Episode Details

In this episode, Dr. Eli Joseph and Dr. Janice Gassam Asare welcome Dr. Jason Del Gandio, a communications professor at Temple University and the writer of the new book "Vibe Talk: How and Why We Communicate About Vibes." Del Gandio discusses how his lifelong interest in 'vibes' began, stemming from early experiences in counterculture and becoming an academic philosophy of 'bodily emanation.' He defines the 'vibe' as the energy exchange between people that determines how they communicate and build their collective identity. 

Del Gandio's discussion covers a range of issues: how social media and AI make people worse thinkers and communicators; how students from Gen Z behave in a way that reflects very profound changes in paying attention and connecting; and how the 'vibe' works in different contexts—in social movements, in sports, and in politics. Del Gandio makes a strong distinction between hatred and justified anger, examines the effectiveness of violence vs. nonviolence in activism, and also indicates the cause of the success of social movements in the long run—and his answer sounds like sustainability is much more important than virality. Finally, the episode concludes with Del Gandio's main idea that authenticity and integrity are the ground for effective scholarship and struggle against people's collective loss of connection in an AI-dominated and distracted world.

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