Gen Z’s favorite economist is 27-year-old TikTok star Kyla Scanlon who coined the term ‘vibecession’

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Mira Murati is warning that AI could wipe out some creative jobs, Hillary Clinton is writing another memoir, and TikTok star Kyla Scanlon is here to teach Gen Z about the economy. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

- Good vibrations. If you’ve paid attention to U.S. financial news in the past two years—or simply been on TikTok— chances are you’ve heard of the “vibecession,” or the disconnect between peoples’ malaise about the economy and rosy official metrics like GDP growth and the low unemployment rate. The term has resonated so deeply with so many that you can now find it on Dictionary.com; explainers have appeared in CBS News, the New Yorker, and Oprah Daily.

"Vibecession" wasn’t coined by a news outlet, politician, or think tank; instead it was Kyla Scanlon, 27, who first used the term in her 2022 Substack post. After it took off online, Scanlon expanded on it in the New York Times, and the financial press ran away with the buzzword. The vibecession has been part of the national discourse ever since.

Scanlon has become one of Gen Z’s leading economic commentators, writing for Bloomberg and creating content for her own YouTube page with over 42,000 followers, TikTok account with nearly 180,000, and Substack, called, simply, Kyla's newsletter. She recently published a book—which she also illustrated—entitled In This Economy: How Money & Markets Really Work.

The multi-hyphenate’s interest in finance began young. At 16, she signed up for a children’s E*Trade account and her dad taught her how to trade options. When she got to college at Western Kentucky University and realized she could major in finance and econ, she never looked back.

After school, she worked for an asset management company in Los Angeles but quickly realized "making rich people richer" wasn’t her calling; her true passion is education, she says. During the pandemic, she began making videos about the Gamestop meme madness and eventually left her job to pursue content creation and writing full time. Her goal is to explain important concepts about the economy in ways young people can understand.

"The reason people are freaked out is because they don’t understand the world around them," Scanlon told me. "I try to cut through the noise."

Given her age, gender, and background, Scanlon knows she’s not your typical econ talking head. But that’s what makes her work appealing to her younger audience. She can understand and articulate what the average Gen Zer is feeling—and find a way to get important information through to them.

"It helps to have a unique perspective and a diverse voice, as much as I can bring. It helps people feel more comfortable," she says. "But the field needs more beyond me, there needs to be more representation across the board."

Eventually, Scanlon would like to get more involved in developing and implementing policy. For now, she’s happy reaching as many people as she can with her book, videos, newsletter musings, and tweets.

"Baby boomers are running the world right now. You don't often have the youth voices represented," she says. "I’m trying to elevate what young people care about."

Alicia Adamczyk
alicia.adamczyk@fortune.com

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