Good Vibes Only (Phenomenology and the Biopolitics of Algorithmic Legitimation)

In Good Vibes Only, Robin James argues that the vibes, the mathematical vectors driving modern technologies, have shifted. Considering the forms of governance performed by the algorithms fueling AI, recommender systems, facial recognition, and other contemporary technologies, James vividly illustrates our new biopolitical regime, one in which discourses of legitimacy function in place of norms to draw patriarchal, racial, and capitalist lines around personhood. James innovatively combines continental philosophy, popular music studies, and media studies to show how the math driving modern technologies translates into both political forms of governance and colloquial cultural practices ranging from social media posts to playlist categories to hip hop aesthetics. Qualitative atmospheres and abstractions are undergirded by quantitative orientations, utilized by users and platforms alike. Good Vibes Only breaks down the phenomenology of how these algorithmic “vibes” have shifted the way biopower governs, not with disciplinary or regulatory norms, but with orientations or lineages that it assesses for their capacity to carry patriarchal, racial, capitalist property relations into speculative realities.