**WTF is Vibe Coding?**
Generative AI has taken the world by storm, with its presence felt in every corner of content creation. From AI influencers signing brand deals to real-life influencers using AI tools to plan their content schedules or write scripts, it's hard to ignore the impact of this technology. The latest trend making waves is vibe coding – a new way for creators to build advanced computer programs without knowing how to code.
Vibe coding has leapt from developer forums into mainstream buzz, with one of the major platforms, Base44, advertising in this year's Super Bowl. But what exactly is vibe coding? Let's break it down:
**How Vibe Coding Works**
Vibe coding leverages AI to write code for products such as apps, digital experiences, websites, and SaaS tools. Creators enter plain-language prompts (in some cases using text-to-speech tools so they can speak these prompts) to describe what they're looking for, and a vibe coding platform like Bolt or Emergent will program it for them.
**A Brief History of Vibe Coding**
The term "vibe coding" was first coined by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy in February last year. In an X post, he wrote about how vibe coding allows creators to give in to their intuition and trust the AI to write the code for them. "I barely even touch the keyboard," he said, describing his experience with Cursor Composer and Sonnet.
**How Vibe Coding Differs from Traditional Coding**
The most obvious difference is that you don't need to know how to code to do it. Traditional coding requires manual writing of code in a specific language (like C++, Java, or Python), offering detailed instructions for how to run the computer program you're designing. It requires much more skill, as not only do you have to write in a specific coding language but also manually debug programs that go awry.
**Benefits of Vibe Coding**
The benefits of vibe coding are its speed and removal of traditional barriers (i.e., you don't know how to do something and don't feel like, or have the time to, learn it). For creators, it's about "removing intermediaries" between them and their audiences, according to a spokesperson from Base44. Creators no longer need to hire developers or compromise with generic tools – they can build software that truly fits their business and evolve it as they grow.
**How Content Creators are Using Vibe Coding**
First off, if you're someone who isn't into using generative AI for ethical reasons (particularly the threat to job stability for designers, writers, and coders), you may not want to try out vibe coding. If you're fine with it, ethically, creators should be aware that vibe coding isn't always a smooth process.
A Stack Overflow blog about vibe coding written by Pheobe Sajor describes "45 minutes of troubleshooting" that offered detailed descriptions on how to find errors but wasn't useful to a non-coder. Despite the issues, Sajor still managed to make a functional app with no knowledge of coding – it just didn't stand up to scrutiny.
**The Future of Vibe Coding**
Vibe coding has seeped into the world of content creation and is only gaining more traction. "Creators are building highly specific products that existing templates and off-the-shelf tools don't support," the Base44 spokesperson told Digiday. Creators who focus on teaching their audience about AI tools and technological advancements use vibe coding in their content, like YouTubers trying to build apps "better than a pro developer" and data scientists using AI tools in their everyday teaching viewers how to vibe code.
Like all things generative AI, the hype for vibe coding seems to be rapidly increasing. But as more and more people play around with the tool, cracks may begin to show, as they have in other generative AI initiatives. Will vibe coding become a staple in creators' toolkits in the coming months? Only time will tell.