Humanity Is Vibe-Checking Itself to Death

Apr 20, 2022 8:00 AMSocial media's economy of vibes is an engine that sustains the culture war and increasingly real-world attacks on trans and queer people.

Photo-Illustration: Sam Whitney; Getty Images

On Saturday, April 9, Saorise Gowan was riding the Washington DC Metro's Green Line to visit friends when a man began to film and abuse her. Her attacker's profanity-laden rant was a perfect echo of rhetoric used by Republican politicians and, most especially, the internet users who have seized on it. Even the strategy of linking queer people to pedophilia isn't new. The efficiency with which Gowan's harasser is mobilized is new.