"The echo of buzzwords Every era generates its own hollow buzzwords. In the early 2000s, it was "synergy" and "paradigm shift." A decade later, "growth hacking" and "disruption." In design, "design thinking" and "human-centered" followed a similar arc - once powerful, later reduced to slogans. These words were meant to inspire, but overuse and vagueness drained them of meaning. The first time I heard the phrase "vibe coding," I felt a wave of déjà vu."
"The words carried the same hollow ring I remembered from the early days of the "metaverse" - a term lifted from Neal Stephenson's 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash and later stretched by tech companies to describe immersive 3D worlds. As I described it in The body remains the interface , it became a mantra after Facebook's rebrand inside Meta, repeated endlessly even though no one could explain it. That vagueness seemed intentional, rather than a flaw."
Every era generates hollow buzzwords, with examples like 'synergy' and 'paradigm shift' in the early 2000s and later 'growth hacking' and 'disruption.' Design terms such as 'design thinking' and 'human-centered' followed a similar arc, initially powerful but later reduced to slogans through overuse and vagueness. Vague language drained inspirational terms of meaning. The term 'metaverse' was stretched by tech companies; after Facebook's rebrand into Meta it became a repeated mantra despite lacking clear definition. 'Vibe coding' emerged in February 2025 to describe programming by plain language and now follows a comparable pattern of hype and vagueness.
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