What is Vibe Coding – and why is gen Z hooked on this new tech trend?
Welcome to the era of Vibe Coding – where structure takes a backseat, AI rides shotgun, and Gen Z is behind the wheel… with zero idea how they got there.
This new trend, coined by former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy (yes, the same guy who made robots drive cars), has taken the tech world by surprise. His casual post on “vibe coding” even earned a trademark “hmm” from Elon Musk – and honestly, that sums up the collective reaction of experienced coders watching the chaos unfold.
So, what exactly is vibe coding? Imagine asking ChatGPT to “make a funky to-do app with pastel colours and retro fonts,” then sitting back while it writes the code. You’re not diagramming flowcharts or debugging endless loops – you’re just vibing. It's programming, Gen Z-style: spontaneous, aesthetic, and gloriously unstructured.
Unlike traditional software development – where accuracy, logic, and syntax are everything – vibe coding is all about feeling your way through it. No roadmap. No plan. Just you, your AI assistant, and the confidence of someone who’s never encountered a merge conflict.
For many, especially digital natives and non-coders, it’s the perfect gateway into the tech world. Why learn JavaScript from scratch when an AI can whip up a fully functional site for you in seconds? It’s like learning to drive with cruise control already on – risky, but thrilling.
The Munna Bhai of tech
Some have lovingly dubbed vibe coders the Munna Bhais of the programming world – charmingly unqualified but brimming with confidence. These folks wouldn’t know their C from their C++ if it smacked them across the command line. But give them an LLM (large language model) and a vague idea, and they’re suddenly app developers.
Copy-paste? Too basic. Stack Overflow? Too slow. Vibe coders let AI do the heavy lifting, trusting it to not only write the code but also fix its own messes. That is… until something breaks. And the AI’s offline. And now you’re staring at red error messages like they’re ancient runes.
Of course, there’s a downside. While it’s cute watching AI churn out quirky websites, veteran developers are starting to sweat. After all, what happens when vibe coding becomes the norm, and carefully trained professionals get outpaced by folks who’ve never opened a terminal window?
There’s also the practical issue: when a client wants a tweak, and the AI’s having an existential crisis, who fixes the code? Spoiler alert: it’s not the vibe coder. They’re probably off crafting a chatbot that replies in pirate speak.
A Flash in the Pan or the Future of Code?
Vibe coding might seem like a silly internet fad, but its growing popularity says otherwise. With more Gen Zs diving into AI-assisted coding without formal training, it raises a fascinating question: Is coding still a skill, or just a prompt away?
One thing’s for sure – whether it’s a revolution or just a weird tech phase, vibe coding is here, it’s chaotic, and it’s strangely fun to watch.
So go on, type “make me a cat-themed budgeting app with Taylor Swift lyrics” into your AI tool and see what happens. Just don’t be surprised when it sort of works… and you’ve accidentally launched a startup.