dotey: Vibe Coding Is Middle-Aged Men's Fishing — It Was Never About the Product
dotey · x · 2026-10-10
Responding to a netizen who feels lost after vibe coding ("games aren't fun anymore, the novels don't hold up, and nobody uses what I build"), dotey revives his essay comparing Vibe Coding to fishing for middle-aged men: a legitimate, respectable form of solitude.
The analogy: like an angler who catches more fish than he can eat and gives them away, the vibe coder's output doesn't matter. What matters is the rare feeling of "I'm in control" — telling AI to build a weather widget at midnight and watching it run, the same jolt as a bite on the line. For men whose waking hours belong to a boss, a spouse, and kids, that self-directed experience is precisely what real life starves them of.
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