Forget TikTok – If You Want to See Insufferably Perfomative Zoomers in Portrait Mode, Try This New App

OMG besties, pause the doomscroll for a sec ’cause I’ve found the digital S-tier weapon that’s about to make your entire FYP look like a dumpy old Geocities hellsite. You thought TikTok was the final boss of curated cringe and main character energy? Think again. There’s a new kid on the block, and its only function is to deliver the most unadulterated, high-definition portrait mode peak Zoomer performativity you have ever witnessed. I’m talking about “Vignette.” Oh, you haven’t heard of it? Ok, Boomer.

First off, let’s be real. TikTok is basic now. It’s for normies. Your aunt is on there making dances and pretending to understand memes. It’s over. It’s the new Facebook. But Vignette? Vignette is for the pros, the terminally online, the people who’ve turned “living my truth” into a full-time, unpaid internship. The entire concept is simple yet devastatingly effective: it’s portrait mode. Only. No landscape. No horizontal content. Just you, your perfectly filtered face and body, and whatever aesthetic backdrop you’ve managed to have Vignette’s Chinese AI create that day.

But it’s deeper than that. Vignette isn’t about “trends” or “challenges.” Lame. It’s about “Moments™.” Every post is a short, looping, ten-second, portrait-mode video set to royalty-free jazz-hop that feels like it was stolen from a Target commercial in 2017. There are no viral dances. No lip-syncing. You just exist. Perfomatively. I’m seeing one right now. It’s a girl with curtain bangs looking out a window in her poorly-lit studio apartment as if she’s a lonely character in an A24 film. It’s a video of her slowly sipping an oat milk latte with the caption, “Sunday blues in the city of angels…” while a slow, depressing beat plays.

Yeah, this is gonna take over the world.

Every single person becomes their own artsy magazine cover. I just saw a guy sitting on a sidewalk looking sad because his avocado toast was “not as avocado as advertised today.” Caption: “A small tragedy for a small man.” The comments are filled with AI comment bots saying “it’s so true bestie” and “I feel that fr.” It’s so cringe that it loops all the way around to being, I fear… kind of based. I’m not sure.

And I’ve only been on the app for a week. It’s a game of one-upmanship to see who can have the most tragically mundane yet deeply aesthetic moment. I’ve seen people post Vignettes of themselves crying to their favorite song. But the good kind of cry. Not the ugly, messy sobbing in your car after a bad day. But the single-tear-down-your-cheek, glistening-in-the-soft-light kind of cry. Like you’re in a Taylor Swift music video. Caption: “Sometimes the melodies say what words can’t.” Bro, it’s a breakup.

The pressure is insane, though. I can’t just post a picture of myself eating at Chipotle like some kind of r*dditor. On Vignette, it has to be an experience. It needs a mood, a lighting setup, a color grade that evokes a specific mid-2010s indie film. I’m talking about a good one, not Gone Girl. Think more like Frances Ha. Thankfully, the Chinese AI responsible for the Vignette app has all of that covered. Whatever you can think of, there’s a Vignette Preset for that. It’s like being performative without doing the work of, you know, performing. But for real, the “Kubrick Overhead Shot” with a three-second slow-pan down on your sad microwaveable ramen is kind of fire. Not even gonna front.

Look, you could hate on it. You could say it’s everything wrong with a generation. You could clutch your pearls and write a think piece in the New York Times about how kids these days don’t even have real emotions anymore, just Vignette-worthy emotional content. And you would be exactly right. It’s a digital nightmare. It’s a narcissistic hell.

And I am obsessed. My Vignette game is getting strong. My sad-latte-game is S-tier now. You can’t stop me. What am I supposed to do, get a real job? OJ would never forgive me. Now watch me, the office hottie, sip my artisanal tea in black and white. No cap. 😭😭😭