The pop music philosopher and scholar Robin James, in theorizing why music culture has become entwined with the language of “vibes,” has argued that in embracing vibes, we’ve adopted the language that algorithms use to perceive and to organize us. She has explained vibes as a way to typecast users not based on identity but on their actions and data breadcrumbs, in terms of the “trajectory” that someone might be on as a user. “We’ve learned how to interact with algorithms so that they perceive us in ways that we want to be perceived,” she said in a 2023 podcast interview. “You’re pre-packaging
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