Lately, simply existing has been feeling like a Sisyphean battle. The rock just keeps getting heavier and is possibly on fire. Whether your landlord has upped your rent (again) or you find yourself unable to sleep with the impending doom of a climate crisis weighing on your chest, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the upside. Each apathetic scroll through social media piles on the pressure, and people are tired. Jaded. Numb. It’s become easier to expect the worst than to hope for the best. Maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side. Maybe it’s brown, scorched, or never even existed. However, even in this overwhelming sea of cynicism, a quiet shift is taking place. It’s not loud or obvious. It doesn’t provide salvation. This is something smaller, softer, and maybe more powerful. A movement that promises some faith: “hope-core.”
Hope-core isn’t an aesthetic or a trend in the conventional sense. It’s not about toxic positivity, nor does it ignore the state of our world. We have to process constant stress: going through a pandemic, a frightening global shift towards conservative ideals, media diets that drive loneliness and numbing content — no wonder we’ve all become a little cynical.
Think of hope-core like a small, radical act of deliberate optimism. A choice to find moments of joy, connection, and meaning in a world that often feels devoid of them. It’s videos of complete strangers offering to pay for another’s groceries. It’s a comment section of fathers offering advice to a young girl who’s just lost hers. It’s mutual aid posts on X, or random acts of kindness that remind us to have faith in humanity, even if it only spans a 30 second TikTok.
Sure, cynicism might protect you from disappointment, but it also keeps you from feeling much of anything at all. It can turn us into spectators of life instead of participants. We joke about not caring, we say “it is what it is”, and move on. We’ve watched politicians fail us, corporations exploit us, and systems designed to support us crumble under the weight of profit and power. Hope-core doesn’t deny any of that. It just allows us to find comfort in the micro moments, and if enough ripples collide, they form waves.
This isn’t about ignoring reality. This isn’t about the rich influencers farming for morality points and views, trying to capitalise off this internet-movement of kindness, handing out food to those in need whilst the money in their creator fund ticks up. I’m talking about the small, genuine acts that make you stop and smile a little, temporarily distracted from misery-laden headlines on your news app. Think about hopecore as moisturiser (bear with me): it doesn’t fix the problem of your criminally dry skin and seemingly endless breakouts, but it soothes it for a while, adds a blanket over cold facts.
Choosing to see the good doesn’t mean you’re blind to the bad. It just means you’re not willing to give it all your power. In a time when nihilism feels trendy and despair is marketed as chic detachment, hope-core offers something different. It reminds us that feeling deeply isn’t a weakness, it’s what makes us human. Optimism isn’t foolish, it’s fuel. It helps us get out of bed when the news feels unbearable. It helps us reach out instead of retreating in. It encourages us to keep creating and connecting.
So, here’s an invitation. Put on the rose-colored glasses, just for a minute. Not to escape the world, but to see it in a slightly different light. To notice the people trying, the hands reaching out, the smiles exchanged between strangers. Let yourself believe, even a little, that things can get better. Not all at once, but in a hundred tiny ways. Maybe the grass is still brown and fighting for its life. But there’s always a little patch of green. You just have to let yourself water it.
