Non-verbal groupthink masquerading as thought is basically the default mode of discourse now. People don't so much express opinions as check them against their cohort’s affective atmosphere. Thought is reduced to posture, critique becomes curation, and every stance is accessorized.

Affective atmospheres describes that weird ambient tension where everyone just feels a certain way and adjusts behavior accordingly, even if no one's actually said anything. It’s like group therapy run by an algorithm with abandonment issues.

Social mood regulation is what platforms, media cycles, and managerial emails do now—manipulate collective emotion so it stays within marketable or manageable ranges. Anger, but not too angry. Hope, but not revolutionary. Sadness, but only if it generates engagement.

And then there’s aestheticized ideology—where people consume politics not for truth, not for justice, but for the look. PowerPoint radicalism. Moodboard socialism.

LLM