Vibecession is a neologism describing a disconnect between a country's economic indicators and the public's negative perception of the economy. The term was coined by economic commentator Kyla Scanlon in a June 2022 newsletter discussing Americans' attitudes toward inflation and recession fears. A portmanteau of "vibe" and "recession", the term refers to situations where economic data shows growth or stability, yet people feel as if they are living through a recession. Scanlon described it as "the vibes of a recession, but maybe not the economic reality of one (yet)."
Vibecession is a neologism describing a disconnect between a country's economic indicators and the public's negative perception of the economy. The term was coined by economic commentator Kyla Scanlon in a June 2022 newsletter discussing Americans' attitudes toward inflation and recession fears. A portmanteau of "vibe" and "recession", the term refers to situations where economic data shows growth or stability, yet people feel as if they are living through a recession. Scanlon described it as "the vibes of a recession, but maybe not the economic reality of one (yet)."
Some interpretations of the term suggest it represents a broader shift in how economic narratives and emotions shape real-world outcomes. For example, a 2025 article published on The Vibe Economy characterizes vibecessions as a by-product of the emerging "vibe economy", where stories and collective sentiment carry economic weight, and widespread anxiety can lead to reduced spending, delayed investment, and real market consequences.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).