A vibe check is a slang term which has changed its meaning since its emergence on the internet in March of 2019. Initially, the "check" in "vibe check" was in the sense of "checking in" on someone's condition, and the "vibe" referred to the psychological state of a person or group of people, such as a Discord chat server. A participant in the group would send "vibe check" as a message in the server, and those presently online would give a concise statement of their mental health status that day. Thus informed, the group would then have the opportunity to reach out to support any group members suffering from episodic depression or anxiety, or to commiserate those who are experiencing hardship. Likewise, in the event all group members report positive condition, they might then coordinate a game or other activity suitable to everyone's mood, on the grounds that all are receptive to the idea of play.
By May 2019, however, the meaning transformed, in that the "check" switched to the sense of a "hip check" or "checks and balances," a physical assault which also serves as a corrective action. At the time of this writeup, one might state that a rude younger sibling is "overdue for a vibe check," meaning that the speaker is strongly considering slapping or otherwise physically striking their sibling as a correction of poor behaviour. Similarly, one might joke, "I got vibe checked by a tree last night on my walk home," to mean that they collided with a tree branch while not paying attention. The key features of a vibe check by this current definition are that an actual physical strike occurs against a person, and that the stricken person in some way deserved the assault, due to their behaviour or mental state being inappropriate for their context. Qualifying mental states range from hostility and aggression, to an inattentive "funk," and it is understood that qualifying mental states are those which would impair the collective enjoyment of a group social interaction, whether by generally bringing down the mood, or by provoking others to behave poorly, too.
The shift in meaning first appeared in the form of webcomics and memes depicting a character calling out "vibe check!" before physically attacking another character. Examples include depictions of Abraham Lincoln being "vibe checked" by John Wilkes Booth, Cain "vibe checking" his brother Abel with a stone, and professional wrestlers "vibe checking" each other with steel folding chairs. With the COVID-19 pandemic beginning globally in the following year, widespread use of verbal and memed "vibe checks" online were a method of letting off steam about the stresses of quarantine and the particularly fraught elections in the US and elsewhere.
The year 2019 brought with it an abundance of new (or newly ascendant) slang, much of which has since fallen out of regular use, but vibe checking remains a commonly-encountered phrase in Discord servers populated by the under-30 crowd, and it seems likely to endure past the 2020s with its current violent meaning intact.
Iron Noder 2023, 1/30