While experienced researchers might strike a balance between AI assistance
and original insight, the artificial approach can be dangerously convincing for
those with less experience.
Non-researchers may swap genuine inquiry, like interviews, deep listening, and
observations, for synthetic intuition. The ease of retrieving instant “facts” can
lead them astray, producing hallucinated insights that feel real but lack
substance.
Not only are our tools and processes changing, but our worldview is as well.
We’re not just coding, marketing, designing, or researching with vibes; we’re
living by them.
But what happens when vibes start shaping how we form opinions, who we
follow, and what we accept as true? Let’s zoom out to the broadest of the vibe
themes.
Vibe culture
In addition to the vibes we discussed, we’re now embracing something
broader: vibe culture, a world where we’re not just creating or consuming but
“vibe living.” We don’t just chase trends; we buy into lifestyles.
We follow franchises like cults. Apple, Ferrari, Nike, Starbucks, and Marvel are
more than companies — they’re cultural franchises that tap into our identity,
emotion, and sense of belonging.
But vibe living doesn’t stop at consumer goods. We’ve also entered an era of
vibe politics, vibe entertainment, vibe fashion — vibe everything. We could
even call it “vibePop:” a remix culture where emotions are amplified, shared,
and believed. It focuses less on facts and more on feelings.
But here’s the twist.
Like moths to a fluorescent bulb, we
gravitate toward headlines, slogans, and
social media feeds that validate our
feelings. It’s immersive, addictive, and too
easy. And that’s the problem.
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Like AI-assisted work, endless media consumption can pull us into deceptive
flow. As we automatically switch and scroll, we subconsciously gravitate
toward content that confirms our feelings and beliefs. With minimal friction and
few pauses for reflection, we accept the first piece of information that feels
right without questioning its accuracy.
And it doesn’t stop there.
As AI-generated content floods our screens, distinguishing truth from fiction
becomes increasingly complex. We not only accept and consume distorted
facts but also amplify them. And now, AI systems are repeating the pattern!
Startup expert Clayton Moulynox addresses this dilemma, comparing it to the
classic children’s game of telephone. He uses the analogy to illustrate how AI
systems remix and reinforce each other’s mistakes. When these systems
accept outputs as inputs, they distort the original truth further with each
exchange. What starts as fiction becomes perceived as fact simply because it’s
repeated.
“AI systems learning from and amplifying each other’s
mistakes.” — Clayton Moulynox.
Society has long misinterpreted or deliberately distorted information, like a reallife telephone game. However, with the arrival of AI, this dilemma has
intensified. People are increasingly drawn in by AI-generated content, often
believing they are accessing and sharing the truth when, in reality, it may be
fictional.
These emotionally charged flows shape more than what we consume — they
influence our judgements and behaviours. Over time, we become more
reactive, less reflective, and quicker to dismiss anything that doesn’t match our
vibe. When everyone rides the same emotional wavelength, shared truths
become cult-like. Instead of questioning our beliefs, we defend them or, worse,
condemn those who don’t share them.
This revelation is the darker side of the vibe culture: it shapes how we innovate,
market, believe, and behave. Our feelings replace logic, and we ultimately
outsource critical thinking to the algorithm.
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Conclusion: Who’s in control, us or our
vibes?
Our emotions shape what we create, how we decide, what we believe, and who
we become. In today’s vibe culture, we’ve traded clarity for resonance, logic for
feeling, and effort for ease. But when feelings dictate everything, what happens
to rational thought?
While technology has accelerated productivity and creativity, making it almost
effortless, it has also led us into deceptive flow states, where friction
disappears and true insight fades.
I’m not just worried about how we build products but how easily we confuse
emotion for evidence. When a headline triggers a reaction, we don’t pause to
think; we pounce. We don’t ask questions when a new witch hunt begins; we
grab our pitchforks.
We’re not just riding vibes anymore; we’re
letting them drive us. And sometimes,
they’re steering us into darker places.
But it’s never too late to take control of the wheel. Reflection, friction, and
discomfort aren’t the enemy — they help us grow, think, and create with
intention.
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